EOS, TRX, ADA, and BCH Rock in April

May 14, 2018

Read Time 4 MIN

During April 2018, Digital Assets¹roared back into the public spotlight as bulls were finally rewarded. The MVIS^®CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index (MVDA10) posted its first positive monthly performance of 2018 (+62%) reversing much of its losses over the previous three months. All digital assets comprising the MVDA10 rebounded from their March declines, led by EOS (EOS), which rallied during the month from $6.03 to $17.96 and posted a gain of +198%. Tronix (TRX) also posted a large gain, increasing from $0.03 to $0.10 (+183%) and closing at its highest price since January. Cardano (ADA) jumped from $0.16 to $0.35, recording a gain of +122% and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) moved up from $709.36 to $1,385.32, gaining +95%. Rounding out the top five best performers was Neo (NEO) with a return of +67%, moving up from $51.36 to $85.82.

For the first time this year, in April, positive market news outweighed negative news, though persistent regulatory fears lingered. From a general market perspective, many media sources speculated that large institutions are finally ready to enter the digital assets “ecosystem.” While the markets pondered possible institutional participation, France cut retail cryptocurrency tax rates (down from 45% to 19%). Nasdaq announced it is open to starting a cryptocurrency exchange. Similarly, Goldman Sachs announced its opening of a cryptocurrency trading desk, and Bermuda (among other countries) is seeking to create a stabilizing framework to foster digital asset businesses^*.

There were many exciting announcements about EOS that we believe collectively contributed to its sizeable gain over the month. Toward the end of March, Block.one, the developer of EOS announced the creation of a joint venture fund, EOS Global. The fund will make investments in Asia-focused projects that utilize the EOS blockchain. This news comes on the heels of similar partnerships announced by Block.one that seek to build upon the global community using EOS. In addition to this, EOS was listed on several significant exchanges, including Upcoin and Upbit. On April 15, holders of EOS were also able to take advantage of an airdrop²and were rewarded in the form of eosDAC tokens³. Lastly, and to many the most important piece of EOS news, was the anticipated launch on June 3 of the EOS main net, signaling the end of its testing phase.

TRX, the second best performing digital asset in the MVDA10 during April, was propelled higher by the announcement of an airdrop and the launch of its own main net⁴. The TRX airdrop was made to investors holding greater than one Ether in their wallets and started on April 27. TRX, like EOS, will also be moving off the Ethereum blockchain into its own main net on May 31^**.

As most digital assets do, when afforded the opportunity, we believe ADA benefited from both its listing on a new exchange (Huobi) and the addition of trading pairs on the popular exchange, Binance.

BCH’s performance may be attributed to general market sentiment, but also the anticipation of an upcoming hard fork⁵on May 15. There has also been an uptick in BCH conferences and meetups held globally.

NEO’s rise may mainly be attributed to the development team’s European tour. On April 14, they began traveling throughout Europe promoting their technology to potential clients, investors, and European regulators. NEO was also added to the Cobinhood exchange.

The bottom five digital assets in the MVDA10 also contributed positively to performance in April, albeit to a lesser extent. Ether (ETH) finished the month strong, up +66%, despite regulatory uncertainty around classification as a security. Its price increased from $407.45 to $678.83. XRP (XRP) increased from $0.52 to $0.84, representing a gain of +63%. Dash (DASH) rose from $323.54 to $479.66, marking a gain of +48%. Bitcoin (BTC), the largest digital asset by market cap, increased from $7,159.44 to $9,284.96, a comparatively modest increase of +30%. Finally, the worst performing asset for the month was Litecoin (LTC), finishing up +24%, moving up from $121.61 to $150.60.

April 2018 Performance

Chart of April 2018 performance for Digital Assets in the MVDA10 index

Source: MarketVector Indexes GmbH (MVIS^®). MVIS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Van Eck Associates Corporation. Data as of April 30, 2018. Not intended to be a forecast of future events, a guarantee of future results or investment advice.

High short-term performance of this strategy may not be repeated. Investments in digital assets are speculative and volatile. Investments in digital assets can be very risky, especially for inexperienced investors. All investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest. As with any investment strategy, there is no guarantee that investment objectives will be met and investors may lose money. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

It is not possible to invest directly in an index. Indices are not securities in which investments can be made. Index returns do not reflect a deduction for fees and expenses. Exposure to an asset class represented by an index is available through investable instruments based on that index. MVIS CryptoCompare Bitcoin Index measures the performance of a digital assets portfolio which invests in bitcoin. MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index is a modified market cap-weighted index which tracks the performance of the 10 largest and most liquid digital assets.

MVIS does not sponsor, endorse, sell, promote or manage any investment fund or other investment vehicle that is offered by third parties and that seeks to provide an investment return based on the performance of any index. MVIS makes no assurance that investment products based on the index will accurately track index performance or provide positive investment returns. MVIS is not an investment advisor, and it makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in any such investment fund or other investment vehicle. A decision to invest in any such investment fund or other investment vehicle should not be made in reliance on any of the statements set forth in this document.

For information regarding the MVDA10 and other MVIS digital asset indices, please visit www.mvis-indices.com/indices/digital-assets.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE

¹Digital assets are cryptographically secured, protocol-governed and mostly non-centrally issued assets that serve as store or value, medium of exchange or technology investments.

²Airdrop – the procedure of awarding tokens to existing holders of a particular blockchain digital asset.

³Tokens are a tradeable asset or a utility that reside on a blockchain.

⁴Main net refers to a digital asset’s blockchain protocol and specifically its own non-test phase blockchain.

⁵A hard fork is a change to a blockchain protocol that requires all users to upgrade to the latest version of the protocol software. Users that do not upgrade software will have invalid transactions.

^*Source: Bloomberg, VanEck research.

^**Source: NewsBTC.com.

EOS, TRX, ADA, and BCH are digital assets held in the MVIS Cryptocompare Digital Assets 10 index.

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