The cost behind the return

This page shows what holding a coin involved, not just where its price finished. For 26 coins that are large today, it puts the return beside the deepest fall, the time spent below an earlier high and the moments a simple 20% rule would have acted.

The return is only half the story.

Among 26 coins that are large today, Zcash returned +2,439.7% over the year, and that is the number that gets quoted. Collecting it meant sitting through a -71.7% fall from its own high, spending 90% of the year below that high, and holding through 4 separate moments when an ordinary 20% rule would have taken the position off you. Across all 26 coins the typical deepest fall was -67.9%.

WHAT YOU SAT THROUGHWHAT YOU COLLECTEDZcash: fell -71.7% from its own highZcash: returned +2439.7%ZECRain: fell -36.5% from its own highRain: returned +489.6%RAINMonero: fell -58.6% from its own highMonero: returned +98.2%XMRHyperliquid: fell -64.0% from its own highHyperliquid: returned +86.8%HYPEWhiteBIT Coin: fell -31.5% from its own highWhiteBIT Coin: returned +74.9%WBTTRON: fell -23.6% from its own highTRON: returned +1.3%TRXNEAR Protocol: fell -69.8% from its own highNEAR Protocol: returned -1.1%NEARLEO Token: fell -31.2% from its own highLEO Token: returned -2.0%LEOBNB: fell -58.3% from its own highBNB: returned -14.5%BNBCanton: fell -54.1% from its own highCanton: returned -18.5%CCUniswap: fell -76.5% from its own highUniswap: returned -22.4%UNIBitcoin: fell -53.0% from its own highBitcoin: returned -27.7%BTCChainlink: fell -71.4% from its own highChainlink: returned -41.1%LINKEthereum: fell -66.7% from its own highEthereum: returned -41.6%ETHStellar: fell -65.0% from its own highStellar: returned -48.2%XLMSolana: fell -74.9% from its own highSolana: returned -48.4%SOLXRP: fell -68.2% from its own highXRP: returned -50.6%XRPLitecoin: fell -67.6% from its own highLitecoin: returned -52.2%LTCGram (prev. Toncoin): fell -62.3% from its own highGram (prev. Toncoin): returned -53.7%GRAMShiba Inu: fell -71.2% from its own highShiba Inu: returned -55.7%SHIBeach dot is a moment a 20% rule would have removed you

What you collected, and what you sat through.

To the right of the line, what each coin returned. To the left, the deepest fall from its own high that a holder had to watch to get it. Both are drawn to the same scale.

The dots on the right are the separate moments the price sat a fifth below a running high. Each one is a point where an ordinary risk process would have removed you, and holding meant deciding not to act.

What it returned
The fall you sat through
A moment a rule would have acted
Zcash returned+2,439.7%the figure that gets quoted.
To collect it you sat through-71.7%and spent 90% of the year below your own high.
Moments a 20% rule would have acted4on that one coin. 37 across the whole board.
The typical coin fell-67.9%and spent 98% of the year underwater.

Every coin, and what holding it involved.

The first number is the one usually published. The four after it are the ones usually left out, and they describe the same year.

Each coin with its return, the deepest fall from its own high, the share of the year spent below that high, the longest unbroken stretch underwater, the moments an ordinary risk rule would have acted, and return per point of fall.
CoinWhat it returnedDeepest fall you sat throughTime below its own highLongest stretch underwaterMoments a rule would have removed youReturn per point of fall
Zcash ZEC4 moments a rule would have removed youmuch harder to hold than its return suggests+2,439.7%-71.7%90%277 days434.01
Rain RAIN4 moments a rule would have removed you+489.6%-36.5%94%105 days413.40
Monero XMR+98.2%-58.6%94%235 days21.68
Hyperliquid HYPEmuch harder to hold than its return suggests+86.8%-64.0%94%246 days21.36
WhiteBIT Coin WBTbelow its own high 95% of the year+74.9%-31.5%95%260 days12.38
TRON TRXbelow its own high 96% of the year+1.3%-23.6%96%243 days10.05
NEAR Protocol NEARbelow its own high 98% of the yearmuch harder to hold than its return suggests-1.1%-69.8%98%353 days1-0.02
LEO Token LEObelow its own high 95% of the year-2.0%-31.2%95%152 days1-0.06
BNB BNBbelow its own high 96% of the year-14.5%-58.3%96%333 days1-0.25
Canton CC3 moments a rule would have removed youbelow its own high 97% of the year-18.5%-54.1%97%216 days3-0.34
Uniswap UNIbelow its own high 99% of the yearmuch harder to hold than its return suggests-22.4%-76.5%99%359 days1-0.29
Bitcoin BTCbelow its own high 96% of the year-27.7%-53.0%96%335 days1-0.52
Chainlink LINKbelow its own high 99% of the year-41.1%-71.4%99%359 days1-0.58
Ethereum ETHbelow its own high 98% of the year-41.6%-66.7%98%359 days1-0.62
Stellar XLMbelow its own high 98% of the year-48.2%-65.0%98%335 days1-0.74
Solana SOLbelow its own high 98% of the year-48.4%-74.9%98%353 days1-0.65
XRP XRPbelow its own high 98% of the year-50.6%-68.2%98%358 days1-0.74
Litecoin LTCbelow its own high 98% of the year-52.2%-67.6%98%332 days1-0.77
Gram (prev. Toncoin) GRAMbelow its own high 98% of the year-53.7%-62.3%98%358 days1-0.86
Shiba Inu SHIBbelow its own high 98% of the year-55.7%-71.2%98%358 days1-0.78
Bitcoin Cash BCHbelow its own high 99% of the year-56.8%-70.9%99%246 days2-0.80
Dogecoin DOGEbelow its own high 98% of the year-60.3%-76.1%98%358 days1-0.79
Hedera HBARbelow its own high 98% of the year-62.9%-74.0%98%358 days1-0.85
Avalanche AVAXbelow its own high 98% of the year-68.0%-83.3%98%353 days1-0.82
Cardano ADAbelow its own high 98% of the year-73.2%-84.6%98%358 days1-0.87
Sui SUIbelow its own high 98% of the year-76.1%-83.3%98%353 days1-0.91
Charlie's analysisTwo readings that belong together and are almost never published together. The return describes someone who bought, never flinched and sold at the end. The fall describes what that person had to be willing to watch. On this board the typical coin spent 98% of the year below its own previous high, so being underwater was not the exception. It was common here, including among things that finished up. The word here matters: this is today's large-coin cohort, not every coin that was large when the window began.

Why the stop count is the useful number.

Not because acting would have been better. Because it counts how often holding required a decision.

Charlie's analysisThe stop count is the part that makes this concrete. A fall of a fifth from a running high is roughly where an ordinary risk process acts, and this board produced 37 such moments across 26 coins. Zcash alone produced 4. That is not an argument for using a stop, and the page refuses to model what a stopped-out holder would have done next, because that answer would be invented rather than measured. It is a way of counting how many times holding required actively deciding not to act.

Who this board leaves out.

It follows coins that are large today. That is not the same as freezing the market at the start and keeping every failure in the result.

Charlie's analysisThis board begins with coins that are large today and looks back one year. That means it can measure the route taken by today's survivors, but it cannot show coins that were large on 2025-09-08 and later collapsed, disappeared or were delisted. Their absence probably makes the typical holding cost look kinder than a list frozen at the start would. A full survivorship audit needs that historical ranking; this page does not pretend today's list is a substitute.

Whether one coin is carrying this.

26 of 26 produced at least one such moment. The deepest fall was Cardano at -84.6%.

Charlie's analysisIt is not one asset. 26 of 26 coins produced at least one such moment, the typical deepest fall was -67.9%, and the deepest of all was Cardano at -84.6% against a return of -73.2%. Ranking the board by return and ranking it by how little it fell produce visibly different orders, which is the whole point: only one of those two rankings is normally published.

What argues against this framing.

Charlie's analysisThe strongest argument against this framing is that a fall you sat through is only a cost if you noticed it. A holder who checked once a year paid nothing for Zcash's -71.7% decline and collected +2,439.7% in full. The costs measured here are real for anyone with a risk limit, a mandate, a margin loan or a nervous disposition, and close to zero for someone with none of those. And the ratio between return and fall flatters an asset that happened to end its window at a high, which is a matter of where the window stops rather than of how it was held.

Questions this page can answer.

Every answer below is drawn from the readings on this page and nothing else. The last one is refused.

What did the best return of the year actually cost?

Zcash returned +2,439.7% over the window, which is the figure that gets quoted. Collecting it meant sitting through a fall of -71.7% from its own high, spending 90% of the year below that high, including one unbroken stretch of 277 days, and holding through 4 separate moments when it had fallen a fifth from a peak. Every one of those is a moment an ordinary risk process would have taken the position off you.

What it returned+2,439.7%
The fall you sat through-71.7%
The year spent underwater90%

Is that unusual, or is everything like that?

It is common across this board of coins that are large today. The typical deepest fall was -67.9% and the typical coin spent 98% of the year below its own previous high. 26 of 26 produced at least one moment a 20% rule would have acted on, and there were 37 such moments in total. Being underwater is not the exception in this market. It is the normal condition of holding anything in it.

Bitcoin Cash99%
Uniswap99%
Chainlink99%
Ethereum98%
XRP98%
Gram (prev. Toncoin)98%
Shiba Inu98%
Dogecoin98%
Cardano98%
Litecoin98%
Hedera98%
Sui98%

Share of the year each coin spent below its own previous high.

Do the biggest winners have the smallest falls?

Not reliably on this board. Cardano had the deepest fall on the board at -84.6% and returned -73.2%. TRON had the shallowest at -23.6% and returned +1.3%. The picture at the top of this page shows the pattern: the longest bars on one side of the line usually have long bars on the other.

Cardano-84.6%
Sui-83.3%
Avalanche-83.3%
Uniswap-76.5%
Dogecoin-76.1%
Solana-74.9%
Hedera-74.0%
Zcash-71.7%
Chainlink-71.4%
Shiba Inu-71.2%
Bitcoin Cash-70.9%
NEAR Protocol-69.8%

The deepest fall each coin put its holders through.

Which were hardest to hold relative to what they paid?

Ranking by return and ranking by calm give different lists. Zcash is 1 by return and 19 by how little it fell, Uniswap is 11 by return and 23 by how little it fell, NEAR Protocol is 7 by return and 15 by how little it fell. A coin that returned well through a shallow fall and one that returned the same through a deep one are not the same holding, and only one number of the two usually gets published.

Zcash (1 by return)-71.7%
Uniswap (11 by return)-76.5%
NEAR Protocol (7 by return)-69.8%
Hyperliquid (4 by return)-64.0%
Monero (3 by return)-58.6%
Chainlink (13 by return)-71.4%

Coins that fall furthest down the board when it is ranked by calm instead of return.

What does return per point of fall show?

How much you were paid for each point of the deepest decline you had to absorb. Zcash paid 34.01 per point. Most of this board paid a negative number, meaning holders absorbed a large fall and finished lower than they started. It is offered once, as a ratio, and it is not a ranking of which asset was better to own: two coins with the same ratio can have felt completely different to hold.

Zcash34.01
Rain13.40
WhiteBIT Coin2.38
Monero1.68
Hyperliquid1.36
TRON0.05
NEAR Protocol-0.02
LEO Token-0.06
BNB-0.25
Uniswap-0.29
Canton-0.34
Bitcoin-0.52

Is this an argument for using stop-losses?

No, and the page is careful not to make one. Counting the moments a 20% rule would have acted is a way of measuring how hard something was to hold, not a claim that acting would have been better. A holder stopped out of Zcash at any of its 4 moments would have missed most of +2,439.7%. What happens after a stop depends entirely on when you return, and nothing here measures that, so nothing here should be read as advice either way.

No chart. Modelling what a stopped-out holder did next would be inventing an answer rather than measuring one.

What has been left out?

0 coins could not be read. Coins pegged to a dollar are set aside: an asset designed not to move has no price of admission. Everything is read at one price a day at the same hour, so a fall measured for one coin is measured the same way for all of them, and a sharper intraday low than any of these is entirely possible. The window is 2025-09-08 to 2026-09-07, one year, which contains one market and not the average of all of them. Most importantly, the list starts with coins that are large today. A coin that was large at the beginning but later collapsed, disappeared or was delisted is missing. This board can therefore make the holding experience look easier than the full past market really was.

No chart. An account of what was excluded, not a measurement.

So which of these should I have held?

Not answered here, and it could not be. This page measures what holding each of them involved over a window that has already closed. It says nothing about the next one, and the returns above are only available to someone who held throughout, which is a different person from the one reading about them afterwards. The useful part is not the ranking. It is that the number usually quoted describes about half of what happened.

Refused. The data cannot support the question.

What would make this reading wrong.

Charlie's analysisThis reading would be wrong if a day's closing price hides what actually happened: everything here is read once a day at the same hour, so a sharper low between those readings is entirely possible and every fall shown is a floor. It would be wrong to read the stop count as a strategy result, which it is not. It would also be wrong to treat this as the experience of the whole market: it is the past of coins large today, so failed former leaders are missing. And it is one year, 2025-09-08 to 2026-09-07, which contains one market rather than the average of all of them.

Research by for Charlie Quant Lab