"Shiny new coin syndrome" refers to the phenomenon where investors become overly excited about new cryptocurrencies. So many promising projects are launched every year and investors get diverted to different projects. Historically, if we look at the performance of top coins (except BTC & ETH) from one bull cycle to another, we rarely see the same coin appearing on the list. Many top projects that melted faces in the 2017 bull run failed to reach ATH in 2021. If the trend repeats, the top performing coins from 2021 may not breach their ATH in 2025. It's important to reassess our strategy and not get too attached to any coins.
Let's have a look at some data.
Here are the top performing coins from 2017 and their prices in the 2021 bull run:
XRP:
Price at the top of 2017 bull run: $3.4
Price during last bull run: $1.8
Monero:
Price at the top of 2017 bull run: $440
Price during last bull run: $420
Bitcoin Cash:
Price at the top of 2017 bull run: $3,700
Price during last bull run (April 2021): $1,300
DASH:
Price at the top of 2017 bull run: $1500
Price during last bull run: $400
IOTA:
Price at the top of 2017 bull run: $5.5
Price during last bull run: $2.5
EOS:
Price at the top of 2017 bull run: $22
Price during last bull run: $14
We have to understang that narratives change from cycle to cycle. These coins never re-vistided their ATH again. But there were some exceptions like Cardano, which did a 3x from the previous cycle top. Litecoin just about managed to breach the 2017 top. But apart from that, most are referred to as "Dino coins".
Will the top performers from the 2021 bull run, like Axei, Solana, Doge, and AVAX, breach their ATH? Only time will tell. My strategy is to allocate a portion of funds to get into some new shiny coins with great fundamentals and hope for the best.
What is your strategy?