Holders of most cryptocurrencies are being punished with losses, amid an extended bear market that started in the first half of 2022 for the cryptocurrency market. However, there are three layer-1 blockchain tokens suffering the most among the top 20 cryptos by market cap.
According to data gathered by Finbold from IntoTheBlock, over 93% of the holders of Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC), and Avalanche (AVAX) are sitting in a losing position with their purchases — where their average dollar cost of acquisition is higher than the respective price of each digital asset.
Notably, the leading layer-1 blockchain, Ethereum (ETH), has the majority of its holders in winning positions, with 43.67% holding losses, and a better long-term performance than its newest competitors.
At the time of publication, ETH is trading at $1,626, ADA at $0.25, MATIC at $0.54, and AVAX at $9.94.
Cardano (ADA) holders
Cardano is the largest cryptocurrency by market cap among these three layer-1 blockchains competing against Ethereum. It is the only one of the three that is not EVM-compatible, meaning it can not partake in Ethereum’s ecosystem, like Polygon and Avalanche.
According to the collected data, 94% of ADA holders are ‘out of the money’. While 2% are holding an even position (neither winning nor losing), and 5% of Cardano’s holders are in profit from their average purchases.
Interestingly, only 32% of the entire supply is held by addresses with over 0.1% of the circulating supply. And a majority of 60% are made of long-term holders, holding their tokens for over a year.
Polygon (MATIC) holders
Polygon started its adventure in the crypto world as a layer-2 blockchain for Ethereum, but soon emancipated itself from the Web3 leader, to create its own ecosystem, for the better or for the worse.
Surprisingly, MATIC has the second worst holding performance among these three projects, with 95% of its holders in the red, and a shocking 0% in the green. The data indicates that 5% of Polygon’s investors are holding a breakeven position.
Although a similar composition of holders are keeping their positions for over a year (59% for MATIC, versus 60% for Cardano), 85% of Polygon’s circulating supply is in the hands of large holders — classified like that for holding over 0.1% of the available supply each.
Avalanche (AVAX) holders
Avalanche is the most recent project among those three. Positioned as the 19th largest cryptocurrency by market cap, according to the CoinMarketCap index, and the 15th largest among the monitored projects by the IntoTheBlock dashboard.
Just like MATIC, there are no profitable holders of AVAX, but even fewer holders would be able to even their acquisition prices in a hypothetical sell-off, as 97% of them are holding unrealized losses.
Notably, Avalanche has a slightly better distribution than Polygon among large holders (holding at least 0.1% of the supply), registering 78% of a concentrated circulating supply. As expected from a newer layer-1 blockchain than its mentioned competitors, the majority of holders (69%) are only holding for less than one year.
