The Experiment:

Instead of hypothetically tracking cryptos, I made an actual $1000 investment, $100 in each of the Top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap as of the 1st of January 2018. I then repeated the experiment on the 1st of January 2019. Think of it as a lazy man's Index Fund (no weighting or rebalancing), less technical, more fun (for me at least), and hopefully still a proxy for the market as a whole - or at the very least an interesting snapshot of the 2019 crypto space. Trying to keep it simple and accessible for beginners and those looking to get into crypto but maybe not quite ready to jump in yet.

The Rules:

Buy $100 of each the Top 10 cryptocurrencies on January 1st, 2019. Run the experiment two years. Hold only. No selling. No trading. Report monthly. Compare loosely to the 2018 Top Ten Experiment.

Month Five - Up 114%

May marks the best month so far for the coins associated with the 2019 Experiment. The Top Ten portfolio is now up an impressive +114% for the year. May was also the first month when every crypto (besides Tether of course) ended the month solidly in the green.

Ranking

Most of the Top Ten cryptos held their ground this month. Tether and Stellar both slipped a slot, but the big story this month was BTCSV leapfrogging a massive six spots, rising from #14 to #8 in one month's time.

Tron is now the lone crypto to drop out of the Top Ten and has been replaced by Binance Coin.

May Winners - BTCSV, by a mile, up +312% in May. This is by far the largest one month percentage gain that I've seen since starting these experiments seventeen months ago. A distant second was Bitcoin Cash, following up a great few months with another very solid +71% gain.

May Losers - Although Tether's monthly outcome is predictable, this was the first time this year it was the worst performing coin. Stellar, up "only" +36%, was the second worst performer in May.

For those keeping score, here is tally of which coins have the most monthly wins and loses during the first five months of this experiment: Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, BTCSV, and Tron each have one victory each. Bitcoin SV has lost three out of the first five months.

Overall update – Litecoin increases its lead yet again, all cryptos in positive territory

May has been good to the 2019 Top Ten coins: all are in the green, a first for the experiment. Litecoin continues to increase its lead, now up nearly +264% on the year and has pulled even further ahead of second place EOS. For EOS, being in second place means "only" being up +184%. My initial $100 investment in Litecoin is now worth $372.

Stellar and XRP, although up +18% and +25% respectively in 2019, are currently significantly behind the other crypto at this point in the experiment.

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

The total crypto market cap increased an impressive $100B in May, up almost +60% from last month's report. The end of May saw the highest total market cap so far for 2019 and is now up +114% since the beginning of 2019.

Bitcoin dominance:

Bitcoin dominance inched up again in May, now standing at nearly 56%. This is the highest point Bitcoin dominance has reached so far in the experiment.

Overall return on investment from January 1st, 2019:

If I cashed out today, my $1,000 initial investment would return $2139, a +114% gain. This dwarfs (I see you Tyrion) the return the stock market has provided (as measured by the S&P 500, see below).

Implications/Observations:

Four back to back winning months for the 2019 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund style experiment. May 2019 was easily the best month this year with over $100B added to the crypto market.

An interesting note this month: the Top Ten and the entire market are both up exactly the same amount: +114%. Last month the Top Ten performed 5% worse than the overall market, but made up the difference in May. This more or less parity between Top Ten and Overall Market approaches is in stark contrast to last year as at no point in the Top Ten 2018 Experiment did the Top Ten strategy outperform the overall market.

I'm also tracking the S&P 500 as part of my experiment to have a comparison point with other popular investments options. May was rough for the stock market compared to crypto markets. The S&P 500 is now up +10% since the beginning of 2019. Respectable, but nothing like what we're seeing in crypto so far this year. The initial $1k investment I put into crypto would have yielded only +$100 had it been redirected to the S&P compared to the $1,139 I'm currently up with the Top Ten.

Conclusion:

May was a fantastic month for the 2019 Top Ten cryptos. With June starting off on a downtrend, where do we go from here?

If you're just finding this experiment now, here's the backstory: On the 1st of January, 2018, I bought $100 each of the Top Ten cryptos at the time for a total investment of $1000 to see how they would perform over the year. I tracked the experiment and reported each month. The result? I ended 2018 down -85%, my $1000 worth only $150.

After last year's experiment ended, I decided to do two things:

Extend the Top Ten 2018 Crypto project one more year. The experiment is now in its 17th month. You can check out the latest update here. What you're reading now is the 5th report of a parallel project: this year I repeated the experiment, purchasing another $1000 ($100 each) of the new Top Ten cryptos as of January 1st, 2019.

Thanks for reading and the support for the experiment. I hope you’ve found it helpful. I continue to be committed to seeing this process through and reporting along the way. Feel free to reach out with any questions and stay tuned for progress reports.