Where Data Tells the Story
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The crypto market in late 2016 is almost unrecognizable compared to today. Projects like Steem, NEM, Factom, Waves, and Lisk were among the largest cryptocurrencies back then, while Solana didn’t exist yet and BNB hadn’t started trading.
Yet a small group of assets managed to maintain their positions among the market’s biggest cryptocurrencies.
An analysis of historical CoinMarketCap rankings found that only seven non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies from the top 50 at the end of 2016 remained in the top 50 at every annual checkpoint through 2025 and were still there in August 2026:
Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin, Monero, Dogecoin, and Stellar.
Bitcoin was the most consistent asset in the group. It ranked No. 1 at the end of 2016 and held the top spot at every annual checkpoint after that.
But it didn’t deliver the highest price return.
Dogecoin stands out the most. It ranked just 15th at the end of 2016 and dropped close to the bottom of the top 50 by the end of 2020, before eventually climbing back into the top 10. Yet over the whole period, it delivered the biggest price increase of the seven.