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  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 33

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 33

    We made it! Or should we say: the cryptocurrency markets have made it. We are talking about reclaiming the total market valuation of $2 trillion, which happened on August 13, of course. Even though the total market valuation of the sector dipped below $2 trillion a few times throughout Week 32, the markets have always recovered, and the positive sentiment appears capable of driving the market capitalization further up. This time the main “culprits” for the market capitalization pump were not Bitcoin and Ethereum (although they did contribute their significant share), but large market cap altcoins including ADA and XRP, both of which are featured in the article below. ADA price grew by more than 50% in Week 32, while XRP price drew an even steeper line on the charts as it is up by 65% in the seven days. 

    1. Cardano (ADA)

    Cardano is a decentralized blockchain platform focused at creating a smart contract-enabled environment on which developers can build decentralized applications. Cardano utilizes a Proof-of-Stake consensus model and aims to provide a more sustainable, scalable, and transparent operation compared to other smart contract blockchains. The project was started in 2017 by Charles Hoskinson, a mathematician, who was once part of the Ethereum developer team. The team raised $62.2 million for project’s development through an ICO. The development of the project is now overseen by three main organizations, the IOHK, Cardano Foundation and Emurgo. Hoskinson and IOHK stive to follow the principles of academic peer review in the project’s development process. The native asset of the Cardano blockchain is called ADA, but previously this year, the project rolled-out an update, which allows users to issue other tokens on Cardano blockchain as well.

    Buy/Sell ADA

    ADA Climbs above $2 following the Alonzo Upgrade announcement

    Although the price of ADA has been climbing already before the revelation of the date of the Alonzo Upgrade, the official announcement that the Cardano developers are targeting to launch Alonzo upgrade on September 12, provided the kick that was needed to push ADA above $2. The date of the upgrade was delivered in the form of a video announcement from Cardano’s Nigel Hemsley. Later that day, IOHK confirmed the date mentioned in the video on Twitter:

    The reason why users and investors are in such high anticipation and why they almost went ecstatic following the announcement lies in the scale and importance of the “Alonzo Purple” upgrade, which will deploy fully functional advanced smart contract solutions to Cardano blockchain. This is expected to additionally boost the Cardano’s use cases and adoption. The high expectations from smart contract implementation are also one of the main reasons behind the amazing price performance of ADA, which grew in value by more than 10x from the beginning of the year. Despite lacking smart contract support, the project has already found multiple real world use cases. One of the largest and most publicized Cardano’s projects is the blockchain-based tamper-proof platform for storing records of educational performance developed in cooperation with the Ethiopian government.

    ADA, which currently trades at $2.17 per coin has a market capitalization of $68.1 billion, which makes it the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market cap. However, it is very likely that ADA will soon overtake BNB and claim the third place on the crypto “leaderboard”.

    2. XRP (XRP)

    XRP is a cryptocurrency that was launched in 2012 by Chris Larsen, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto. Ripple’s network uses a unique Ripple Protocol consensus algorithm (RPCA), which is neither proof-of-work nor proof-of-stake, to facilitate fast and cheap transactions. The maximum supply of XRP is 100 billion coins and all the coins were created at launch. Back than 80% of the total XRP supply was given to fintech firm Opencoin, a company that renamed to Ripple Labs in 2015. As of today, Ripple Labs still hold more than half of the total XRP supply. However, most of the company’s XRP holdings are locked in escrow and can only be accessed periodically. In 2020 Ripple became entangled in a lawsuit in which the U.S. SEC claims that the company sold unregistered securities. Ever since December 2020 the legal battle between Ripple and the SEC is one of the key factors influencing XRP price.

    Buy/Sell XRP

    XRP breaks $1 as new lawsuit development tips the balance in Ripple’s favour

    The evolution of events with regards to the ongoing U.S. SEC vs. Ripple lawsuit remains one of the key factors behind XRP price movements and the latest news from the courtroom floors seem to be more in Ripple’s favour than in SEC’s. Recently, the Court has approved Ripple’s request that the Commission reveals the documents and principles, which it applies in cryptocurrency related cases. The SEC on the other hand, is building their case on weaker and weaker grounds. They have requested Ripple’s internal communication data from messaging platform Slack and from the few documents they have received, they concluded that the Ripple employees demonstrated “desire to create speculative trading in XRP,” in the messaging thread. In addition, the SEC is accusing Ripple of disclosing incomplete communications data and withholding evidence. Several hearings have been scheduled in the following few weeks and the XRP price is undoubtedly going to move in accordance with the events in the courtrooms. The lawsuit, which will likely drag out until the end of the year, will influence not only Ripple but the cryptocurrency industry as a whole by setting the precedent case for cryptocurrency regulation.

    Despite the lawsuit which is making it hard to do business in the U.S., Ripple is still present and active on other markets. Last week the company announced that their network will be used to process transactions between a major South Korean remittance service provider GME Remittance and Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), Thailand’s leading bank by market cap.

    The aforementioned news has poured enough water to Ripple’s mill to trigger a small bull run. On August 11 the price of XRP surged above $1.00 for the first time in more than two months. At the time of writing, XRP is trading at a price of $1.28. Can more positive news push its value above $1.50?

    3. Flow (FLOW)

    Flow is a gaming and digital collectables blockchain developed by Dapper Labs, the team behind the cat breeding and collecting game Cryptokitties that seized the attention of the cryptocurrency world (and clogged the Ethereum blockchain) in 2017. Designed to be developer-friendly and as simple for the end users as possible, Flow aims to successfully cater the needs of the world’s franchise owners and attract many mainstream consumers. The Flow network relies on a proof-of-stake consensus model. Compared to Ethereum, Flow blockchain is more scalable as well as environmentally friendlier, but these advantages are only made possible because the developers opted for a more centralized approach.

    Buy/Sell FLOW

    Can Flow reach mass adoption by providing the perfect solution for the development of NFT-based games and digital collections?

    The idea of Flow emerged when Dapper Labs concluded that it is not the smartest move to rely on the congested Ethereum blockchain as the backbone of their future NFT ventures. The conclusion, which was likely heavily influenced by the past Ethereum gas price surges (for example the one caused by the Cryptokitties hype or the rise of DeFi) led to the creation of Dapper Labs’ own specialized gaming and digital collectables blockchain – Flow. The first organization to build using Flow as the core infrastructure for a game was the NBA. In fact, Dapper Labs was contracted by the NBA to develop Top Shot – the NBA’s NFT-based card game, so the NBA played an important role in Flow’s creation. However, since then flow has established partnerships with several big associations such as the UFC, Warner Music Group, Dr. Seuss, and more. In addition, Dapper Labs, Flow’s developer and parent company, has been funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, Samsung, and a few other important figures from the Big Tech.

    FLOW, the native currency of the Flow blockchain, sold for $ 0.10 per token in its ICO, which ended on October 6, 2020. Compared to its ICO price, the FLOW token valuation increased more than 220x against USD, more than 50x against Bitcoin and 24x against ETH. This gaming token, which is currently changing hands at a price of $22, has a market capitalization of $1.27 billion. However, FLOW still has a lot of space to grow, should other well-known brands follow the NBA’s lead.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 32

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 32

    The cryptocurrency market ended Week 31 with a total market capitalization of $1.80 trillion and the sector is now eying to reclaim the $2 trillion valuation. Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is up by more than 15% in the last 7 days and is trading above $45,000 for the first time after May 18. Ether on the other hand is successfully riding the wave caused by the London hardfork, which introduced a fee burning mechanism, resulting in ETH growing by more than 20% in the last 7 days. However, we have eyes on three different altcoins this week. Without a doubt, altcoins are a riskier investment than top tier coins, but the greater risk is compensated by higher potential returns on investment.

    1. Terra (LUNA)

    The Terra blockchain, which acts as the basis of the algorithmically governed stablecoin platform called Terra, is developed by a South Korean-based company Terraform Labs. The platform is built on the Cosmos technology and utilizes a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. LUNA is the reserve currency of the Terra platform. It has three key functions. These are ensuring the price stability of Terra stablecoins, mining Terra transactions through staking and providing incentives for the blockchain’s validators.

    Buy/Sell LUNA

    Users and Holders have High Expectations for the Upcoming Columbus-5 

    Terra users, LUNA holders and speculative investors are expecting to benefit from the upcoming massive Terra network upgrade called Columbus-5. The highly anticipated upgrade, often referred to as a game-changer for the Terra platform, will simplify the system’s tokenomics, introduce a LUNA burning mechanism, as well as allow integration with other blockchains. After the upgrade, Terra will be able to support interchain assets from Cosmos, Polkadot, and Solana blockchains. Holders, investors, and developers are hoping, that this will increase the platform’s use cases and boost its adoption. Even though the Columbus-5 upgrade is currently scheduled to launch sometime in Q3 2021, the high expectations are already affecting LUNA’s price. LUNA, which is currently changing hands at a price of $14.30 per coin, is up by almost 100% in the last month. I think you can see the reasons why LUNA is repeatedly being named as one of the altcoins with the highest potential in 2021. In more recent news, Bitfinex launched LUNA margin trading on August 5. 

    2. Voyager Token (VGX)

    The Voyager Token (VGX), formerly known as Ethos (ETHOS), is rewarded to the users of the Voyager crypto broker ecosystem. The token has a circulating supply of 220 million VXG and a total supply of 222 million tokens. When staked through the official Voyager app, the held VGX generate 7% interest. VGX can also be stored in its native wallet, the Ethos Universal Wallet which supports another 150+ cryptocurrencies. The Voyager team has plans to soon launch their own loyalty program with rich cashbacks and other rewards.

    Buy/Sell VGX

    VGX Surged after Voyager’s Acquisition of the Crypto Payment Processor Coinify

    Voyager Digital has recently announced the acquisition of the Danish cryptocurrency payment processor Coinify. Coinify’s crypto payments infrastructure allows merchants to accept digital assets while receiving pay-outs in traditional currencies. The platform supports more than 20 different fiat pay-outs and is available in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America. The attempt to expand Voyager’s range of services cost Voyager $85 million and was reportedly paid in cash and stock. Stephen Ehrlich, CEO and Co-founder of Voyager, thinks that this was a good deal, as he thinks “payments are the next frontier” in the cryptocurrency space. Investors and VGX holders seem to agree with Ehrlich, as the VGX token gained more than 50% last week, making it one of the most profitable crypto assets to hold among the top 100.  

    In addition, the Voyager team is in the process of rolling out the new Voyager Token, VGX 2.0. The official VGX token swap date is August 12. If you hold VGX on the Voyager app, your tokens will be swapped automatically on that date. In case you hold the tokens on unsupported exchanges or wallets, follow the instructions published here. After the competition of the swap, the Voyager token will continue trading under the same ticker – VGX. Furthermore, the much-anticipated launch of our Voyager Loyalty Program (VLP) featuring cashbacks and other rewards for users has been scheduled for September this year.

    3. Kava (KAVA)

    Developed by Kava Labs the Kava blockchain boasts with the title of the first multi-blockchain DeFi lending platform. Users are eligible for rewards in the form of KAVA tokens for depositing various cryptocurrencies to the protocol’s multi collateral CDP system. The Kava blockchain utilizes the Tendermint consensus and is secured by numerous validators. However, only the top 100 validators are eligible to receive staking rewards. In addition, Kava has established close partnerships with industry leaders such as Binance, Kraken and Ripple.

    Buy/Sell KAVA

    Kava Team is Preparing for the August 30 Kava Swap Mainnet Launch

    After successful launch of the Kava Swap Incentivized Testnet on July 12 and extensive testing, which took place until August 5, Kava team is now getting ready for the Kava Swap mainnet launch. On August 13, the team will publish the Kava Swap Testnet Retrospective, which will include a full list of the winners of the $120K testnet prize pool, in-depth statistics, and key project updates. Nevertheless, the date of the full mainnet launch of Kava Swap has already been revealed. The novel product from Kava Labs is essentially a cross-chain Autonomous Market Making (AMM) Protocol will go live on August 30. Once fully launched, Kava Swap will allow users to swap between tokens and earn rewards for providing liquidity to the protocol’s liquidity pools.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 31

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 31

    With the cryptocurrency markets making quite a noticeable recovery in Week 30 we are already looking forward to the potential gains of Week 31. Throughout Week 30 the total cryptocurrency market capitalization rose from $1.44 trillion to $1.65 trillion, which is one of the highest weekly relative increases in a while. In addition, Bitcoin rose back above $40,000 and kept trading above that valuation for more than two days. Is this the bullish signal we have all been waiting for? Which coins do you think can climb even higher? Find out three high-potential ideas below.

    1. Ethereum (ETH)

    Ethereum is an open-source distributed blockchain that pioneered smart contract functionality. It operates as a decentralized virtual machine that can execute scripts. The smart contracts operate in a fast, immutable and trustless manner, while the speeds and capabilities of the Ethereum blockchain are going to further increase when Ethereum 2.0 is fully launched. Ethereum’s native asset Ether (ETH) is currently the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Although it can also be used as a currency for transactions between different nodes, it is more commonly used to execute smart contracts. The Ethereum blockchain also hosts a number of ERC20 tokens with different utilities – these include Exchange tokens (BNB, OKB, HT, UNI), DeFi tokens (LINK, MKR, COMP, SNX, ZRX…) and several stablecoins such as USDC, DAI, TUSD, and USDT.

    Buy/Sell ETH

    Highly Anticipated London Hard Fork to Take Place on August 5 

    Although we already listed Ethereum in our top 3 coins to watch article for Week 29, the London mainnet upgrade is such an important milestone for the second-largest cryptocurrency project, that it requires another mention. We are now getting closer to block number 12,965,000, which will trigger the hard fork. It is now almost certain that the hard fork that consists of five Ethereum improvement protocols (EIPs), will execute on August 5. The most important is EIP-1559, which will make Ether gas costs more predictable and include a transaction fee burn feature that could potentially turn Ether into a deflationary asset. Although we are talking about a major hard fork, no action will be required by ETH holders, unless otherwise prompted by their cryptocurrency wallet service provider.

    In addition, the hype around non-fungible tokens (NFTs) appears to be gaining new momentum, especially if we are judging by the Ethereum-based NFT series CryptoPunks, which captured the attention of several Ether whales. Five of the top 10 pixelated CryptoPunks portraits have changed hands in the past few days, among which, one sold for $6 million worth of ETH. The record-breaking sales drove the average price of a CryptoPunk NFT up by 53% in the last week of July. As of August 1, an average collectible NFT representing a portrait from the Crypto Punks series was valued $135,000.

    But it is not only the prices of NFTs that are going up. Since we last wrote about Ethereum two weeks ago, the price per ETH has climbed by more than $500. ETH is currently changing hands at a price of $2.490 per coin but the price could further shoot up in the hours preceding the hard fork. 

    2. Neo (NEO)

    The NEO project started its journey in 2014 under the name “AntShares” and launched its first mainnet in 2016 following a successful initial coin offering (ICO). Soon after that, in 2017, the project rebranded to NEO. Holders of the NEO token periodically receive GAS, which is used for deploying and running smart contracts and dApps on the NEO blockchain. Both tokens (NEO and GAS) have a maximum supply of 100 million coins. What makes NEO stand apart from other tokens is that is indivisible, meaning that the smallest amount of NEO one can hold is 1 NEO and that the NEO blockchain relies on a dBFT (delegated byzantine fault-tolerant) consensus algorithm. The NEO platform also supports issuing custom tokens, with NEP-5 being the most commonly used standard for NEO-based tokens.

    Buy/Sell NEO

    NEO Rolls Out the NEO N3 on the Mainnet

    A few days ago the NEO team announced that they will be rolling out the highly anticipated NEO N3 to the mainnet on August 2 following successfully completing the testnet deployments. The revamped version of the NEO Legacy with an improved governance system and optimized architecture, NEO N3, is now already live on the mainnet. Besides already mentioned improvements, NEO N3 also introduced platform-native decentralized storage and data oracles. Combined with the platform’s multi-language support, NEO aims to remain a leading community-driven blockchain platform. Both NEO N3 and NEO Legacy currently coexist, and the forces of the NEO team are currently aimed at ensuring a smooth transition between the two versions. As stated by the team, the most critical step in the transition will be token migration, which will take on a two-step approach. NEO notes that the Early Bird migration will start one week following the NEO N3 genesis, this is August 9, while Mass Migration will start on September 1. During Mass Migration the NEO Foundation will run a special Token Migration Incentive Program to ensure that as many tokens as possible will be migrated to the newly-launched blockchain. Details regarding token migration can be found in the official blog post.

    3. Chainlink (LINK)

    Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network (DON) that provides data and price oracles, which act as a reliable feed of information for some smart contracts. Chainlink’s cryptocurrency price and real-world data oracles have seen numerous implementations and their popularity is still increasing. Their oracle service is one of the most reliable and trustworthy services available and the connection with smart contracts is end-to-end secured, leaving very little space for the manipulation of the execution of smart contracts. The platform ensures quality data by incentivizing providers of good data feeds. On the other hand, nodes that submit bad data will be punished by losing some of their staked LINK tokens. The project launched in 2017, when it also raised $32 million of funding through an ICO.

    Buy/Sell LINK

    Chainlink will organize its first Smart Contract Summit this week

    The Chainlink team is organizing Chainlink’s first-ever Smart Contract Summit this week. The SmartCon, which will last from August 5, 8:00 AM to August 7, 6:00 PM EDT, will be packed with keynotes, panels, and workshops from more than 200 industry-leading speakers from the world of blockchain, DeFi and NFTs. On what is going to be the largest Chainlink event this year, the organizers are expecting more than 1000 attendees from all around the world, who will familiarize themselves with the latest innovations in hybrid smart contracts, cross-chain communication, and scaling security in the DeFi sector. Without a doubt, the event will help spread the word about Chainlink’s oracles and their versatile use cases. In addition, researchers and engineers from Chainlink Labs will shine a light on the progress of Chainlink 2.0. You can find the full schedule, list of speakers and registration form for the SmartCon here.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 30

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 30

    The cryptocurrency market has ended the Week 29 with a total market capitalization of $1.44 trillion, which is around $140 billion more than at the end of the week. In addition, the cryptocurrency market saw quite a significant recovery during the first few hours (CEST) of Week 30 with most of the coins jumping up by 10% or more. At the time of writing, the total market value of all the cryptocurrencies combined already exceeds $1.56 trillion. Bitcoin, the market barometer, reclaimed the 50-day moving average and the general sentiment seems to be turning bullish again. If this uptrend will be sustained for a longer period, we could see a $2 trillion total market capitalization again. Whether this happens or not, it is undoubtedly worth checking out the coins listed in our weekly Top 3 Coins to Watch series, where we list coins that have the potential to outperform the rest of the market in the week to come.

    1. Uniswap (UNI)

    UNI is the governance token of the automated market maker (AMM) protocol Uniswap. UNI tokens are ERC-20 tokens that allow holders to decide on the future of Uniswap by voting on proposals. Uniswap’s platform, which facilitates quick swaps between various Ethereum-based tokens, has been struggling to keep its users and market share because of high fees on Ethereum in the beginning of 2021. However, with the launch of Uniswap V3 and the rise of Ethereum Layer 2 solutions, Uniswap is confidently reclaiming the pole position among decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

    Buy/Sell UNI

    Uniswap is Slowly but Steadily Reclaiming its Market Share

    While Uniswap and other Ethereum-based decentralized exchanges went through a rough patch this spring and lost a significant portion of their market share to Binance Smart Chain-based PancakeSwap, things are starting to look a lot better for Uniswap. According to Messari Research, Uniswap has successfully reclaimed much of its lost share of DEX weekly volume as its weekly trading volume represented 54% of the whole DEX trading volume at the end of Q2 2021. Messari noted that this is the highest Uniswap market share ever since November 2020. It is not a secret that Uniswap’s recovery was facilitated by the development of Layer 2 Ethereum solutions such as Polygon. In addition, an alpha version of Uniswap V3 has recently launched on Optimistic Ethereum, an Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution that uses optimistic rollups to facilitate instant transaction confirmations while keeping the costs of transactions as low as possible. It is therefore not surprising that the UNI token is heavily represented in the Grayscale’s DeFi Fund, whose holdings rebase daily based on a Coindesk’s DeFi index that tracks top 10 coins and tokens from the DeFi sector. As of today, UNI represents almost 50% of the DeFi Fund’s total AUM, which currently stands at $4.7 million.

    2. Polygon (MATIC)

    Polygon, previously known as Matic Network is an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution that aims to provide major scalability improvements to the biggest smart contract blockchain. The Polygon protocol plans to deliver supersonic speeds and throughput by utilizing a modified version of Plasma. Its Layer 2 solution consists of several simultaneously run Proof-of-Stake sidechains that regularly push the data to Ethereum, creating network checkpoints.

    Buy/Sell MATIC

    Polygon Launches Polygon Studios and Integrates with Wyre to Establish a Direct Fiat Onramp

    Polygon has recently revealed that it has founded Polygon Studios, a new arm of the project focused on Blockchain Gaming and NFT ecosystem. You might say Polygon is a bit late to the NFT party but at the other hand the saying goes that it is “better late than never”. Polygon Studios aims to become the go-to platform for large Web2.0 franchises looking to venture into the world of Web3.0 and the home for builders, developers, creators as well as NFT investors. In other news, Wyre has recently added USDC to their payment API allowing users to use fiat (converted to USDC) on various Polygon dApps. Wyre has essentially opened the doors for mass adoption among non-crypto users, which will hopefully boost the growth of the DeFi ecosystem on Polygon.

    As already mentioned, Polygon’s success also resembles in the declining market share of BSC-based PancakeSwap and recovering market share of Uniswap V3. However, Uniswap is not the only big project that has launched on Polygon. Since the rebrand from Matic Network, over 450 projects have partnered with Polygon. Today, Polygon performs more transactions per day than Ethereum mainnet. Polygon co-founder Jaynti Kanani commented on what he thinks is Polygon’s key to success saying: 

    “What sets Polygon apart from other L2 solutions is our Layer 2 aggregation approach, which allows developers to pick the scaling solution best suited for their needs, be it ZK, OPR, Data availability chain or other scaling approaches like our PoS commit-chain.”

    Polygon supporters believe that $10 per MATIC is not as delusional as other think, even though the token is currently trading at only $1.10.

    3. FTX Token (FTT)

    FTT is the official token and the backbone of the FTX cryptocurrency derivatives exchange. The total supply of FTT is 350 million tokens. FTX is a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange that offers futures, leveraged ERC-20 tokens and OTC trading. The developers of the FTX exchange aim to offer a first-class trading experience by constantly improving the platform and addressing the issues that are often left unaddressed on other mainstream exchanges. FTX focuses on developing and offering institutional-grade solutions.

    Buy/Sell FTT

    FTX Raises $900 million in a Record-breaking Series B Funding Round

    FTX exchange has recently completed a Series B Funding round, in which over 60 participants invested over $900 million into the popular exchange. Visible individuals like Paul Tudor Jones, Alan Howard, Izzy Englander, and firms including SoftBank, Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, Lightspeed and Third Point participated in the funding round, which now claims the title of the biggest investment round in a company from the cryptocurrency sector to date. The FTX’s record setting funding round more than doubled the previous record deal, held by Circle, which raised $440 million earlier this year. FTX’s postdeal valuation stands at $18 billion. FTT is currently changing hands at around $33 per token, its price is up by almost 30% in the last 30 days. The total market capitalization of $3.1 billion makes FTX Token the 4th largest token among the exchange tokens.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 29

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 29

    The cryptocurrency markets have again ended another week in the red resulting in another $100 million decrease of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization – the market cap dropped from $1.4 trillion to $1.3 trillion throughout Week 28. Very rare were the coins to end the week with a gain. Nevertheless, some coins and tokens are more likely to recover than the others. You can find three crypto assets that have the potential to appreciate in the following few weeks in the following article.

    1. Ethereum (ETH)

    Ethereum is an open-source distributed blockchain that pioneered smart contract functionality. It operates as a decentralized virtual machine which can execute scripts. The smart contracts operate in a fast, immutable and trust less manner, while the speeds and capabilities of the Ethereum blockchain are going to further increase when Ethereum 2.0 is fully launched. Ethereum’s native asset Ether (ETH) is currently the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Although it can also be used as a currency for transactions between different nodes, it is more commonly used to execute smart contracts. The Ethereum blockchain also hosts a number of ERC20 tokens with different utilities – these include Exchange tokens (BNB, OKB, HT, UNI), DeFi tokens (LINK, MKR, COMP, SNX, ZRX…) and several stablecoins such as USDC, DAI, TUSD, and USDT.

    Buy/Sell ETH

    Is ETH going to reclaim $2000 before the London Hardfork?

    Ethereum’s London upgrade mainnet launch has been confirmed to take place at block number 12,965,000. It is estimated that this block will be mined sometime between August 3 and August 5. The upgrade has already been rolled out and tested on the Ropsten, Goerli and Rinkeby testnets, so no major setbacks are expected. The upgrade consists of five Ethereum improvement protocols (EIPs), concernint the fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain, BASEFEE opcode, reduction in refunds, rejection of new contracts starting with the 0xEF byte and a Difficulty Bomb Delay to December 1, 2021. No special actions will be required for Ethereum users and ETH holders following the upgrade, unless otherwise prompted by their cryptocurrency exchange or wallet service providers. Node operators and miners, however, will have to update their Ethereum clients to their London-compatible version. In additon, miners will need to double their gas limit targets following the upgrade. 

    From a broader perspective Ethereum is in the proceess of transition towards Ethereum 2.0, which will introduce a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism as well as significantly improve scalability through sharding. Despite the genrally good sentiment ETH is down by more than 20% in the last 30 days. Last week the price of ETH has again dipped below $2000. Do you think that ETH would climb back up to (or even over) this psychological level?

    2. Binance Coin (BNB)

    Binance Coin (BNB) originally launched in 2017 as an ERC-20 token sold through an initial coin offering (ICO). In April 2019, the Binance Chain was launched, and all the ERC-20 tokens were replaced with the BNB coin, which became the native cryptocurrency of the new blockchain. Binance Chain is still completely centralized, with Binance having complete control of block management. Binance users who utilize BNB to pay for trading, withdrawal and listing fees enjoy significant discounts. While this used to be pretty much the only use case of BNB, the coin has a far greater utility now as it allows users to pay for gas fees, stake BNB, as well as participate in DeFi, liquidity pools, and DEX trading. In addition, the Binance ecosystem still keeps expanding, which means that new products and services are regularly added. In June, for example, Binance launched its own NFT marketplace.

    Buy/Sell BNB

    Quarterly BNB Burn and a New Binance Launchpad Project Set the Ground for BNB Appreciation

    The Binance team has announced that is has completed the 16th quarterly BNB burn, in which Binance regularly burns a part of its quarterly profits. On July 18 (Q2 2021 BNB burn) Binance destroyed 1,296,728 BNB worth approximately $390 million at the time of the burn. More burn transaction information can be found here.

    In addition, Binance has recently announced the next project to launch a token sale on their Launchpad. This will be Coin98, a project that aims to build a DeFi platform with a focus on multi-chain support. 5% of the total supply of C98 tokens will be distributed through the Binance Launchpad sale. The sale will follow a Launchpad subscription format, with the recording of user BNB balances starting at July 17 at 0:00 AM (UTC) and ending 7 days later, this is on July 23 at 0:00 AM (UTC). Tha average daily BNB balance over these 7 days will determine the maximum amount of BNB that a certain user will be able to commit to the Coin98 project. In addition to the BNB burn and the new project on the Launchpad, Binance’s stablecoin – BUSD is also growing its market capitalization. The value of BUSD in circulation has recently exceeded $10 billion. This makes BUSD and the 3rd largest stablecoin by market capitalization and the 9th largest cryptocurrency overall.

    3. Axie Infinity (AXS)

    Axie Infinity is a Pokemon-inspired blockchain-powered trading and battling online video game. The game, which has netted more than $42 million in NFT sales to date, is developed by a Vietnamese gaming studio Sky Mavis. Axie infinity players utilize Ethereum-issued tokens AXS and Small Love Potion (SLP) to breed, trade and battle with their virtual creatures called Axies. Each Axie is represented by an NFT, and the growing userbase and protocol revenue has made Axie Infinity one of the most expensive NFTs collections.

    Buy/Sell AXS

    Growing Number of Users Pushes Axie Infinity to 1st Place by dApp Revenue

    The already popular blockchain-based game Axie Infinity has recently been attracting a large number of new players, resulting in an exponential growth of its dApp users. The growing userbase has also translated to AXS token appreciation. AXS has surged from $3.90 on June 14, to ATH of $28.98 on July 15. While the token has dropped back to $16.00 in the meantime, AXS is still up by 280% in the last month. It is therefore not surprising that the Axie Infinity is among the most successful project to launch at Binance IEO. With the initial price of AXS set at $0.10 the project has granted the early investors a ROI of almost 170x. According to TokenTerminal, Axie Infinity is the dApp with by far the greatest protocol revenue. Over the last 30 days Axie Infinity has generated a protocol revenue of $85.3 million. To put it into a perspective, this is almost 7 times the protocol revenue of the popular DEX PancakeSwap from the same timeframe. The increasing popularity of the game could make both AXS and SLP a lucrative investment.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 28

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 28

    Comparing the total cryptocurrency market valuation of $1.42 trillion at the end of Week 27 to the one at the start of the week ($1.5 trillion) shows that there were on average no bigger moves throughout the week. Bitcoin, the barometer of the cryptocurrency space behaved in a similar manner, ending the week at an almost the same valuation as it has started the week – $34.500. Do you think that we will see bigger moves in Week 28? If this is the case, which coins or tokens are more likely to appreciate? Find out more in this week’s selection of top 3 coins to watch.

    1. Crypto.com (CRO)

    Crypto.com is a Hong Kong-based crypto debit card issuer and cryptocurrency exchange, which aims to increase the usage of cryptocurrency as a payment method for everyday purchases. The company started out under another name – Monaco. Monaco conducted a token sale between May and June of 2017, which raised a total of $26.7 million. The platform’s native CRO token offers discounted fees on the exchange, higher earnings on Crypto Earn, loans with low annual interest as well as 100% rebates on streaming services (Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime) for the Crypto.com’s card subscribers.

    Buy/Sell CRO

    Crypto.com Signs a $175 Million Sponsorship Deal with the UFC

    Cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com revealed on July 7 that they have established an important partnership with the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). According to sources familiar with the deal, Crypto.com cashed out $175 million, for being featured on fighter kits, canvases and in the octagon. In addition, Crypto.com will become the UFC’s official “Cryptocurrency Platform Partner”. The deal was signed for 10 years. UFC debuted the Crypto.com-themed clothing at the UFC 264 Poirier vs. McGregor ceremonial Weigh-Ins.

    Besides that, Crypt.com is present in pretty much all sectors of the cryptocurrency industry. It offers a cryptocurrency exchange, has crypto payment processor, an NFT platform and issues Visa cards for spending cryptocurrency balances with an up to 8% cashback in CRO token on credit card purchases (for comparison American Express only offers 1% cashback). The CRO token is currently trading at $0.128 and is up by more than 8% in the last 7 days and 9.5% in last 1 month. Throughout both periods CRO outperformed both ETH and BTC. Crypto.com platform userbase exceeded 10 million in February and with the UFC deal, the userbase is poised to grow further. We believe that CRO could easily climb back above $0.20.

    2. Cardano (ADA)

    Cardano is a decentralized blockchain platform focused at creating a smart contract-enabled environment, on which developers can build decentralized applications. Cardano utilizes a Proof-of-Stake consensus model and aims to provide a more sustainable, scalable, and transparent operation compared to other smart contract blockchains. The project was started by Charles Hoskinson, a mathematician, who was once part of the Ethereum developer team, in 2017. The team raised $62.2 million for project’s development through an ICO. The development of the project is now overseen by three main organizations, the IOHK, Cardano Foundation and Emurgo. Hoskinson and IOHK stive to follow the principles of academic peer review in the project’s development process. The native asset of the Cardano blockchain is called ADA, but previously this year, the project rolled-out an update, which enabled support for other Cardano-native tokens as well.

    Buy/Sell ADA

    Grayscale Investments adds ADA to its Digital Large Cap Fund

    The developers of Cardano, one of the most actively developed cryptocurrency projects, are not resting even during the summer. The global blockchain development company that stands behind the project Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) keeps announcing strategic partnerships by which Cardano is increasing its presence in different sectors of the cryptocurrency industry as well as increasing ADA’s utility. Last week, IOHK announced a partnership with a cryptocurrency lending platform Nexo, that will allow ADA holders to trade, borrow, and lend crypto on the Nexo Exchange. Perhaps another confirmation that Cardano is on the right path is that the major crypto asset management firm Grayscale Investments has included ADA in its Digital Large Cap Fund. The famous asset manager has reduced the share of Bitcoin in the Digital Large Cap Fund from 79.8% to 67.47% to add ADA, which now represents 4.26% of the fund, as well as increase its ETH exposure. The readjusmtents were part of the regular qarterly rebalancing.

    Nevertheless, some observers have exposed the fact that Cardano adoption is failing to meet the Charles Hoskinson’s optimistic predictions as the blockchain’s founder forecasted in 2020 that there will be 100s tokens and 1000s dApps running on Cardano blockchain in one year’s time. The reality is a bit different though, as the Cardano still has not deployed the smart contract functionality. Hoskinson responded to the criticizm saying that those who don’t see the progress since last year haven’t been paying attention. In addition, the Alonzo upgrade that will bring the smart contract functionality to the Cardano blockchain is set to start rolling out soon. From a technical standpoint, however, ADA is not doing great as it recently dipped below the ascending channel’s support line on the ADA/BTC graph. Will we have to wait for the Alonzo upgrade to reverse the downward trend?

    Cardano (ADA) dipped bellow the support line on the ADA/BTC trading pair. Therefore, technical analyst YokoCrypto believes ADA is headed to further lows. (Source: YokoCrypto)

    3. Band Protocol (BAND)

    Band Protocol is a cryptocurrency oracle solution that aims to establish a standard framework for the collective data curation. This reliable and trustless data sources (oracles) can then be used to feed the codes of various decentralized technology protocols and blockchain applications. 

    Buy/Sell BAND

    Band Mainnet Network to Upgrade to Phase 2 on July 13     

    Developers of the Band Protocol have announced that the Band protocol mainnet will be upgraded from Phase 1 (GuanYu) to Phase 2 (Laozi) at block 7486289. This is expected to occur at 11:00 am UTC on July 13. However, the Phase 2 (Laozi) chain will only go live 6 hours after the upgrade completes, meaning that the BandChain network will be down for around 6 hours. Most of the exchanges have opted to disable BandChain token deposits and withdrawals during this period. Nevertheless, the BAND ERC-20 token will function as normal. The highly anticipated upgrade will introduce streaming revenue for data providers, an Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC protocol) to boost cross-chain compatibility and optimized network throughput. Once the Phase 2 is fully deployed, users will be able to access their holdings via the same wallets, private keys, and mnemonics. 

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 27

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 27

    We saw some slight signs of recovery on the cryptocurrency markets during the first few days of Q3 2021 as total market capitalisation of the sector rose back to $1.5 trillion. After several weeks of red numbers, the majority of top 100 cryptos finally ended the week in the green again. But what is next? Which cryptocurrencies are poised to continue following the uptrend? You can find three ideas for your potential investments in Week 27 in this article.

    1. Ethereum Classic (ETC) 

    Ethereum Classic emerged through a hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain in 2016 following the controversial debate around how the community should respond to the DAO hack, in which $50 million worth of ETH were stolen. Most of the community voted that the stolen funds should be reimbursed and the chain in which the illicit transaction was reversed lives on as the Ethereum main chain. However, some Ethereum developers and users believed immutability was a crucial aspect of blockchains and that hard forks should not be used to reverse the transactions that happened on the Ethereum blockchain. This camp did not reverse the DAO hack transactions in the hard fork and their chain became known as Ethereum Classic. Widely regarded as the only Ethereum fork of significance, Ethereum Classic maintains the continuity of the Ethereum blockchain using Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm and there are currently no plans to transition to Proof-of-Stake. As opposed to ETH, the total supply of ETC is capped at 210 million ETC.

    Buy/Sell ETC

    Ethereum Classic to Undergo Magneto Network Upgrade on July 7    

    The Ethereum Classic developers have confirmed that Magento Upgrade is coming to the Ethereum Classic Mainnet at block number 13189133, which is estimated to be mines on July 7. The Magento upgrade, which will need to be deployed in the form of a blockchain hard fork, includes four Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP) that were a part of the Ethereum’s Berlin upgrade earlier this year. The EIP’s are aimed at optimizing the network’s security while saving gas at the same time as well as improving the interoperability of the Ethereum Classic network. Beta testing of the upgrade on Ethereum Classic’s testnets began already in June. As no major issues occurred, the Magento is now scheduled to be deployed on the mainnet. Developers warn node operators to upgrade their clients to their Magneto-ready versions. At the moment, Hyperledger Besu v21.1.7 and Core Geth v1.12.2 are Magento-ready, while Magento-compatible version of the Mantis client is still awaiting release. 

    2. Helium (HNT) 

    Helium aims to build a decentralized wireless internet infrastructure owned not by telecom conglomerates, but by the people – hence the name “the People’s Network”. Anyone who wishes to contribute to a more connected future can join the decentralized machine network by setting up a wireless network in their city and operating a Helium Hotspot, for which the operators are rewarded in HNT tokens. The People’s Network utilizes two units of exchange: HNT and Data Credits and their circulating supply is determined based on a Burn-and-Mint Equilibrium token model. The Helium blockchain also relies on a special Proof-of-Coverage (PoC) algorithm to verify that Helium hotspots are located where their operators claim.

    Buy/Sell HNT

    Helium to Enable HNT Staking and Network Validators Election on July 7      

    The Helium developers have revealed that the HNT staking process will be activated on Helium mainnet on July 7. In addition to running wireless internet access points and mining HNT, it is now possible to stake HNT and have a chance to get elected to become a validator node and earn HNT rewards. Users will be required to stake 10,000 HNT and have enough technical skills to run a full node to become an independent validator. Nevertheless, users can also stake smaller amounts of HNT through staking providers. Already more than 600 nodes are in operation with a combined total of over 6,000,000 HNT staked. If you wish to join the Helium Mainnet validator community, you can find more information here. 

    3. Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHA) and eCash (XEC)

    Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHA) is a blockchain that has forked away from both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash ABC emerged after November 2020’s Bitcoin Cash fork triggered by a dispute in the mechanism of funding the blockchain’s development. Bitcoin Cash developer Amaury Sechet advocated for an 8% developer tax on all newly mined Bitcoin Cash coins. Needless to say, the majority of the Bitcoin Cash community did not agree with the tax and Bitcoin Cash ABC turned out as the minority chain of the hard fork.

    Buy/Sell BCHA

    Bitcoin Cash ABC rebrands to a faster and Proof-of-stake powered eCash

    Bitcoin Cash ABS project re-launch as eCash on July 1. The new, rebranded and improved blockchain has an integrated proof-of-stake consensus layer “Avalanche”. In addition to introducing staking, eCash aims to significantly increase the speed of transactions as compared to the old blockcahin. Bitcoin Cash ABS’s users BCHA holdings will be converted to XEC at a ratio of 1 to 1.000.000 once the plan is intiated. At the same time eCash will reduce the number of decimal places down from eight to two. According to eCash lead developer Amaury Sechet, this is because “no other money has eight decimal places” and “cryptocurrencies with a lower unit price also enjoy higher bull market appreciation”. However, in our opinion, it the switch to PoS that is could notably boost the coin’s appreciation. Chinese media outlet Wu Blockchain, noted the project is also planning to integrate EVM-compatibility and facilitate interoperability with the Ethereum’s flourishing DeFi sector. BCHA is dropped by 16% since the rebrand and is currently trading at around $30,00 per coin. The drop pushed BCHA out of the top 100 cryptocurrencies. Will eCash manage to regain the lost value of BCHA?

    Buy/Sell XEC
  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 26

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 26

    Just when we thought the crypto markets cannot plunge lower, we got hit by the last full week of Q2 2021, which was characterized by the total market valuation low of $1.27 trillion and Bitcoin dipping below $30,000 for the first time since January 27. Without a doubt, this is the period of the bears. But even when bears are ravaging almost every crypto asset, you can still find shelter by carefully selecting the coins you invest in. Perhaps you can find some inspiration in out top 3 coins to watch for next week.

    1. Bitcoin (BTC)

    Although we believe Bitcoin does not need much introduction and that all eyes would be on it even if it were not featured on our list, here is a short summary of the history and key characteristics of the first truly decentralized digital currency. The world’s pioneer cryptocurrency was launched by pseudonymous figure named Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 and has a capped supply of 21 million coins. The decreasing miner block rewards makes the cryptocurrency scarcer with time, ensuring a deflationary nature. Bitcoin is also often referred to as the barometer of the cryptocurrency market as other assets usually follow BTC’s price performance.

    Buy/Sell BTC

    Market sentiment is turning bearish, but some analysts still believe BTC could end the year at a valuation higher than $100,000

    As already mentioned, Bitcoin dipped below $30,000 for a bit more than an hour on June 22. While cryptocurrency markets are known to be volatile, dipping lower than a round valuation or breaking a well-known support level has a predominantly psychological effect on investors, as Bitcoin has never traded below $30,000 since January 27, meaning that this broke the almost five months long strike. 

    A quick Twitter poll conducted by user @100trillionUSD also shows how the Bitcoin market sentiment has shifted almost a full 180 degrees in less than three months.

    In this period (last 3 months) Bitcoin dropped by a whopping 43% and technical analysis shows that Bitcoin needs to convincingly go above $42k to put an end to the bearish sentiment.

    After China’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies and the country’s central bank instructing institutions not to provide trading, clearing and settlement for crypto transactions, the Chinese miners found themselves in a very tough position. While Chinese ban on crypto has contributed a lion’s share to the ongoing bearish market trend, the country’s decision has also caused the drop of Bitcoin hashrate as several huge mining operations were forced to shut down. However, miners are already moving their equipment out of the country and establishing Bitcoin mines elsewhere, which will likely cause the network hashrate to stabilize again. One publicly listed Bitcoin mining company from China has reportedly already shipped all their miners to Kazakhstan. However, according to Tone Vays, miners in certain areas with excess energy can mine Bitcoin at a cost as low as $6,000 per coin, which could negatively affect the Bitcoin price in the short-term. Nevertheless, Vays is still confident in Bitcoin’s long-term prospects as well as the speculation that it will trade at a price over $100k by year’s end.

    2. Cardano (ADA)

    Cardano is a decentralized blockchain platform focused at creating a smart contract-enabled environment, on which developers can build decentralized applications. Cardano utilizes a Proof-of-Stake consensus model and aims to provide a more sustainable, scalable, and transparent operation compared to other smart contract blockchains. The project was started by Charles Hoskinson, a mathematician, who was once part of the Ethereum developer team, in 2017. The team raised $62.2 million for project’s development through an ICO. The development of the project is now overseen by three main organizations, the IOHK, Cardano Foundation and Emurgo. Hoskinson and IOHK stive to follow the principles of academic peer review in the project’s development process. The native asset of the Cardano blockchain is called ADA, but previously this year, the project rolled-out an update, which enabled support for other Cardano-native tokens as well.

    Buy/Sell ADA

    Cardano has Allegedly Secured Another Major Deal with a Government of an African County

    Besides being one of the most actively developed cryptocurrency projects Cardano is also doing a very good job at securing deals and implementing Cardano blockchain-based solutions to address real-world problems. In April we heard that the country of Tanzania will partner with Cardano’s parent company IOG to bring mobile internet connectivity, digital identity, and financial empowerment to inhabitants of rural parts of the country. However, the Cardano developers have recently revealed that another deal with another African country, that could bring an additional 1 million users to the Cardano ecosystem, is on the table. John O’Connor, director of African operations at IOHK, recently tweeted: 

    O’Connor tried not to disclose to many details about the deal, but he still revealed that the implementation will make use of the Cardano smart contracts feature (soon to be deployed through the Alonzo upgrade) and that it is somehow related to microloans and collateralized loans. Furthermore, it will be an open finance solution, meaning that third-party developers will be able to build applications and services around the financial framework through the use of open APIs. O’Connor also touched on the topic of cryptocurrency adoption and said that the main tipping point in adoption rates will come when people will not even realize they are using a blockchain-based solution. He said:

    “A year down the line, you not even realize it, but Cardano could be the back-end financial rails for these huge businesses, and the customer won’t even know.”

    The bottom line is that if you agree with the saying “buy the rumour, sell the news”, now might be a good time to buy ADA.

    3. Theta Token (THETA)

    The Theta Token is the native asset of a decentralized video delivery network Theta. You could also call Theta a blockchain-based YouTube or Twitch. The Theta platform incentivises various network participants via the use of cryptocurrencies.

    Buy/Sell THETA

    The Theta Mainnet 3.0 Launch Scheduled for June 30

    The long-awaited Theta Mainnet 3.0 launch is now finally just behind the corner after its launch got postponed from April 21. The mainnet upgrade, which has been announced already in December last year will implement a network fee burning mechanism into the Theta protocol. Already at this moment, Theta users are utilizing TFuel to pay for the costs of using the Theta Edge network. On Mainnet 3.0, however, at least 25% of each TFuel payment will be burned at the protocol level, decreasing TFuel supply. Mainnet 3.0 will also introduce Elite Edge Node “Uptime Mining” and allow TFuel staking. You can find more information regarding the launch in this recent Theta blog post.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 25

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 25

    If you thought that the total valuation of the cryptocurrency markets cannot plunge lower, you were mistaken, as another week characterized by red numbers is behind us. All the top 10 cryptocurrencies excluding stablecoins, have lost value towards USD throughout the past week, which pushed the total market capitalization at the end of week 24 down to as low as $1.45 trillion. Hope that we see more green numbers in Q3. But if you want to see profit already at the end of week 25, these three coins are, in our opinion, your best bet.

    1. Ethereum (ETH)

    Ethereum is an open-source distributed blockchain that pioneered smart contract functionality. It operates as a decentralized virtual machine which can execute scripts. The smart contracts operate in a fast, immutable and trust less manner, while the speeds and capabilities of the Ethereum blockchain are going to further increase when Ethereum 2.0 is fully launched. Ethereum’s native asset Ether (ETH) is currently the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Although it can also be used as a currency for transactions between different nodes, it is more commonly used to execute smart contracts. The Ethereum blockchain also hosts a number of ERC20 tokens with different utilities – these include Exchange tokens (BNB, OKB, HT, UNI), DeFi tokens (LINK, MKR, COMP, SNX, ZRX…) and several stablecoins such as USDC, DAI, TUSD, and USDT.

    Buy/Sell ETH

    London Upgrade Scheduled to hit the Ropsten Testnet on June 24

    The much-anticipated London upgrade, which features several important EIPs is scheduled to go live on Ethereum testnets. London upgrade will be deployed on the Ropsten testnet at block 10499401, which is estimated to be added to the chain on June 24. Goerli and Rinkeby will receive the upgrade 6 and 13 days later respectively. Mainnet London launch date remains to be determined. The team also noted that the Kovan test network will be upgraded at a later date, likely once the upgrade will already be running on Mainnet.

    The London upgrade includes 5 Ethereum Improvement Protocols (EIPs): the EIP-1559, which will make some changes to the fee market for ETH 1.0, EIP-3198 that will introduce an opcode that would give the EVM access to the block’s base fee, EIP-3529 that will remove gas refunds, EIP-3541 that implements a rule about rejecting new contracts starting with the 0xEF byte, and EIP-3554 that will delay the difficulty bomb to December 1, 2021. In a world where several prominent industry insiders believe that Ethereum will outperform Bitcoin, pushing forward with continued development is crucial to achieve that goal.

    2. Binance (BNB) 

    Binance Coin (BNB) was originally launched in 2017 as an ERC-20 token sold through an initial coin offering (ICO). In April 2019, the Binance Chain was launched, and all the ERC-20 tokens were replaced with the BNB coin, which became the native cryptocurrency of the new blockchain. Binance Chain is still completely centralized, with Binance having complete control of block management. Binance users who utilize BNB to pay for trading, withdrawal and listing fees can enjoy significant discounts. While this used to be pretty much the only use case of BNB, the coin has a far greater utility now as it allows users to pay for gas fees, stake BNB, as well as participate in DeFi, liquidity pools, and DEX trading.

    Buy/Sell BNB

    Binance NFT Marketplace Goes Live on June 24

    The famous cryptocurrency conglomerate Binance is soon expanding their range of offered services by launching a Binance NFT marketplace. The platform for buying and selling digital art pieces will go live on June 24. To kick off the NFT platform, Binance is presenting the “100 Creators” program, an NFT drop event that will feature content from 100 artists and creators, including Allen Iverson, Atletico Mineiro, Dynamo Kyiv, and the Ugandan National Museum. The full list of participating artists can be found here. The marketplace will support visual art content as well as unique digital collector’s items from gaming, sports, and music industries. In addition, BNB holders are already in expectation of the BNB quarterly burn, which is conducted at the end of each quarter. Judging by historical burn dates, the Q2 2021 BNB token burn should take place sometime around July 15. 

    3. CargoX (CXO)

    The CargoX Platform is an Ethereum-based blockchain document transfer platform. The project aims to revolutionize and digitalize the logistics industry and its platform is already being utilized by the Egyptian Customs Authority. While the platform was developed with the shipping sector in mind, it can also be used in financial, manufacturing, trading, energy, services companies, and even governmental agencies. CargoX’s solution enables a fast, secure, and auditable way to transfer original documents as well as ownership of these documents. In addition, it facilitates distributed teamwork even with assets that would normally have to be handled manually in the corporate office environment, which proved to be extremely useful during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Buy/Sell CXO

    CargoX’s platform processes more than 100 documents a day

    The project, which pioneered a Smart Bill of Lading (B/L) already has a fully functional product and platform and is burning 100 CXO tokens per every document processed through their platform. Recently, the platform is processing record number of documents. On Wednesday, June 16, CargoX processed more than 100 documents (141 to be exact) for the first time in the history. The day after, already more than 200 smart documents have been sent using the platform. The high number of documents will likely lead to a large CXO burn, which could boost the token’s appreciation. In addition, from July 1 every importer into Egypt will be obliged to register the products he is importing through the Advance Cargo Information System, which uses CargoX platform as its backbone. This will, without a doubt, further boost the number of documents that get processed every day. Furthermore, the project is also suited for land and air freight and is looking to make a breakthrough to the Asian markets. CXO is currently trading at $0.386596 per token – a price, which could look absurdly low in a few years.