Despite the coronavirus crisis continuing throughout the year, 2021 has been highly bullish for the crypto-verse. We have seen multiple coins rise more than a thousand-fold within months this year. Early and long-term traders and investors have made a fortune with the growth of DeFi, NFTs, Metaverse, and various meme coins.
In this article, we will look at such coins, which have outperformed their peers and have given phenomenal returns in the last year. However, to avoid including (less serious) coins such as Dubaicoin and Squid Game Coin, we have selected only coins in the Top 100 list of CoinMarketCap. And, the list shows the growth of coins from January 01, 2021, to December 20, 2021.
Let us now move ahead to the top 10 outperforming coins in the crypto-verse.
10. Harmony (ONE)
- Market Cap $2.80 Billion
- 52-week Low/High – $0.0040/$0.3798
- 1-Year Growth ~ 9150%
Taking the last place on our list of Top 10 Cryptos of 2021, Harmony shows a growth of more than 9150% in the past year. With a market cap of just a little shy of $3 Billion, Harmony ranks #55 on CoinMarketCap’s list of Top 100 coins.
Harmony, a blockchain with the motive of facilitating the creation and utilization of Decentralized Apps (dApps). The platform brings an innovative way of working for dApps by keeping a primary focus on random state sharding, allowing the creation of new blocks within seconds.
Taking a deeper look into the price action of Harmony’s ONE coin, we can see exponential growth in the starting months of 2021. This was due, in part, to increasing interest in the crypto-economy in general. This bull run started from the low of $0.0040 on January 01 to the $0.20 mark on March 28. Therefore, marking a price jump of more than 4800%.
However, the coin price was highly affected during the summer retracement, causing a 74% downfall from the all-time high to the $0.05 mark. And, to end the gloomy days or months in this case, the latter part of 2021 started with new energy. The boom from the $0.050 mark reaches the $0.35 mark, surging 500% before November.
Closing 2021 with style, ONE coin price shows another rise from the retracement to the $0.16 market price; it shows a continuation in a bullish rally.
Looking into the technical indicators, the price sustains above the 200 days EMA (Exponential Moving Average) and is currently finding constant support from the 50 days EMA. The RSI (Relative Strength Index) indicator shows a growth in the underlying bullishness as the indicator’s slope enters the nearly overbought zone. Therefore, the indicators show rising demand for the token and buying opportunities at current prices.
One of the primary reasons behind the rally is the rising interest in layer one blockchains that can compete against Ethereum as a smart contract venue.
9. Polygon (MATIC)
- Market Cap $18.77 Billion
- 52-week Low/High – $0.01478/$2.70
- 1-Year Growth ~ 19,000%
Ranking 9th on our list, Polygon shows a growth of more than 19,000% in the past year. With a market cap of $18.77 Billion, Polygon ranks #14 on CoinMarketCap’s list of Top 100 coins.
Polygon (formerly Matic Network) is a layer 2 scaling solution with the backing of Binance and Coinbase. It encourages the adoption of cryptocurrency in a mass way by resolving scalability issues in the Ethereum blockchain. Polygon boosts the possibility of up to 65,000 transactions every second in one side chain, as well as an impressive block confirmation time of fewer than 2 seconds. Ethereum, by contrast, can process on average 30 transactions per second and has block confirmation times of between 15 seconds and several minutes depending on the gas fees paid. One can see clearly the huge scalability that Polygon offers the Ethereum blockchain.
Therefore, it is unsurprising that Polygon’s MATIC coin price has been gaining momentum since the start of 2021. The uptrend made a high near the $2.5 mark in May, which has been acting as a constant resistance the whole of 2021. However, the recent news of Opera browser collaborating with the Polygon network drove the price higher and created a new all-time high.
The noteworthy fact about the MATIC coin price action was the huge rounding bottom pattern in the daily chart. The neckline of the pattern was at $2.5 high made in May. Moreover, the weekly chart shows a bullish breakout of an ascending triangle pattern.
The coin price breaks above all the crucial EMAs in the daily chart, and the RSI slope reaches the overbought zone boundary. Therefore, the technical indicators and the price action hints at a bullish continuation and a possible $3 breakout.
One of the primary reasons behind the rally was the rise in Ethereum and the adoption of the Polygon network on a large scale by multiple companies.
8. Terra (LUNA)
- Market Cap $33.4 Billion
- 52-week Low/High – $0.4527 /$97.88
- 1-Year Growth ~ 14500%
Securing the 8th position on our list, the Terra coin has had a remarkable rally this year, indicating a growth of 14500%. With a market cap of $33.4 Billion, Terra ranks #9 on CoinMarketCap’s list of Top 100 coins.
Terra is a public blockchain protocol that uses fiat-pegged stablecoins to provide price stability for global payment systems. Terra combines the price stability and wide adoption of fiat currencies with decentralized technology to offer fast and affordable settlements.
Let’s dig into the technical analysis of the LUNA coin. The coin entered this year with a bullish mindset, where the coin wavering around the $0.5 in early January made a high of $22.3 by March 22th. Later, the coin went through a minor retracement, which plunged the price near the $4 mark.
The coin obtained intense demand pressure from this level and started a new rally. This uptrend, which started in late July, shows steady growth in its chart, providing excellent entry opportunities during the correction period. The coin has recently breached its previous All-Time High of $78.3, indicating more potential for the LUNA coin.
The daily time frame chart shows a bullish alignment of crucial EMAs (20, 50, 100, and 200). These EMA levels can significantly support the price during the routine pullbacks. The RSI line is steadily charging towards the overbought zone for the chart, indicating the increasing bullish growth.
7. Kadena (KDA)
- Market Cap $1.75 Billion
- 52-week Low/High – $0.1213/$28.25
- 1-Year Growth ~ 23,000%
Ranking 7th on our list, Kadena shows a growth of more than 22,000% in the past year. With a market cap of $1.75 Billion, Kadena ranks #73 on CoinMarketCap’s list of Top 100 coins.
The Kadena project was started by former members of the JPMorgan Blockchain development group of Juno. Kadena hopes to create a developer-friendly and scalable public blockchain that offers an amount of security comparable to Bitcoin.
The KDA coin price has been in a hibernation state for most of 2021. However, in retrospect, it seems it was mimicking a Chinese bamboo seed under soil growing its roots and preparing for its phenomenal rise.
The multiple short-term growth in April was meaningful up until the demand in September started to drive the bullish rally. The coin price rose to the heights of $28 on November 11. However, the price has been retracing and breaking multiple support levels since then.
The coin price remains below the 50 days EMA, but the 200 days EMA stands firm to provide bullish support. The price action hints at a double bottom formation with a divergence in the RSI indicator that can help push the price higher and end 2021 with a boom!
Kadena shares the same reason as Harmony for the bullish growth.
6. Sandbox (SAND)
- Market Cap $5.47 Billion
- 52-week Low/High – $0.03451/$8.44
- 1-Year Growth ~ 24,700%
Entering our first metaverse token of the list, Sandbox shows a growth of more than 27,700% in 2021. With a market cap of $5.74 Billion, it remains the third-largest metaverse token in the crypto-verse. Currently ranking at #34 in the crypto-verse, Sandbox is one of the top tokens that shook the crypto-verse during the meta-verse craze.
The Sandbox is an exceptional platform that introduces blockchain technology into the gaming world. Gaming is an enormous market that has not been explored regarding the use of blockchain technology, and Pixowl realized this in the year 2011. In creating a world where gamers can make and acquire blockchain-based assets, The Sandbox hopes to transform the gaming industry.
During the first three quarters of 2021, the SAND coin price has been struggling to reach the $1 mark. However, with the news of Zuckerberg releasing the META, there was a surge in buying pressure. This announcement remains the key behind the rally in SAND coin price.
The rally began with the breakout of the $1 barrier and rose to the $7.5 mark within a span of 6 weeks. From the depths of $0.034 to the $7.5 peak, the coin price action shows hardly any technical pattern and grows exponentially on public demand.
Currently, trading at $6.08, the SAND token has grown 18.35% in the past 24 hours. Therefore, it resulted in another bullish engulfing candlestick and ending the correction phase.
5. Fantom (FTM)
- Market Cap $4.76 Billion
- 52-week Low/High – $0.14591/$3.5
- 1-Year Growth ~ 25,000%
At number 5, the dark horse of the crypto-verse or better known as the Fantom coin. With a growth of almost 25,000%, the coin has a market cap of $4.76 Billion. The coin ranks at #40 in the Top 100 coins in the crypto-verse.
Fantom is a directed acyclic graph (DAG) smart contract software platform that provides developers with decentralized finance (DeFi) services using its own custom consensus algorithm. With its own cryptocurrency FTM, Fantom aims to resolve the problems with smart contract platforms, in particular, the speed of transactions which Fantom developers claim to have cut down to less than two seconds.
With a flaming hot start to 2021, FTM coin price grew almost 6000% before ending May. However, the slowing summer caused a significant downfall and retracement to the $0.15 mark. Nonetheless, the bulls strike back at the end of August and drive the price higher to the $3.5 mark.
With the current market price of $2.02, the FTM token rose 13.42% in the 24 hours to December 20. Therefore, resulting in a bullish breakout of an inverted head and shoulder pattern. As the price rises higher, we can expect it to reach the $3 mark in the early days of 2022.
One of the main reasons behind the growing FTM coin price is the craze for an Ethereum-killer in the market. And, FTM, like many other blockchains, provides hope for such dreamers.
4. Solana (SOL)
- Market Cap $59.17 Billion
- 52-week Low/High – $1.09/$260
- 1-Year Growth ~ 26,000%
Coming in at number 4, Solana is one of the more likely “Ethereum-killer” blockchains, and it took the crypto-verse by storm with a shocking gain of almost 26,000% in 2021. The coin price grows from the depths of the $1.09 mark to triple-digit growth and reaches $260.
Solana is an efficient open-source project that focuses on blockchain technology’s permissionless nature to offer decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions. The Solana protocol was designed to ease decentralized application (DApp) creation. It is designed to increase scaling by introducing a proof-of-history consensus, which is paired with the core proof-of-stake consensus of the blockchain.
Starting the year 2021 with a high momentum trend, the SOL coin price started its journey near the $1 mark and constantly rose higher. In the first half of the year, the coin price made a high of $55 which at a point in time seemed unbreakable till 2022. Moreover, the downfall in the summer caused a retracement to the $23 mark.
However, the latter half completely destroyed all the bearish thoughts, and a bullish rally touching the triple digits was seen as the price broke above the $250 mark. The price is showing retracement below the $200 mark.
The desire to find an Ethereum-killer is one of the main motives driving the coin price higher to new heights and the growth of DeFi and NFTs in the Solana ecosystem.
3. Axie Infinity(AXS)
- Market Cap $6.55 Billion
- 52-week Low/High – $0.4186 /$165.37
- 1-Year Growth ~ 39500%
We have reached the top three coins on our list. The Axie Infinity token has shown a parabolic growth of 39500% this year. With a market cap of $6.55 Billion, GALA ranks #28 on CoinMarketCap’s list of Top 100 coins.
Like many other Metaverse tokens, the Axie Infinity also obtained a significant boost in October due to the announcement of ‘Facebook’ rebranding to ‘Meta.’
Studying the AXS/USD technical chart, the AXS token initiated the bull rally right from the first month of this year. The token price surged to $11.5 on April 05 from the low around $0.5 mark, After experiencing strong rejection from the overhead resistance of the enterer into a retracement phase, which dropped the price as low of the $2 mark.
The new rally started from July ’21 is still carrying till today’s date and has made a new All-Time High of $166. The token showed a steady rally in this chart with the occasional pullback, providing grand reentry for investors.
In October, the token price noticed a flood of investors positioning their funds in metaverse tokens resulting in a sudden price pump in these tokens. The AXS token also gained around 122% when it reached the $166 mark.
2. Gala (GALA)
- Market Cap $3.59 Billion
- 52-week Low/High – $0.000151 /$0.8367
- 1-Year Growth ~ 557700%
Standing at the 2nd position on our list. GALA has shown an exceptional growth of 557700% this year. With a market cap of $3.59 Billion, GALA ranks #47 on CoinMarketCap’s list of Top 100 coins.
A decentralized Gala Games ecosystem aspires to break the barriers and give players the power they’ve earned. By decentralizing, players will not just be the owners of their game items but also be able to influence the way their participation in the Gala Games roadmap develops.
Node owners and players will be included through polling mechanisms distributed worldwide to determine which games should be included on the platform, and supported by the decentralized Gala Games ecosystem.
In November, the sudden rally would be triggered by a flood of positive news surrounding the GALA token. Some of them are the major rebranding of ‘Facebook’ into Meta, the increasing interest of institutional investors in trending Metaverse tokens, and the listing of this token in well-known crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Huobi.
Let’s understand the technical chart of the GALA token. For a long time, in 2021, the token was struggling to breach the $0.33 resistance. However, the coin initiated a new rally from mid-September which marked a top of $0.46. Later the token took around two months to stabilize at this level.
On November 17, the pair started its striking rally, which suddenly pumped the price to $.0836(Current All-Time High) in less than two weeks.
After providing 820% growth from the November month’s low of around $0.9, the token entered an intermediate correction phase, plugging the price into crucial support of $0.42. The GALA token is currently trying to recover from this pullback.
The daily time frame chart shows that the price has reclaimed its bullish alignment of crucial EMAs(20, 50, and 100) after crossing above the neutral zone. The RSI(55) value shows an impressive recovery in its chart, where it has also recently moved above the neutral line(50).
1. Shiba Inu (SHIB)
- Market Cap $21.66 Billion
- 52-week Low/High – $1.09/$260
- 1-Year Growth ~ 11,000,000%
The Number #1 outperformer of 2021 is undoubtedly the so-called “meme” coin, Shiba Inu. Themed as the Doge-killer, Shiba Inu showcased unimaginable returns of 11196000%, with a trader turning $8000 to $2.6 Billion in fortune. The coin ranks at #13, with a market cap of $21.66 Billion.
With a history of only slightly more than a year, Shiba Inu was conceived by its creator Ryoshi; the coin shares its name with the cuddly dog. The creator donated (i.e. attempted to burn) 40% of SHIB tokens to the Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin. However, he in turn burned most of those and donated the rest to a COVID-19 Relief Fund launched by Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, for India, which at the time was suffering severely from the coronavirus pandemic.
The bullish journey of the SHIB coin started the same as the rest of the coins on our list. A big boom in the early days of 2021 and reaching its then all-time high in May. However, the October rally was astonishing, thus undermining any bearish thoughts, and the sheer demand from the public resulted in a never-seen-before rally in any crypto or stock.
The Doge-killer managed to outrank many tokens with real-life use cases and enter the Top 10 coins per market cap on CoinMarketCap.
We hope you enjoyed reading our list of Top 10 coins with the most percentage gains in 2021.
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