Hey Geckos!
The Top 30 coins continued to bleed since hitting all-time highs in Nov 2021. By the time it hit the bottom on 23rd January, the Top 30 coins had shed over $1 trillion in market cap from their peak, closing out the quarter at pretty much where it started at ~$1.9T. The relative market share of the Top 30 Coins remained largely similar, with BTC at 47% and ETH at 21.4%.
Here are our Top 5 Q1 2022 crypto highlights:
1. Of the top 5 cryptocurrencies, only BTC and XRP managed to finish off Q1 above water
Top 5 cryptocurrencies took losses in Q1 2022, in sharp contrast to the exuberance and astronomical gains of 2021.
SOL and BNB took the biggest hits in terms of returns, while BTC and XRP showed resilience.
The biggest gainer within the Top 10 was LUNA (+24.1%), now ranked #6 and rapidly closing in on XRP and Solana. Besides LUNA, BTC and XRP, all other Top 10 tokens suffered losses in Q1.
Within the Top 30, the only other gainers were ETC (+45.7%), FTT (+33.6%) and WAVES (+256.1%).
2. Bearish lull in markets fueled further growth in stablecoins
In contrast with the rest of the crypto market, the market cap of top 5 stablecoins grew by 13%. The top 5 order remain unchanged since 2021.
Stablecoin market share continued to increase likely owing to investors derisking in the midst of geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties.
Tether still retains its lead, though growth has slowed greatly compared to USDC, BUSD and UST. Growth of Dai has also slowed significantly compared to its peers.
UST experienced the strongest growth, though it is USDC that has gained the most in terms of absolute market cap.
3. ETH staking spiked after successful testing of The Merge; Kraken & LIDO lead staking services
Despite a dip in ETH price within the same period, total staked ETH for consensus layer saw strong upward momentum (+25%) in Q1 2022
The successful Kiln testnet merge on March 14 ushered a spike in staked ETH. At 11M ETH by end Q1 2022, this represents ~9% of total ETH supply.
Kraken (9.4%) and Lido (8.8%) still led as the Top 2 ETH staking services in validator count, far ahead of the pack with a combined dominance of ~18%.
The Merge is estimated to reduce daily ETH emissions from 12,000 ETH to 1,280 ETH, a 90% reduction equivalent to a triple halving in Bitcoin terms.
4. Altchains continued to gain ground as Terra led the way
As we enter 2022, altchains continued to eat away at Ethereum’s dominance over TVL. Even as overall TVL has reduced by 9% to $177 billion, Ethereum’s share of TVL is now 54%, down from 61% in December 2021.
BSC is still the dominant EVM network, but Avalanche is now neck-and-neck, likely due to the impending release of subnets and the recently-held Avalanche Summit.
Other EVM-chains seem to have retained their market share, even Fantom despite the departure of Andre Cronje.
One of the stars of 2021, Terra has continued its momentum into 2022, its share of overall TVL increasing to 10%. Solana however, has seen a decline.
TVL of DefiChain has been growing steadily, crossing $1 billion as DeFi for Bitcoin is starting to gain more traction.
5. Total spot trading volume took a dip to an average $1.26T monthly volume in Q1 2022
Overall, Q1 2022 spot trading volume across the top-10 centralized and decentralized exchanges declined from $6.08 trillion to $3.79 trillion compared to Q4 2021.
Trading volume peaked in Nov 2021 and continued to decline in the subsequent months before having a bit of a rebound in March 2022 as the market recovered.
February’s trading volume of $1.1T was lower than any month in 2021.
The DEX:CEX ratio has increased slightly from 11.8% in December 2021 to 12.8% towards the end of March 2022.
This is just a fraction of what we cover in our report - Grab your copy of the full report:
(Psst! CoinGecko users can easily grab all the quarterly reports right here!).
Like what you see? Sign up for our newsletter to get daily crypto updates!
CoinGecko's editorial team comprises writers, editors, research analysts and cryptocurrency industry experts. We produce and update our articles regularly to provide the most complete, accurate and helpful information on all things cryptocurrencies. Follow the author on Twitter @coingecko
Or check it out in the app stores
