Cryptocurrencies garnered immense interest during the last financial year, and for good reason. They have been delivering some incredible returns over the past year. But which ones have performed best? You might be intrigued that despite its cult-like following, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) didn't even make the cut. So, which ones did?
We have done a deep dive into five cryptocurrencies that outperformed Bitcoin in FY21, each delivering in excess of 2,500% in returns during the financial year.
That means if you had of invested $1,000 in any one of these on 30 June 2020, it would have been worth more than $26,000 a year later.
Without further ado, let's uncover these cryptos!
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These cryptos smashed Bitcoin's returns
While Bitcoin provided its investors with a sizeable 300% during the last financial year, this pales in comparison to the returns from the following cryptocurrencies.
Theta (CRYPTO: THETA)
The first crypto on the list outpacing the returns of Bitcoin is Theta token. This cryptocurrency is the native token for Theta's blockchain powered network purpose-built for video streaming. This token is a 'governance' token, which means holders of it have a say in the project's future.
Theta's developers are seeking to shake up the existing methods of content delivery. In doing so, Theta aims to make video streaming more efficient and provide creators with a larger cut of their revenue. The project counts Steve Chen, co-founder of Youtube and Justin Kan, co-founder of Twitch as advisors.
Theta gained 2745% during the financial year, cementing its spot as the 20th largest crypto by market capitalisation, at $8.17 billion. The token currently fetches $8.16
Solana (CRYPTO: SOL)
Solana is an open-source project which provides permissionless decentralised finance solutions. This idea was first conceived in 2017 and was launched by Geneva-based company, The Solana Foundation, earlier this year.
The project was founded by former Qualcomm and Dropbox software engineer, Anatoly Yakovenko. An important and appealing factor of Solana is its proof-of-history consensus which allows for greater scalability of the protocol.
Other projects choose to build onto Solana's technology due to its short processing time for transactions and smart contracts, in addition to low fees. According to the project's website, Solana can process 50,000 transactions per second.
The Solana token skyrocketed 3,706% to $47.32 per SOL during FY21. That is more than 10 times the return of Bitcoin over the same period.
Theta Fuel (CRYPTO: TFUEL)
Sounds like Theta… Well, that's because it is. Theta Fuel is the second native token involved with the Theta video streaming project. However, Theta Fuel is not a governance token. Instead, TFUEL acts as the utility or currency within the decentralised video and data delivery platform.
Currently, there are 5.23 million TFUEL tokens in circulation. This number grows over time as more TFUEL is generated as 'staking rewards'.
The value of Theta Fuel climbed 4,510% during FY21. An incredible gain that far exceeds that of Bitcoin. The market capitalisation of this token is $2.54 billion.
Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE)
The underdoge on the list… No one would have expected that a cryptocurrency that started as a joke would become so prevalent. Dogecoin has likely surpassed the expectations of all of its investors during the last financial year.
Several tweets by Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO, Elon Musk, propelled the dog meme inspired cryptocurrency. Speculation of its adoption by the electric vehicle manufacture spread like wildfire. Though the heat has now died down somewhat, dogecoin still managed to deliver unbelievable returns.
During the last financial year, Dogecoin gained 5,095% — nearly 52 times in a year. The cryptocurrency is now the sixth largest in existence.
Polygon (CRYPTO: MATIC)
And finally, one of the best performing cryptocurrencies during the financial year is Polygon. The project describes itself as a protocol and a framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks.
Essentially, Polygon is a second layer to Ethereum which seeks to address some of the issues for developers on the Ethereum network. Additionally, polygon states it can offer up to 65,000 transactions per second with confirmation times of less than 2 seconds.
A combination of exceptionally low fees and added functionality has resulted in more than 350 decentralised applications being built on Polygon. With more adoption of the network and its token, the Polygon price blasted 6,760% higher in FY21. That's a performance that certainly puts Bitcoin's 300% to shame.
