Top Crypto YTD › What Is YTD Return

What is YTD return?

YTD stands for year to date. A YTD return is the percentage change in the price of an asset from the start of the current calendar year to today. If a coin started the year at $1.00 and trades at $1.25 now, its YTD return is +25%. If it trades at $0.80, its YTD return is -20%. That is the whole idea: one start line, January 1, applied to every asset, so returns can be compared side by side. The leaderboard on this site's homepage ranks hundreds of cryptocurrencies by exactly this number.

The formula

YTD return = (current price − January 1 price) ÷ January 1 price × 100.

Worked example, a gain. A coin traded at $1.00 on January 1, 2026 and trades at $1.25 today. Subtract: $1.25 − $1.00 = $0.25. Divide by the starting price: $0.25 ÷ $1.00 = 0.25. Multiply by 100: +25% YTD. In money terms, $1,000 held from January 1 would be worth $1,250 before any fees.

Worked example, a loss. A coin traded at $2.00 on January 1 and trades at $1.50 today. ($1.50 − $2.00) ÷ $2.00 = -0.25, so its YTD return is -25%, and $1,000 held from January 1 would be worth $750.

One wrinkle worth knowing: percentages are not symmetric on the way back. A coin that falls 50% needs a gain of 100%, not 50%, to return to its starting price, because the recovery is measured from the lower base. Deep negative YTD numbers are harder to climb out of than they look.

YTD compared with other return windows

Every return is a price change over some window, and the window changes the story. Four windows cover most of what you will see quoted:

None of these windows is the true one. They answer different questions. YTD is the comparison window: it sacrifices recency (a coin can be falling for a month and still sit near the top of the YTD table) in exchange for lining every asset up over the same stretch of the same year.

Windows also compound rather than add. A coin that gains 10% in each of three consecutive months is not up 30% over the quarter: each gain applies to a larger base, so the compounded result is 1.10 × 1.10 × 1.10, a gain of about 33.1%. The same effect works in reverse on the way down, which is why a YTD figure cannot be rebuilt by adding up monthly percentages, and why two coins with similar monthly numbers can end the year with noticeably different YTD returns.

How this site calculates YTD return

The baseline for every coin is its price on January 1, 2026, taken from CoinGecko. Each morning the site rebuilds with the latest prices and recomputes every return from that fixed baseline, so the only moving part is today's price. The baseline itself never moves: it is recorded once, from CoinGecko's price history, and stored. If a coin's YTD figure changes between Monday and Tuesday, the change always comes from the price side of the formula, never from a quietly revised starting point, which is what makes day-to-day comparisons of the table meaningful. The ranking is drawn from the top 500 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization; a coin also needs a January 1 baseline price and at least $10,000 of trading volume in the last 24 hours to be ranked, so the table currently lists 359 coins. The full method, sources, and limitations are documented on the methodology page.

Coins that launched after January 1, 2026 are handled differently, because no January 1 price exists for them. They never receive a YTD figure. Instead they are tracked in a separate New in 2026 table and quoted as a return since a stated date: the date tracking began. A since-launch return and a YTD return are measured from different start lines and should never be ranked together or compared as if they were the same statistic.

How to read a YTD number

A YTD return means little on its own; it needs company. Three comparisons give it context. First, the benchmark: Bitcoin's YTD return is the market's centre of gravity, and a coin up 30% in a year when Bitcoin is up 60% has actually lagged the market. Second, the field: this site's homepage snapshot shows how many ranked coins are positive and what the median return is, so you can tell a broad rally from a few outliers carrying the average. Third, the group: the category rankings show whether a coin's whole theme is rising or whether the coin is moving on its own. A coin keeping pace with a hot category is a different story from a coin leading a flat one.

Common misreadings

Treating YTD as a forecast. A YTD return is a record of what already happened, not a prediction. Coins at the top of the table can and do fall hard, and coins at the bottom can recover. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and a ranking built from past prices carries no promise about next month.

Comparing percentages without comparing size. A tiny coin can post a YTD gain of several thousand percent on thin trading, where a small amount of buying moves the price a long way. Bitcoin gaining 25% represents vastly more money and far deeper trading. Percentages hide size and liquidity, so a four-digit YTD number on a small coin is not a bigger achievement than a double-digit one on a large coin.

Assuming every return shares a baseline. Two percentages are only comparable if they start on the same date. A return since a March launch, a return since a token migration, or a return measured from a post-crash low are all different statistics wearing the same % sign. On this site, YTD always means from January 1, 2026, and anything else is labelled with its own start date.

Reading "up YTD" as "up from its peak". A coin can be up 200% year to date and still trade 70% below its all-time high, because it fell so far in earlier years. YTD describes this calendar year only; it says nothing about where the price sits against its own history.

Assuming YTD is what an investor earned. The figure assumes a holder from January 1 who never traded. Anyone who bought in March earned the return from March. It is also a price return only: it does not include trading fees, spreads, or any staking or lending income, and nobody's actual result matches the table exactly.

Try it yourself

The YTD calculator lets you run the formula on any tracked coin, with any amount and any start date in 2026, and see what the position would be worth today. Or start from the live YTD leaderboard and open any coin's page for its baseline price, current price, and ranking.

Frequently asked questions

This page is educational only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency is volatile, and past performance does not guarantee future results.

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