Over the month of October, popular meme tokens saw large gains as cryptocurrency market sentiment improved. Both SHIB and DOGE posted record highs and are now among the top 10 largest digital assets by market valuation, according to CoinMarketCap.
The dog-themed coin SHIB’s 765% gain in October made it the month’s top-performing cryptocurrency among those with a reported market capitalization of at least $10 billion.
The self-proclaimed dogecoin killer has a market cap of $26 billion and reached an all time high on Oct 28. At press time, the token was trading 15% below its all-time high.
Dogecoin reached its highest level since Aug. 20 last Thursday, trading near $0.30. It finished the month with a market cap of $36 billion.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $1.17 trillion, gained 40%, its best monthly performance since December 2020.
Within the CoinDesk 20, a group of 20 curated digital assets, the top performing coins in October were Polygyon’s MATIC, which climbed 56%, Polkadot’s DOT, up 36%, and Ethereum’s ether (ETH), which rose by 30%.
Denis Vinokourov, an independent crypto research analyst, attributes Polygon’s surge through October to its continued focus on gaming and metaverse plays.
As an Internet search term, “metaverse” has been rising in popularity since Facebook announced last week it will pivot to focus on the field, an analysis on Google Trends shows.
Decentraland’s MANA reached an all-time high on Oct. 31 upon Facebook’s announcement of a company rebrand to Meta and a pivot toward metaverse development.
Cardano’s ADA token suffered a 13% drop in October. The blockchain, which aims to compete with Ethereum, underwent a network upgrade called Alonzo in early September enabling smart contracts that can be created on its mainnet.
“Cardano was unable to maintain the upside that dominated heading into Alonzo’s upgrade,” said Vinokourov.
Market participants used last month to book profits, especially given the ongoing focus on gamefi and all things metaverse-related, he said.
Ether, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, reached an all-time high of $4,458 on Oct. 29,, according to CoinDesk data.
