Overall, the cryptocurrency markets have remained relatively stagnant since the beginning of 2024. However, not all cryptocurrencies have experienced this sideways movement, unlike Bitcoin and Ether.
SUI, the native token of its eponymous layer-1 blockchain, has nearly doubled its value against Bitcoin since January 1st. The network, overseen by former Meta employees previously focused on Diem and viewed as a competitor to Solana, has recently surpassed $500 million in total value locked in its DeFi applications for the first time.
SUI leads a small group of cryptocurrencies that have seen their ratios against Bitcoin rise since the beginning of the year. While Bitcoin typically sets the market trend, the US dollar-denominated prices of other cryptocurrencies are heavily influenced by Bitcoin movements, often rising and falling in tandem with BTC.
Bitcoin price ratios provide a less volatile alternative. Pricing Ether in Bitcoin, for instance, facilitates determining whether ETH’s fluctuations are merely due to its correlation with Bitcoin or if the markets are valuing them more independently.
Among the approximately 60 cryptocurrencies valued at $1 billion or more (excluding stablecoins, wrapped assets, or liquid staking tokens), only 14 have outperformed Bitcoin.
The bitcoin price ratio for Bittensor’s (TAO) machine-learning marketplace token has increased by 60% this year, while Celestia’s (TIA) modular data layer follows closely behind at 46%.
ASTR, the cryptocurrency at the core of the public Polkadot parachain Astar, has also seen its bitcoin price ratio rise by nearly one-third.
Astar positions itself as a “smart contract hub” facilitating asset transfers between various blockchains, including Ethereum and Cosmos. The team maintains a significant presence in Japan and is gearing up to introduce its own zkEVM based on Polygon’s chain development kit.
On the other hand, Bitcoin-powered memecoin ORDI, layer-1 token algorand (ALGO), and decentralized storage asset filecoin (FIL) have recorded the poorest performance against bitcoin this year, each experiencing a decline of around 30%.
ORDI, presented as the first-ever BRC-20 token issued via Ordinals, has nevertheless seen its bitcoin ratio multiply over the past six months, surpassing TIA and TAO in terms of bitcoin-denominated returns.
Among the analyzed group, cryptocurrencies representing legacy layer-1s like Stellar (XLM), XRP, Litecoin (LTC), and Monero (XMR) performed the least favorably against Bitcoin over the past six months, with each experiencing approximately a 40% decline.
