The top 30 altcoins : what you should know about them

And my opinion about each one

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I started a funny exercise on Twitter, which is a list of the largest coins with a minimalist description of them, as well as my opinion and directional bias about each of them. The link to the thread is here, but I decided to make it into an article.

$BNB :

• One of the strongest tokens to hold during the bear market

• Probably safe-ish long (it is in the same range vs BTC as in April 2021)

• But not an interesting upside at this val (almost $100bn MC)

• I am neutral on it, not long not short

$SOL :

• Best coin to buy after BTC and ETH as core of a spot portfolio

• It cemented its rank as 3rd main crypto

• I expect SOLETH to be higher at the top of the cycle, but not dramatically. Higher risk than ETH for higher reward

• It is my biggest altcoin position

$XRP :

• XRPBTC is down only, this is a perma-short for me as a hedge

• Its high market cap makes it a very safe short

• One hope for XRP is that it becomes a candidate for the next ETF

• It should keep bleeding vs BTC, with potentially a few spikes

$DOGE :

• Its permanent bleeding and underperformance vs BTC during the bear market made me quite bearish on it. But one can't fade the strength it had in March

• CT is still quickly excited about it - Mindshare is so high, it is the most Lindy memecoin

• When it moves up, it is quickly and violently, which makes it a coin both painful to hold and to trade

• There's a consensus target of $1 - not sure it will be reached, but the r/r is attractive with that upside in mind

• I hold some in spot

$ADA :

• I short it as a hedge. It is linearly down vs BTC since its 2021 top.

• Narrative is mostly dead and the market cap is still gigantic, which makes it a comfy short

• The danger is another alt L1 season as in December 2023. It will probably happen at some point but the upside remains limited anyway

$TON :

• A lot of potential as an ecosystem, because Telegram is enormous and has huge distribution

• The mindshare of the coin among crypto-natives remained quite limited for a long time even when it was already in the top 20.

• The market cap and FDV seem really high to me. Potential IPO for the Telegram company at $30bn (= current FDV). I am short biased on that coin.

$SHIB :

• The only memecoin in the top 100 that I would absolutely not like to hold.

• I expected it to dramatically underperform other memecoins but it did not so much, which is surprising.

• But you will probably get a better r/r on most other large caps memecoins anyway. The market cap of $SHIB is simply too high

• I am not touching it

$AVAX :

• Underperformed badly during the bear market

• But I guess it was 'saved' by the incredible $SOL performance, because the SOLAVAX trade muscle memory is strong

• It's down only vs SOL since mid-December, so I'd rather hold SOL or go directly for something with more upside potential

$LINK :

• Good project, but its large market cap added to the fact that it's old means that the upside is capped

• LINKBTC bounced at support in April

• I sometimes short it as a hedge for my longs

$DOT :

• Alt L1, but old, low mindshare

• Same category as ADA, down only vs BTC

• This is also a perma short for me, comfortable short because the market cap is still very high ($10bn)

$TRX :

• Old alt L1 founded by Justin Sun

• It means that the longevity of this thing is endless

• But at $10bn MC and with low mindshare, I expect it to underperform, or at the very least not outperform meaningfully

• TRXBTC is actually at the same level as in 2020 - impressive

• I use it as a hedge short

$BCH :

• The main BTC fork

• I expect it to underperform given its $9bn MC, but its chart illustrates how risky these 'dead coins' shorts can be : BCH pumped from $100 at its bottom to more than $700, squeezing a lot of short in the process

• It pumped vs BTC before its halving, but is down since then.

• It's a potential candidate for a future ETF

• I got burnt shorting it, but I am still short (as a hedge)

$NEAR :

• Alt L1 from the previous cycle, but it managed to catch a second life as the 'AI alt L1'

• I am long NEAR because chart is strong vs USD and BTC, and because it's a de facto main AI proxy

• But $8bn MC is a bit rich, which caps the upside

$MATIC :

• It managed to become the first "pseudo" L2 during last cycle

• MATICBTC is down only since February 2023

• Overall sentiment of the market towards MATIC is very bad

• $7bn MC means that it's probably not even max pain here (bcs $7bn is high)

• I can find no reason to buy it, I might even short it again at some point

$PEPE :

• The leading 'new cycle memecoin'

• An obvious target is to flip SHIB market cap

• It is up 20x from October prices and currently stands at $6.5bn MC : I would not be surprised if it cooled off a bit from here, but it is quite risky to get out of a winning spot position in a memecoin in my experience

• It has been underperforming BTC from May 2023 to early February 2024. Things can change quickly in crypto !

• My biggest altcoin position with SOL

$LTC :

• Down only vs BTC since 2019

• This is a perma-short too

• The market cap is 'only' $6bn so a 2x or 3x from here is not impossible, but overall a comfortable short in a bull market

$ICP :

• An alt L1 launched in 2021 at a gigantic FDV of $250bn

• As a consequence, it has been almost down only from launch to October 2023

• It never got any significant traction and mindshare among crypto natives

• But it managed to have a strong pump in December 2023

• I am short $ICP, and will probably remain during the whole cycle

$ETC :

• The main ETH fork

• As a fork, its destiny is to go to 0 but at a very slow pace because of Lindy-ness

• It's often used as ETH beta, and for example pumped a lot before the Merge

• But on a long timeframe it steadily underperforms ETH

• I am short-biased on it, but usually stay away from it (neither long nor short)

$KAS :

• A PoW alt L1, which is quite 'old school', but it seems to have attracted a large community that is not the usual crypto-native crowd imo

• It was probably the best performer during the bear market and one of the rare coins that is up something like 10000x since launch

• Its [mindshare among CT]/market cap ratio is quite low (which is supposed to be bearish), but it could very well be the ADA of this cycle (ie something that crypto-natives are not interested in but that reaches gigantic valuation anyway)

• I am mostly sidelined on this coin

$RNDR :

• The leading AI coin (if we exclude NEAR). "Distributed GPU computing". The crypto version of Nvidia ?

• It is one of the rare coins that has been printing consistently higher highs and higher lows vs BTC, which is bullish

• Currently standing around $10 which seems to be a strong support

• I am long RNDR, but the FDV is already higher than $5bn, so the upside is probably 'limited'

$APT :

• New generation alt L1 based on Move

• One of the projects that is a s-tier token in terms of mindshare, backers, and valuation

• But it remains a prime example of a low float high FDV token with an overall activity that does not justify its valuation

• It's been rejected twice at the $20bn FDV ceiling. Market cap is up only because of unlocks while APTBTC is down only

• Good coin to short once it gets around $20bn FDV, and you can also long it for a short-term trade when it has a narrative like in March 2024

$XMR :

• One of the OG privacy coins

• Slow mover that tends to underperform on the long-term

• I like the coin and the project for its utility, and on a philosophical pov

• It took a serious hit a few months ago when it was unlisted from Binance, and it's been slowly climbing since then

• I remain short biased on it, as it's an old coin that not many people want to long but is still large in market cap