Why large capitalization digital assets surpass

Crypto means have difficulties. Although some investors of digital assets can look for hidden jewels and future powers in the next level of market capitalization and liquidity, this pursuit has generally not been rewarded. In addition, average capital has given significantly higher volatility. Less reward, more risks. What gives?

Is it a mirror of domination “MAG 7” in actions, a lack of promising assets in the middle of the level or simply the future of finance taking more fruit than we thought before?

You read Crypto Long & Short, our weekly newsletter with ideas, news and analyzes for the professional investor. Register here to get it in your reception box every Wednesday.

We define our size segments using the Coindesk 20 and Coindesk 80 indices. Coindesk 20 captures the performance of the main digital assets with certain constraints to promote adoption in a certain number of places and products – in particular, no Mocoins, access to American investors, select the exchange lists and liquidity in specific pairs. Coindesk 80 captures the following 80 active out From Coindesk 20 – still reasonably large and still measuring liquid with fewer restrictions and more pairs of authorized trading. In other words, average capital.

The two indices have a basic date of October 4, 2022 and a basic value of 1000. To date, Coindesk 20 is at around 3200. Coindesk 80 is at 970. You read this right: the Coindesk 20 index has provided a yield of 320% since its basic date, while the Coindesk 80 index has lost 3%.

The volatility of Coindesk 80 is well above that of Coindesk 20, although its models follow those of the other index and Bitcoin and Ether majors.

Graphic: Coindes 20 and Coindesk 80 days Volatility of 60 days with BTC and ETH

What are these difficult digital assets in the capital environment segment? Poorly designed platforms? Frivolous projects? Not really. Although there are very volatile memecoins in the mixture (I look at you, PNUT), many constituents are familiar names.

If we restrict our point of view to the performance of the start of the year of current voters (Coindesk 80 was reconstituted on January 31), we see that a single constituent is in place over the year, but many leaders ( And Laggards) are names that we have known for some time.

Graphic: Top 10 and lower 10 Constituents Coindesk 80 2025 YTD

Of course, the selection of the underlying cause of the Midfish underperformance is just as difficult in crypto as in other asset classes. Although the size is one of the three classic Fama-French factors (suggesting that small capitalization actions should surpass), it has not always been demonstrated in performance.

We suspect that even if the cryptographic community will exchange almost anything, it tends to invest In the older ones, the longest and most familiar names. The regulatory adaptations (for example, ETF) will also follow this model, leading to a wider set of investors.

Does this suggest that a large capitalization inclination in the investment of digital assets-the opposite of the Fama-French size factor-will provide excess yields? We will see, but in the meantime, we can keep an eye on the values ​​of Coindesk 20 and Coindesk 80.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top