Moreover, even in a year that many stocks doubled and tripled their historical average yearly returns, leading cryptocurrencies delivered gains of over 100% for the year.

With several years of operation behind them, landmark wins against SEC regulators in US court, and even Wall Street ETFs for two of them, the crypto assets on this list are less risky for investors than ever before.

That doesn’t mean buying these digital assets is without risk any more than buying stocks like Apple or Amazon is without risk. But gone are the days when educated investors must scratch their heads looking at the staggering reports about these currencies’ price gains and wonder if it could be real.

They’re currently caught up in the bullish part of a multi-year boom and bust cycle. That means their exchange rates against the dollar have been rising for months and could continue to increase until all market demand has been exhausted. Then, prices are likely to correct again for the remainder of this market cycle.

Four Big Cryptos That Beat Wall Street

Below is each asset, with a note about how it beat returns from tech stocks in the Nasdaq Composite this year. For reference, the NASDAQ, a broad benchmark for the performance of US tech stocks, gained 33% for the year ending Thursday, Dec. 26.

Meanwhile, the four cryptocurrencies featured here gained accordingly:

• Bitcoin: 126%
• Ethereum: 49%
• Solana: 75%
• Ripple: 247%

Over its history, the Nasdaq has taken as long as ten years or more to return this kind of gains to the market value of its stocks. These crypto assets did it in just one year, and it’s by far not the first time they’ve performed this well in a year.

1. Bitcoin (BTC) Yearly Performance 2024: +126%

Bitcoin is the original and first-in-class cryptocurrency. It invented the entire segment with its 2009 debut. On Thursday, the Bitcoin economy’s total market capitalization exceeded $1.9 trillion.

For the year through Dec. 26, Bitcoin rose 126% over its average Jan. 1 price on crypto exchanges. It is the most traded and most liquid cryptocurrency, as well as the most established, with a hands-off approach by US regulators and several ETF (exchange-traded fund) products available on Wall Street for regulated investors to buy at less risk than using crypto exchanges or self-custody to purchase and secure.

In addition to its ongoing unique value proposition, Bitcoin beat the Nasdaq this year for three more proximate reasons:

• The Wall Street ETF approval for Bitcoin by the SEC on Jan. 10
• The four-year BTC supply halving on Apr. 20
• The reelection of former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5

Bitcoin’s unique value proposition is its highly secure maintenance of a preciously scarce supply of unique, serialized digital notes on its network. Economists who understand how it works compare Bitcoin to digital gold, which you can send to anyone in the world as easy as it is to send an email.

2. Ethereum (ETH) Yearly Performance 2024: +49%

Inspired by the ideas and design behind Bitcoin, Ethereum was the first blockchain smart contract platform to scale to a mass market of users. Smart contracts are like currency on Bitcoin’s network, but they can do more than basic accounting.

The idea is powerful, and the possibilities are endless: Smart contracts or decentralized finance (DeFi) networks like Ethereum host programmable money.

Imagine you could write a note on a $100 dollar bill that says the first person to meet the requirements on this note gets to have the $100 dollar bill.

Furthermore, you could just leave that note posted on a cork board in an office park, and it wouldn’t go anywhere until someone actually did whatever the note requires (for example, leave a note in its place with the solution to a complex problem that would cost you more than $100 to solve yourself).

This technology is still new, but it promises to revolutionize finance, law, accounting, insurance, and supply chain management in some way that is comparable to how the Internet revolutionized publishing and retail commerce.

Ethereum beat the Nasdaq this year because of:

• The Wall Street ETF approval for Ether by the SEC on Jul. 22.
• The Federal Reserve’s pivot to cutting interest rates lower on Sept. 18
• The reelection of former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5

Blockchain insights and analytics team CryptoQuant recently noted that key metrics for Ethereum presage a persistently bullish market outlook for ETH tokens for the time being.

3. Solana (SOL) Yearly Performance 2024: +75%

Inspired by the success of Ethereum, Solana is another smart contract DeFi platform built with a second-mover advantage of greater network speed and lower fees. While Ether remains the leading DeFi cryptocurrency by market cap, Solana has made enormous strides to close the gap.

It still has a ways to go, with some $90 billion in market capitalization Thursday compared to Ethereum’s $400 billion market cap. But cryptocurrency market watchers are eyeing these two closely to gauge the future of the blockchain economy and crypto exchange markets.

Solana lagged Bitcoin for ROI growth this year over Jan. 1’s average crypto exchange price, but it bested Ethereum by a pretty margin. Furthermore, it clobbered one of the best years for growth in Nasdaq, with 33% gains for the year ending Thursday, Dec. 26.

Solana beat the Nasdaq this year because of:

• High network throughput and low fees compared to DeFi competitors
• The Federal Reserve’s pivot to low interest rates and Trump’s reelection
• The outstanding success of Solana meme coins against its competitors

Some of the top Solana memes that stood out this year include Bonk, Pudgy Penguins, Dogwifhat, Fartcoin, Popcat, Gigachad, Goatseus Maximus, and Baby Doge Coin. But beginning crypto investors who don’t know their way around memes are probably safer with the base layer SOL tokens.

4. Ripple (XRP) Yearly Performance 2024: +247%

One of the earliest altcoins inspired by Bitcoin, Ripple’s XRP is a decentralized, automated platform for large cross-border payments between financial institutions.

Ripple’s XRP tokens are the leading earner on this short list for the year because of pent-up demand as the market is hopeful for a resolution to the SEC lawsuit. The US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple over allegations of selling unregistered securities (those being the XRP tokens for its decentralized payment network).

Three US court rulings in Ripple’s favor last year and another this most recent November set the stage for XRP’s over-indexing performance among leading cryptos this year.

Ripple beat the Nasdaq because of:

• Several decisive wins against the SEC in court and hype around potential resolution
• The Fed’s low rate pivot and Donald Trump’s reelection
• Ripple’s aggressive push for business partnerships around the world

Recent technical analysis of XRP’s price indicates the bull run will continue as long as average exchange rates stay above this key support level.