Ripple, NEM, Ardor, Stellar, and Dash topped the list of best-performing cryptoassets in 2017; Bitcoin's value rose 1,318% during 2017 vs. 36,018% for Ripple
Bitcoin's value grew by more than 1,000% in 2017, but that wasn't enough to even place it among the 10 best-performing cryptoassets of the year.
Context & Ripple Effects
Bitcoin entered 2017 on a high note, crossing $1,000 for the first time in three years after a 125% climb through 2016 — yet by year-end its 1,318% gain was not enough to rank among the ten best-performing cryptoassets. The gap was foreshadowed early: Monero had already posted a 2,760% rise from 50¢ to $12 in the year to late January 2017, showing altcoin momentum building well before the headline mania.
The Quartz ranking puts Ripple (up 36,018%) alongside NEM, Ardor, Stellar, and Dash at the top of 2017 — a reminder that in crypto's biggest years, the largest asset has historically been the laggard rather than the leader.
First-order effects
- Holders of Ripple, NEM, Ardor, Stellar, and Dash ended 2017 with returns an order of magnitude above Bitcoin holders' 1,318%, resetting which assets anchored crypto portfolio narratives going into 2018.
- Bitcoin's failure to place top-10 despite a five-figure percentage gain undermines the 'just buy Bitcoin' framing that had carried it past $1,000 at the start of the year.
Second-order effects
- Capital rotation toward smaller-cap assets like those on the list pressures exchanges and funds to broaden listings beyond Bitcoin, since performance-chasing buyers follow the return leaders.
- Ripple's 36,018% surge makes it the year's reference point for altcoin marketing, forcing competing payment-focused tokens such as Stellar to differentiate on fundamentals rather than ride the same wave.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across cycles, crypto market leadership structurally rotates away from Bitcoin in bull years — a pattern the corpus confirms repeating in 2021, when BNB, Solana, and Fantom all gained over 1,000% while Bitcoin managed just 65%.
- Ranking-by-return coverage itself becomes a durable genre of financial media, shaping retail expectations that any given year's winner will be a lesser-known token rather than the incumbent.
The trend: In successive crypto bull markets — 2017 and 2021 alike — Bitcoin's gains have trailed smaller-cap alternatives, making altcoin outperformance a recurring feature of the cycle rather than a one-off anomaly.