When it comes to cryptocurrency investments, most traders are always on the lookout for the next token that will shoot to the moon and bring them the quickest and easiest returns.

While this practice was common and easily executed in 2017, these ‘powder keg’ altcoins are few and far between in today’s market. Regardless, there will always be better performers than others whenever the market is in an overall bullish trend, though successfully identifying and capitalizing on these opportunities is easier said than done.

However, it seems that attempting to jump on the hottest coin at the time might actually be counterproductive. According to new data released by CryptoCompare, most altcoins spent the majority of August this year losing ground to Bitcoin (BTC), with only a single major altcoin frequently outperforming BTC since August 2019.

Looking at the major market cap altcoins, including BNB, ETH, and XRP, we see that practically all of them have struggled to keep up with BTC in the last month. LTC has fared particularly poorly, losing close to 30% of its value against BTC during this period.

The others have been in an almost perpetual decline against BTC, barring a few minor recoveries that failed to return them above their starting point at the beginning of August. However, Chainlink (LINK) stands out as the exception, managing to gain more than 10% against BTC on two occasions, before eventually falling behind in late August.

Overall, simply holding BTC across this time-scale would almost certainly have brought better returns than trading in and out against these major altcoins. Similarly, although the above chart only covers a 1-month period, Bitcoin has seen its dominance gradually increase since January 2018, climbing from a low of just 33.4% up to its current value of 70%.

Have there been any other major cryptocurrencies that have consistently outperformed BTC recently? Let us know in the comments below!

Buy and trade cryptocurrencies with a 100x multiplier on our partner exchange, StormGain.