With the crypto market capitalization now somewhere midway between the highest and lowest points of the last 12 months, many investors are looking for opportunities in the crypto industry.

Check out the best performing altcoins this week including high-cap and low-cap options to give a balanced view of the overall market.

Top 5 performing altcoins of September 2024

First, we’ll start with the high-cap options and look at the altcoin top 5 gainers in the last 7 days. These projects are taken from the top 100 coins by market cap, starting with those that have seen the strongest price growth this week.

Let’s take a look at the week’s biggest volume gainers in crypto!

BinaryX (BNX)

BinaryX is a decentralized platform used for blockchain-based gaming development and entertainment. The native BNX token is the top gainer this week within the top 100 coins ranked by market cap, seeing a 34% rise in price over 7 days.

The project has been adding more games to the platform as well as adding more advanced governance and tokenomics features, all of which have been issued a vote of confidence by recent investors.

Fantom (FTM)

Layer-1 dApp network Fantom is up a healthy 20.8% this week, bolstered by news of Sonic Labs, a key player in the Fantom industry, targeting an $11 trillion lending market thanks to a recent project update. This was enough to cause significant support for FTM in the near term, with many now waiting to see how the coin will fare over the coming weeks.

Artificial Intelligence Superalliance (FET)

Despite boasting a name more outlandish than most meme coins, the Artificial Intelligence Superalliance has seen increased investment from crypto users over the last 7 days with a 20% price increase for FET tokens (FET). The project is actually comprised of some heavy hitters in the intersecting industries of AI and blockchain, including Fetch.ai which is working on developing smart city technology in collaboration with the government of Munich.

Sui (SUI)

SUI token is up over 17% this week, most likely aided by the announcement of the SUI trust for accredited investors which has just been launched by Grayscale. (SUI) SUI was developed by Mystery Labs, a company that boasts several former Meta engineers who lend an air of credibility and professionalism to the project.

Toncoin (TON)

Toncoin (TON), the native token for the Telegram app ecosystem, is also up 17% over the last 7 days. TON is actually down 13% on the month, with fears of the dreaded death cross pattern on the charts, perhaps influenced by the troubling news of Telegram CEO and co-founder Pavel Durov’s arrest in France in late August. However, investors will also note that TON has been up 277% over the last 12 months, with a growing user base and added features that add to the appeal of this coin.

Low-cap: the biggest altcoin gainers

In the low-cap altcoin space, the gains are quite a bit higher. So, too, of course, are the gainers! Take extra caution when exploring this list. While it’s interesting to see which altcoins have experienced high price volatility, that volatility is one of the main causes of losses for retail investors.

When considering an investment in any crypto, but especially those with small market caps, crypto users are typically advised to be very thorough in their research and in the implementation of their risk management strategy.

Euno (EUNO)

The EUNO privacy coin has seen a massive 233% gain this past week alone as investors line up to buy in on the trending coin. The price action is very curious indeed, as the official X account for this project hasn’t posted in almost a year, and there are no posts or news articles online explaining the recent uptick in price.

The market cap is very low even for a small cap project, with just over $1 million in total capitalization, and with such a small market cap and no immediately apparent fundamentals behind the price growth, an equal or greater price correction could easily take place at any moment for this coin.

Swisscheese (SWCH)

SWCH is the native coin for the Swisscheese DeFi platform, and has just seen a 133% increase in value over the las 7 days. The platform allows for swaps of cryptocurrencies and even other assets like stocks, making it popular among investors. The token recently broke above its 50-day moving average, perhaps further spurring any bullish investors.

Catgirl (CATGIRL)

Catgirl crypto is up 107% this week as interest continues to grow in the budding meme coin. This coin has an extremely small market cap of just $670,000, making it a very high-risk investment for even the most gung-ho crypto investors.

At that size, a project’s price action is very much subject to the whims or designs of deep-pocketed market operators, and any sizeable trade in either direction could cause chaos for CATGIRL price and traders alike.

Staying safe with altcoins

It’s always interesting to read about the best-performing altcoins this week and to learn the antics of crypto’s biggest movers. However, high-volume gainers can become high-volume losers in an instant, particularly with smaller projects.

While searching for promising altcoins, don’t forget to look beyond the latest price action and to factor in the use case and team that underlie the project, as chasing volume alone can lead to traders holding the bag more often than not.

To read more about risk management and how to set up your own crypto portfolio, read our article on the subject here.