As the world steps into 2024, the focus is already on the United States for a potential approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF, the fourth Bitcoin halving event, and numerous developments in the altcoin market. In 2023, the crypto market experienced a noteworthy year, with significant attention on the overall performance of major cryptocurrencies, including the rise of projects like Solana.
Bitcoin stood out in the crypto market throughout 2023, starting the year below $17,000 and quickly climbing to reach the $20,000 mark by mid-January. Although surpassing the $30,000 level proved challenging, Bitcoin eventually gained momentum after breaking this resistance and closed the year just above $42,000, peaking near $45,000 in early December.
Despite a pullback from its local peak, Bitcoin ended 2023 with a 156% increase, outperforming nearly all traditional financial assets such as the S&P 500, NASDAQ, and gold by a significant margin.
While Bitcoin bulls dominated 2023, many altcoins also completed the year with substantial gains, none more impressive than Solana. Despite fears of FTX and Alameda potentially offloading billions in SOL, the Layer-1 blockchain network became the center of the latest memecoin rally, with SOL finishing the year above $100, marking an annual increase of over 900%.
Other altcoins with notable yearly gains included Avalanche (257%), Chainlink (170%), Bitcoin Cash (171%), ICP (240%), OP (291%), and Cardano (142%). Among mid-sized altcoins, STX stood out with a 600% increase, influenced by the Ordinals craze.
Major volume altcoins like ETH, XRP, DOGE, MATIC, and DOT did not outperform Bitcoin, with annual gains below 100%. BNB saw a 27% increase in 2023, which is significant considering Binance’s regulatory issues and CZ’s resignation. The total crypto market value more than doubled in 2023, rising from under $800 billion to over $1.6 trillion.