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It is already October, and the world has now left them the two the month of September and in the third quarter of the year behind. And as expected, a lot of things happened in the crypto space in the last quarter.
July was a green month overall for the crypto market, despite declines and sideways trading in the first half of the month. Looking at the number one cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), the month started at around USD 35,600 and ended the month at nearly USD 42,000.
In terms of major developments in space, the much-discussed EIP-1559 testing began in July for both the Taproot upgrade of the Bitcoin network and the London upgrade of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.
August also ended up being a good month for the crypto market, with almost all the top 100 coins by market capitalization in the green during the month. Interestingly, the month was also marked by investors shifting their focus from Bitcoin to the world of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
September was marked by the news that El Salvador is introducing Bitcoin as legal tender and China is once again banning crypto.
And in terms of prices, the month of September was the only month in this quarter where the Bitcoin price moved significantly lower, dropping from just over USD47,000 at the beginning of the month to USD 43,489 in writing. However, today BTC and the rest of the market recovered strongly.
Top 10 Coins in September and Q3
In September, the 10 coins by market capitalization ended the month generally lower, with the notable exception of Solana (SOL) and Polkadot (DOT), which increased by more than 44% and
Both assets are native tokens of smart contract platforms that have increasingly challenged Ethereum’s dominance in space, helped by the high transaction fees that have driven many DeFi users to alternative chains in particular.
The gains for SOL and DOT this month follow strong gains for the two tokens in August as well. At the time, however, the two tokens were joined by Cardano (ADA), who failed to stay in the green this month.
For the entire quarter, Bitcoin ended it down about 25% – or nearly $9,000 – from just over $35,000 on July 1st to $43,489 today.
However, the profit Bitcoin recorded was tiny compared to what the clear winner of this quarter saw: SOL. Last quarter, the token rose a whopping 310%, far surpassing any other token in the top 10 by market capitalization.
Best of the Top 50 in September and Q3
If we zoom out a little to cover all the coins in the top 50 by market capitalization, we can see that the makeup of our top performers looks quite different. The DeFi-focused smart contract platform fantom (FTM) stands out as the top performer of the month with a gain of over 105%.
The token is closely followed by OMG, the native token of the Ethereum scaling solution OMG Network, and DYDX, the native token of the Ethereum-based decentralized exchange of the same name, which has recently seen a sharp increase in trading volume.
For example, the AXS token of blockchain game Axie Infinity easily made it to the top of the list, winning more than twice as much as the second coin on the list, Terra’s LUNA Token.
Supported in large part by massive gains in July and August, the AXS token managed to climb 1.388% For the quarter as game developers reached several key milestones.
Worst of the Top 50 in September and Q3
Of the largest 50 coins by market capitalization, some coins also ended the month in the red, although the differences in price development between these coins are not very significant.
Worth mentioning in this group of coins is the meme Token Dogecoin (DOGE), which ended the month at USD 0.20, 28.5% Lower than it started. The decline occurred as the coin resumed a major downtrend that began after hitting the all-time high of USD 0.74 In early May.
Also interesting was the decline of OKEx’s exchange token OKB, which coincided with Huobi’s Huobi Token (HT) earlier this month on news that China is once again going against all crypto things.
Looking at the coins with the worst performance for the entire quarter, we can again see some of the coins listed as the worst performers of September.
Outstanding in this regard for the third quarter, Theta Token (THETA) recorded a decline of more than 26%. The token, ranked 32nd by market capitalization, is the native token of the video streaming blockchain network of the same name, designed specifically for users to share bandwidth and computing power on a peer-to-peer basis.
It is also worth mentioning that the tokens of the two DeFi protocols PancakeSwap (CAKE), built as a decentralized exchange on Binance Smart Chain, and Aave (AAVE), an Ethereum-based lending and lending platform, have both fallen by about 25%.
Best of the Top 100 in September and Q3
If we zoom out even more to cover all the coins in the top 100 by market capitalization, we will still see some of the same winners as before, with FTM, OMG and DYDX being notable examples.
However, the list also includes lesser-known coins that have performed well over the past month. These include OMI, a token of the NFT marketplace ECOMI, which has increased by 79% in the month, and the ALGO token of the smart contract platform Algorand, which has increased by 55%.
For the quarter, blockchain game Axie Infinity’s AXS Token once again emerged as the clear winner. In addition, the list is almost identical to the list of the best performers from the top 50, with two notable exceptions: elrond egold (EGLD) and tezos (XTZ).
Among these, EGLD increased by 150% in the quarter, while XTZ increased by almost 114%.
Worst of the Top 100 in September and Q3
HT featured the worst performance of the month, probably due to the recent coffin nail from the Chinese government for China’s once-thriving crypto industry.
Huobi Token fell by 43% for the month, followed by decred (DCR), enjin Coin (ENJ) and Maker (MKR), which fell by 40%, 38% and 20% respectively.
If we extend our scope to the entire quarter, it becomes clear that the Theta blockchain has had a difficult time lately, as both THETA and Theta Fuel (TFUEL) declined between 26% and 36% in the quarter.
