Bitcoin has emerged as the best-performing asset during the first quarter of 2023, according to the latest Coingecko crypto industry report. The cryptocurrency’s value in US dollars surged from just under $17,000 at the end of 2022 to over $28,000 by the end of March 2023. The report attributes this resurgence to increased volatility from the banking crisis and Binance’s decision to end part of its zero-fee incentive scheme for bitcoin trades. Bitcoin’s QoQ growth of 72.4% makes it the best-performing asset during the period, outperforming major asset classes including the Nasdaq index and gold.
The report shows that the Nasdaq index and gold were the second and third-best performers with gains of 15.7% and 8.4%, respectively. Although bitcoin and the entire crypto market’s recovery began in January, the US banking crisis is likely the primary reason why interest in this asset class has surged. The report notes that trading volume saw an upswing in January 2023 when the market started rallying. It then spiked momentarily in early March due to increased volatility from the banking crisis, before tapering off in late March when Binance removed part of its zero-fee trading incentives for BTC.
The market capitalization of stablecoins dropped by 4.5% or $6.5 billion due to the shutdown of Binance USD (BUSD) by Paxos and the brief USD Coin (USDC) de-pegging event during SVB’s collapse. Meanwhile, the market capitalization of decentralized finance (defi) surged by 65.2% to end the quarter at $29.6 billion. Liquid staking governance tokens saw their value grow by 210.9% in Q1, making them the third-largest category in defi. During the same period, trading volumes on non-fungible token (NFT) platforms also went up from $2.1 billion in the last quarter of 2022 to $4.5 billion. A large share of these volumes came from Blur, which recently took Opensea’s place as the most dominant NFT platform.
The Coingecko report provides an interesting insight into the performance of various asset classes in the crypto market. It highlights the resilience of bitcoin, which has once again emerged as the best-performing asset in the first quarter of 2023. The report also sheds light on the performance of stablecoins, defi, and NFTs, providing valuable information for investors and traders in the crypto market. As the crypto market continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how these asset classes perform in the coming quarters.
