Today's Top 3 Crypto Gainers: Bitcoin Gold's Unexplained 40% Gain

A crypto that hasn't updated its blog for a year tops today's gainers.

Several top cryptocurrencies edged very slightly into the green this morning as the total market cap gained around 2.5%. But Bitcoin (BTC) continues to hover around the $30,000 mark. In fact, the lead crypto has now registered eight weeks in the red -- it's lowest ever streak of consecutive losses. Plus, the fear and greed index continues to register extreme fear. However, several top cryptos saw double-digit gains in the past 24 hours. Read on to find out more about today's top gainers.

Bitcoin Gold (BTG) -- up over 40%

Bitcoin Gold is today's biggest gainer, but it is difficult to know what's driving its increase of over 40% overnight. According to CoinMarketCap data, BTG increased from around $20 to $29 in a matter of hours. Bitcoin Gold says it aims to make Bitcoin decentralized again by changing the mining models. The idea is that people can mine Bitcoin Gold using the graphics processing units (GPUs) in ordinary computers rather than needing to buy expensive hardware.

What's strange is that there's no major news from the currency that was formed as a hard fork of Bitcoin in 2017. There have been no updates to Bitcoin Gold's blog since last May. Its Twitter feed is similarly out of date, and the only recent comments on the Reddit forum are crypto promotions. As an investor, the lack of updated information is a major red flag. Another is that BTG is not available from many top U.S. crypto exchanges.

Loopring (LRC) -- up almost 30%

The layer 2 blockchain that is designed to make Ethereum (ETH) transactions faster and cheaper is up 28% in 24 hours. The most likely reason for the jump is the launch of GameStop's new crypto wallet, which will use Loopring to execute transactions. Users will be able to store, send, and receive both crypto and NFTs in the new non-custodial wallet, available as a browser extension from the Chrome store. GameStop says the wallet will eventually work with its NFT marketplace.

Fantom (FTM) -- up 20%

Smart contract crypto, Fantom, is one of many Ethereum alternatives that surged last year. It's up today on speculation that Andre Cronje, a major player in the decentralized finance (DeFi) world, might return to the project. Cronje founded the Yearn Finance DeFi protocol and was a technical advisor to the Fantom Foundation. Fantom's struggled in recent months, in part due to Cronje's unexpected departure and also because its DEI stablecoin lost its peg in the stablecoin shakeup surrounding Terra's collapse. 

Bottom line

Today's top three gainers are a strange illustration of the currents that can move the crypto waters -- there's one that jumped for an unknown reason, another on a solid news announcement, and a third on speculation. There are times we can see exactly what's going on, but at others it can take days before we find out. 

As an investor, be wary about buying a crypto that's just made a double-digit increase, whatever the reason. Even more so if you don't know why or if you fear speculation may have pushed the price to unsustainable levels. Take time to do your own research and work out how that project fits into your portfolio. And if an altcoin doesn't have any recent activity on its social media feeds, find out why before you press that buy button.