en.cryptonomist.ch
In recent weeks, following the collapse due to the FTX fiasco, the crypto market has been lateralizing just above yearly lows, including the cryptocurrencies NEO, IOTA, GALA, Uniswap, and Litecoin.
But this general trend does not necessarily apply to all cryptocurrencies.
Analysis of the crypto assets NEO, IOTA, GALA, Uniswap and Litecoin
NEO
NEO was once a major altcoin, close to the top 10 by market capitalization. Now, however, it has slipped to 78th due to a lackluster performance, especially during the latest big bull run.
In fact, its all-time high price, $198, still dates back to January 2018 because it failed to do better in 2021. Moreover, the current price has plummeted to -97% from those highs.
Indeed, it has recently even fallen below $6, which is a level it has not touched since the financial markets crash of March 2020, setting a new annual low.
Last year it peaked in May above $120, which is a far cry from January 2018’s $198.
Since last year’s peak, the cumulative loss so far has been more than 95%, to the extent that the current value is definitely very low when compared to that of past years.
It is worth mentioning that since the bursting of the bubble in late 2017 and early 2018, the price of NEO has never dropped below $5, and only on two rare occasions dropped below $6. Therefore, if only the last five years are taken into consideration, its market value is at its lowest at this time.
In addition to this, though, it must be added that when it landed on the market in 2016, it was worth only $0.5.
The main problem is the lack of attractive prospects, which, on the other hand, were there both in 2018 and in the years immediately following. 2021 was the year in which NEO definitely missed the evolution train on which new third- and fourth-generation projects jumped instead.
IOTA (MIOTA)
A similar argument can be made for IOTA, and its native cryptocurrency MIOTA.
Again, no new all-time highs were recorded during the last big bull run, so much so that it was still holding at $5.2 in December 2017. The current price is 97% lower.
The reasoning is indeed very similar to NEO, although IOTA has never reached real heights in the crypto market.
Years ago though, it was one of the projects for which there were good prospects, thanks to its revolutionary blockchain.
However, the IOTA network has suffered some serious problems over time that have greatly diminished its potential.
It is enough to say that MIOTA’s price peak from the last bull run, which was touched in April 2021, was less than half that of December 2017.
Compared to the $2.5 in April last year, the current price is 93% lower, although it is higher than the March 2020 peak low.
Then again, it is precisely since 2020 that IOTA has had problems, while for NEO the problems came in 2021 due mainly to competition.
However, IOTA’s current price is lower than the 2018 minimum peak precisely because between 2019 and 2020 the project suffered a very strong setback. In theory, it is still in the works, but the current outlook does not look good at all.
GALA
A different story concerning GALA
The token was only launched in 2020, and in 2021 it experienced a huge boom.
In fact, although the current price is 98% lower than the all-time high in November 2021, it is still more than ten times higher than the initial price in 2020.
In the first eleven months of 2021, its market value rose by an incredible +51,000%, and then lost 98%.
This was a real resounding speculative bubble that burst in December 2021, although the bulk of the losses were accumulated from January 2022.
Analyzing only 2022 reveals that the losses have been very heavy indeed, although mainly a consequence of the bursting of the giant speculative bubble last year.
From the peak of $0.82 in November 2021, already by April 2022, the price had collapsed below $0.20.
With the implosion of the Terra/Luna ecosystem in May, it fell to $0.06, and from late June it began a long descent to below $0.04 in early November. The rest was caused by the failure of FTX, which caused it to plummet just above $0.02.
Most worrisome, however, is the fact that GALA’s price collapsed further in mid-December, when crypto markets as a whole held up.
In fact, the current $0.016 is a one-year low.
While such a collapse was to be expected in 2022 due to the excessive bubble of 2021, December 2022 still seems to indicate weakness in GALA’s price.
Uniswap (UNI)
UNI is the token of the DEX Uniswap.
Uniswap is DeFi‘s benchmark DEX, and it had its boom last year.
UNI was launched on the market in September 2020, at a price of about $3.5. The current price of $5 is not much higher.
It hit an all-time high in May last year at nearly $45, which is a gain of 1,200% since listing.
Therefore, a speculative bubble also swelled on Uniswap’s price last year, but not clamorously. In fact, the current price is losing 88% since then, and not the 97% or 98% of IOTA or GALA.
Moreover, UNI’s current price is higher than the May low, albeit by a small amount, while the 2020 low is the $3.6 touched in mid-June.
Therefore right now the Uniswap token in the markets does not look weak at all, but perhaps this is only because its 2021 bubble was not particularly large.
It is worth mentioning that if one were to completely ignore the bubble and its bursting, the market value of Uniswap seems to be relatively stable over time, so much so that if one excludes the initial volatility, the low is the $1.9 touched in November 2020.
Litecoin (LTC)
The price trend of Litecoin is worth following with interest.
In fact, next year there will be the third halving of Litecoin, and the following year the fourth halving of Bitcoin. On the previous two occasions, before the halving the price of LTC rose, and then fell after the halving. The curious thing is that the price of Bitcoin at those times did the same.
In both 2015 and 2019, the halving of Litecoin occurred in August, and apparently it is very likely that the halving in 2023 will also occur in August.
In both past cases, the price of LTC had risen until June or July, and then fell in August. Only in 2025, the descent stopped in September, while in 2019 it went on until December.
Last year, Litecoin managed to set new highs, with $410 touched in May. It is worth mentioning, however, that the peak of the previous cycle, in December 2017, had not been much lower ($360).
In fact, over the course of 2021, the gain up to the May peak was 645%, which is slightly higher than that of Bitcoin. However, unlike BTC, Litecoin’s 2022 low peaked in June at $43.
It is possible that since early November, expectations related to the 2023 halving have begun to kick in, although this may be a bit too early, since in the past the pre-halving rise began between December and January. This could mean that the 2023 peak, if a similar trend to 2015 and 2019 is replicated, could be between May and June.
It is worth noting that even for the price of Bitcoin after the collapse in the first half of November due to the FTX failure there has already been a small rebound. Who knows whether a possible small bull run of LTC in the first half of 2023 will also drag the price of BTC with it a bit.