When everyone thought the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had approved a Bitcoin spot ETF, and the scene of "all coins rising together" in 2021 would reappear, reality delivered a heavy blow: in addition to Bitcoin aiming for $100,000, a large number of "Altcoins" that shone in the previous bull market not only failed to set new highs in this round, but are still hovering at the bottom.
To some extent, this may also indicate that as Crypto investment in the US gradually becomes mainstream, new entrant capital will be concentrated on quality targets, just like the US stock market. And in this round of the market, there are also some tokens that reached their peak in the previous bull market and have become the darlings of profit-seekers again in this round. The author has compiled a list of some tokens that set new highs in this round after reaching stage highs in the 2021 bull market, but the scope of understanding is limited, and it may not cover all tokens that meet this condition.
SOL
In the "Alt L1" hot year of 2021, EVM-compatible L1s such as Fantom, NEAR, and Avalanche absorbed the overflow traffic due to the high Ethereum Gas costs. Among them, Solana did not follow the trend, but rebuilt an ecosystem outside the EVM, and under the support of the then-thriving FTX founder SBF and the team's own operations, the price of SOL soared from less than $1 when it was first listed on the exchange to over $200.
However, later as the overall market shifted from frenzy to calm, and with the collapse of FTX, SBF, one of Solana's biggest supporters, was jailed, SOL plummeted to around $7, and well-known NFT projects on Solana one after another left the ecosystem, and many investors thought Solana's story might end there.
To the surprise of these people, in this round of the cycle, Solana regained new vitality by the unexpected rise of MEME, and the emergence of several ecosystem projects such as the staking project Jito, and the price of SOL has been rising, breaking the nearly $260 high set in early November 2021 a week ago.
BNB
As the only public chain in the "exchange platform token" that has truly diversified its ecosystem, the BNB issued by Binance has left a deep impression on people, whether in its "bear market resilience" or its rise in the bull market. In the bear market of 2022, BNB fell from around $660 in May 2021 to below $200 at one point. Although the decline was also significant, compared to many tokens that fell more than 90% or even almost to zero, BNB can be considered a relatively "value-preserving" asset.
Subsequently, with the recovery of the market, and Binance launching Launchpool and Launchpad projects at an almost frantic pace, BNB also marched forward, and on June 24 this year, it broke through the price high of the previous bull market, reaching a maximum of over $700. Compared to the dismal exit of the Huobi-backed HECO Network, BNB still has a lot of potential value to be further explored, both within the exchange and on the BNB Chain.
TRX
The fact that the TRON token TRX set a new high in this cycle can be said to be both unexpected and understandable. The issuance of USDT has already approached 140 billion, and TRON has been the preferred choice for USDT transfers for a considerable period of time. Although TRON has been surpassed by Ethereum in terms of USDT issuance volume, and is clearly inferior to Ethereum in terms of actual application scenarios, it must be admitted that at least in terms of capital circulation, TRON is still the first choice for USDT holders.
According to defillama data, at the time of writing, the TVL on TRON is about $7.55 billion, and this data had once exceeded $10 billion in March this year. The price of TRX reached a high of $0.18 on April 17, 2021, and three and a half years later, two weeks ago on November 12, TRX set a new high and subsequently reached a maximum of over $0.22.
TON
The emergence of TON can be traced back to the ICO era, when Telegram raised $1.7 billion through an ICO for its token Grams and planned to launch The Open Network (TON), but an SEC lawsuit put everything on hold. This typical SEC-style lawsuit, where they see securities in everything, was not settled until 2020, and Telegram paid the price of not being able to continue TON development.
Afterwards, TON has been running with the support of the community, but has never really made a big splash in the industry. Its token price reached a high of $4.4 at the end of 2021, but has since continued to decline with the overall market.
In 2022, from April to July, the TON Foundation, together with multiple institutions, frequently launched multi-million or even hundred-million-dollar ecosystem funds, sounding the horn for the rapid expansion of the TON ecosystem. As a blockchain under the Telegram platform, which has tens of millions of users, TON did not put too much effort into the user number issue, and its launch of various games and interactive experiences integrated with Telegram made its journey from 0 to 1 very smooth, and the speed from 1 to 100 is also astonishing.
Driven by market enthusiasm, the price of TON also briefly broke through $8 in June this year, an increase of nearly 100% compared to its previous "peak".
LEO
To be honest, if I hadn't checked the data website, I wouldn't have known about the existence of this token. LEO is a token issued by the veteran exchange Bitfinex, with functions including fee reduction. As for why this token set a new high, I haven't found any convincing news, the only possibility is that the hacker who once stole 120,000 Bitcoins from Bitfinex being sentenced may have been seen as a positive factor to some extent.
LEO briefly broke through $8 in early February 2022, and a week ago on November 20, LEO set a new high and briefly rose to nearly $9.
FET
Fetch.ai, as a product born before the last bull market, has stubbornly persisted until today when AI has become a "hot topic". In the early years when the "Blockchain +" concept was popular, many related projects were established, and by now the vast majority have become historical dust, but there are also some projects that have persisted to this day and ushered in a real second spring, among which Fetch.ai and projects like IoTeX.
In the first half of this year, SingularityNET, Fetch.ai and Ocean Protocol proposed to establish a super artificial intelligence alliance and merge their tokens, and this plan has been completed. The important influence of AI on the development of human society is beyond doubt, but whether Crypto can really drive this process remains to be observed.
In early September 2021, FET reached a stage high of nearly $1.2, and this year the AI craze sparked by OpenAI has taken FET's price to around $3.5, nearly doubling the high of the previous bull market.
OKB
As one of the three major exchanges in China in the past, OKX has performed remarkably in the past two years. On the one hand, OKX has made a series of optimizations in trading-related functions and user experience, allowing traders to customize their trading plans more personalized. This has also led other exchanges to follow suit; on the other hand, OKX's Web3 wallet may even be worthy of being called a phenomenal product, and has become the first choice for many prospectors at the time of the Enshrinement of the Thousands.
As for the price of OKB, it actually hit a new all-time high last year at the beginning of the year, which was synchronized with the time of OKX's sweeping innovation. In March this year, OKB hit a new all-time high of nearly $74, more than 70% higher than the peak of around $44 in early May 2021.
STX
It is worth noting that some projects whose token prices hit new highs in this round of the market are not the darlings of the previous bull market, but have existed for many years, and have "found their soulmates" in this cycle.
Stacks is an early attempt in Web3 to establish a smart contract platform utilizing the Bitcoin network. Its design is quite interesting. In simple terms, Bitcoin holders use Bitcoin bids to obtain the block rewards and transaction fees of new Stacks blocks, while the block packing is done by STX stakers, and after the block is chained, the Bitcoin used for bidding can be obtained. And since it also uploads state information to the Bitcoin network to achieve final confirmation, Stacks is also considered a "Bitcoin L2" to some extent.
The tailwind from the Mimblewimble has revived this project that has been cultivating in the Bitcoin ecosystem for many years, and the price of STX also rose to around $3.85 in April this year, surpassing the phased high of around $3.6 in November 2021.
INJ
The Cosmos ecosystem is probably an indelible shadow in the minds of many investors. Like Polkadot, it has a unique style and technical strength in the cross-chain field, but it has not triggered a trend like DeFi. From the token price information website, Injective is also a project that was born before the previous bull market, but may not have been known to most people until it received $40 million in financing in August 2022.
From the investors and the ecosystem funds they have launched, including market makers, hedge funds and other roles, Injective seems to be trying to establish a DeFi liquidity center. This plan is not unique, and on the surface it does not seem to have anything special, but the price of INJ has been rising all the way. In mid-March this year, the price of INJ surged above $52, more than doubling the phased high of around $25 in April 2021.
BGB
If the rise in the prices of BNB and OKB is "as it should be", then the sudden emergence of Bitget is probably not within the expectations of most people. From the author's perspective, it is really hard to imagine that there could still be new players conquering the already crowded exchange field, but Bitget has indeed done so. Aggressive market strategies, crazy but efficient culture, wallet products and various investment assistance, before officially launching the market battle, Bitget must have designed a comprehensive plan, and just caught the residual heat of the previous bull market, and seized the opportunity of the new wave of users pouring into Web3.
Compared to the previous tokens that hit new highs in 2021 and then followed the market downturn before hitting new highs again, BGB has been in an uphill climb since its inception in 2021, and has hit a high of $1.7 in the past few days.
