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Stay updated with our hand-picked featured news, top market insights, and the most important stories from the cryptocurrency world.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 42

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 42

    After another week of green numbers, the cryptocurrency market has climbed to a total valuation of $2.52 trillion. Most of the total market capitalization increase can be attributed to appreciation of the 3 largest cryptocurrencies – BTC, ETH and BNB, which gained 7%, 5% and 10% respectively last week. Bitcoin, which climbed as high as $62,500 during Week 41 is again in the centre of attention. However, the reason is not only its amazing price performance, but also the rumoured launch of a US Bitcoin futures-based ETF. We are very excited to see what Week 42 has to offer for the crypto investors and followers.

    3. Olympus DAO (OHM)

    Olympus DAO is a decentralized reserve currency protocol that launched and operated the OHM token. OHM token is a free-floating reserve currency. It must be emphasized that OHM is not a stablecoin as it is not pegged to any government issued currency, such as USD. Olympus DAO notes that the perception that stablecoins always keep their value is false, as the currency they are pegged to can depreciate, meaning that the stablecoin depreciates as well, even though its dollar denoted price stays the same (say 1.00 USD). To address this issue, OHM is backed by a basket of assets kept in the Olympus treasury. Each OHM is backed by, but not pegged to, 1 DAI. If OHM trades below 1 DAI, the protocol will buy back and burn OHM. In addition, Olympus offers staking and bonding based on unique game theory-based incentives and penalties. 

    Buy/Sell OHM

    OHM rallied to over $1300 riding on strong project fundamentals and Olympus v2 announcement

    Olympus has been recently very successful in terms of cross platform integrations. Among the latest integrations is OHM/TOKE staking pool that is expected to launch next month following the vote that showed that TokeMAK community members support Olympus DAO’s inclusion to Token reactor network. In addition, the developers of the reserve currency project recently announced Olympus v2, which will feature improved decentralization and immutability, revamped bond offerings and the launch of Olympus Pro. All this positive news inevitably translated to a growing OHM price, which recently shot above $1300 again. While the price has since dropped to $800, OHM is expected to perform well in the future, both due to the strong fundamentals as well as the protocol tokenomics. According to data provided by OpenOrgs.info, Olympus DAO’s treasury currently holds over $370 million worth of assets and is the seventh-largest DAO treasury in existence. Furthermore, Olympus partner Rari Capital offers a 7,900% return on supplied sOHM. It is no wonder that sOHM is one of the most staked assets on DeFi protocol Rari Capital.

    2. Polkadot (DOT)

    Polkadot is a blockchain solution that allows multiple specialized blockchains called parachains to run at the same time and interoperate. Polkadot can connect diverse blockchains into a single, decentralized and highly scalable ecosystem. The network operates using a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm and utilizes a native currency DOT. The project was originally designed by Dr. Gavin Wood, one of the co-founders of Ethereum and the inventor the smart contract programming language named Solidity. Along with Cardano, Solana, and several other networks Polkadot is considered one of the potential “Ethereum killers”.

    Buy/Sell DOT

    Polkadot Parachain auction schedule approved, first auction scheduled for November 11

    Polkadot Council has recently approved the parachain auctions schedule. The first batch of five parachain slots will be auctioned on a weekly basis with the first auction slated for November 11. Each slot auction will last 7 days, but the first five parachain auction winners will only be deployed to Polkadot on December 15. The winning projects will get a parachain slot for a duration of 96 weeks. The Polkadot Council has also approved the second batch of five parachain slots. The auction of the second batch will begin on December 23 and will take on the same format as the first batch, except that a new slot auction will begin on a bi-weekly basis as opposed to one slot auction every week in batch #1. Interestingly, cryptocurrency giant Binance already announced that they will support the Polkadot Parachain Slot Auction process in order to help with Polkadot’s ecosystem development. The exchange noted that more info about the event and its support of it is coming soon. Following the competition of the Parachain Slot Auction vote, DOT jumped up by more than 20% and reclaimed $40 valuation. Polkadot’s native currency is still changing hands around that value. Nevertheless, technical analysis and historical events from Kusama, Polkadot’s canary network, shows that DOT could be eying a breakthrough to $75, while some people in the industry are optimistic that we will see DOT changing hands at $100. Let’s remember that KSM, the native token of Kusama, surged by more than 70% following the announcement of first Kusama parachain slot auctions in February 2021. If DOT manages to pull a rally of a similar magnitude, $75 is a totally reachable target.

    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

    The first-ever US Bitcoin futures ETF could very likely commence trading next week

    According to Bloomberg, the US SEC is likely not going to oppose the proposal for a Bitcoin futures-based exchange traded fund (ETF) filed by ProShares within the determined deadline, which expires this week. This effectively means that these BTC futures ETFs could hit the US market. Although the regulator has repeatedly rejected every Bitcoin ETF application for the better part of the last decade the ETF proposal in question is based on Bitcoin futures contracts and not BTC itself. In addition, the proposal was filed under mutual fund rules, which the SEC Chairman Gary Gensler believes provide significant investor protections. Both the US SEC spokesperson as well as an official from ProShares declined to comment the news, while Bloomberg cites anonymous people close to the matter as the source of the information. To sum it up, this is almost pure speculation for now, however, if the news does turn out to be true, it could give BTC market a significant boost. BTC and the crypto market as a whole have experienced substantial growth in the past two weeks, and a Bitcoin ETF being traded in the US could very likely push the price of Bitcoin past its previous ATH of $64,800.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 41

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 41

    Last week Bitcoin broke the $55,000 resistance level and now seems to be headed to reclaim the $60,000 valuation. Along the way, Bitcoin’s total market capitalization also surpassed $1 trillion. Ethereum and many other altcoins largely followed the bullish trend, carrying the total market capitalization of the crypto sector above $2.3 trillion. Although we believe BTC and ETH are almost always a sound investment, we went on the lookout for greater potential returns this week, which means that we had to venture in riskier and often also more speculative markets, such as meme tokens and blockchain gaming. However, be aware that this article does not constitute financial advice and that you should always do your own research prior to investing.


    3. Shiba Inu (SHIB)

    Shiba Inu (SHIB) is a meme token that was launched in August 2020 by the anonymous founder known as “Ryoshi”. Shiba Inu aspires to be an Ethereum-based alternative to the more popular and longer-running meme coin – Dogecoin (DOGE). At launch, 50% of the Shiba Inu’s total supply was sent to Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum wallet, making SHIB a unique community experiment as well. Ethereum co-founder ended up donating 10% of the supply to a COVID-19 relief effort in India and burned the rest of his SHIB holdings. It is worth mentioning that his donation was worth around $1 billion at that time. While SHIB began as a fun experimental currency it is now transforming into a decentralized ecosystem.

    Buy/Sell SHIB

    SHIB’s 300% rally carried the meme currency among the top 15 cryptos by market capitalization

    As it is usual for meme coins rallies, there is no clear fundamental explanation as to why SHIB soared more than 300% last week. Many crypto observers say that the meme token’s performance is closely linked to Elon Musk’s social media activity. Tesla CEO, who recently got a new puppy of the Shiba Inu breed, posted two pictures of his new four-legged companion named Floki. This triggered rallies in all dog-related cryptocurrency markets, including DOGE, FLOKI and SHIB as the crypto community overly interpreted Musk’s puppy tweets as hidden and cryptographic coin endorsements. In the days following the second tweet, SHIB soared from $ 0.000009 to $ 0.000035 almost exceeding its ATH price of $ 0.000038, which was set on May 10, 2021. As a result of the price surge, the meme token found itself positioned within the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market cap (at one brief moment SHIB was listed on 12th position). SHIB’s price has since corrected, and the token is currently changing hands at a price of $ 0.000026. The total SHIB market capitalization is currently $10.2 billion, which puts the token on the 20th place.

    May it be because of Musk’s tweets or not, Shiba Inu has lately been seeing a large influx of new users, which can be seen in the increasing number of active addresses. Due to the increased attention, Shiba Inu has also increased the number of followers on social media. Shiba Inu’s official Twitter account, for example, recently celebrated crossing 1 million followers. In addition, the recently introduced SHIB burning program has made SHIB a deflationary token, which is another factor contributing towards token appreciation over time. If the SHIB rally was fuelled purely by speculation and hype, the price of SHIB will likely drop as fast as it rose. However, if investors and developers recognize SHIB as a valuable and promising token due to reasons listed above, SHIB may retain its value or even set a new ATH price in the near future.

    2. Axie Infinity (AXS)

    Axie Infinity is a Pokémon-inspired blockchain-powered trading and battling online video game. The game, which has netted more than $2 billion 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. Blockchain-based gaming sector is currently booming and games facilitating the ”play to earn” concept are especially popular. Axie Infinity is a prime example of such a blockchain gaming project, which has resulted in AXS appreciation as well. AXS token is not only the best performing gaming token, but also the best performing cryptocurrency from the top 200 this year as AXS price increased over 200x YTD.

    Buy/Sell AXS

    AXS sets a new ATH price of $154 following the launch of AXS staking and a massive airdrop to early-adopters

    Riding the tailwind of booming popularity of the blockchain gaming platforms, Axie Infinity (AXS) climbed towards its new ATH price of nearly $155 last week. However, since AXS is outperforming every other gaming token and even every other cryptocurrency, there must be more reasons behind the latest AXS rally. The already popular game and token were made even more desirable by players and investors by the launch of AXS token staking on September 30. Since many players are trying to make profit by playing this play-to-earn (P2E) game, the promised APR of 240% for stakers made AXS a very sought-after asset. According to the official AXS staking dashboard, users have staked almost $2 billion worth of AXS tokens in an attempt to get a share of the 78.3 million AXS that the Axie Infinity team has put aside for staking rewards. As a result of the high amount of staked AXS the estimated APR has dropped to 140%, which is still substantially more than staking rewards of many other protocols. In less than four days following the roll-out of AXS staking, the price of AXS more than doubled, reaching a high at $154 on October 4. In addition, the team behind Axie Infinity decided to generously reward its early users by airdropping 800,000 AXS (currently worth around $94 million) to around 10,000 wallets that interacted with Axie protocol prior to October 26, 2020. Some of the more active players were happy to find out that their wallets suddenly contained quite a small fortune. Furthermore, Jeff Zirlin, the Co-founder and growth lead at Sky Mavis, the company developing Axie Infinity, recently revealed that they are planning to launch a decentralized exchange (DEX) service with trading functionality limited to crypto assets within the Axie Infinity ecosystem, which will allow players to trade and use tokens all within the same ecosystem without having to constantly use network bridges.

    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, which is the reserve currency of the Terra platform, has three key functions; these are ensuring the price stability of Terra stablecoins, mining Terra transactions through staking and providing incentives to blockchain validators.

    Buy/Sell LUNA

    Terra’s interoperability with Solana and Polkadot causes LUNA to surge to a new ATH of almost $50

    The Columbus-5 upgrade, which we already wrote about four weeks ago, took place on September 30. Besides massively overhauling Terra’s tokenomics, the Columbus-5 upgrade gave Terra the ability to communicate and interact with protocols in the Cosmos ecosystem such as Solana and Polkadot. Due to this new interoperability, Terra and its TerrUSD (UST) dollar-pegged stablecoin are now accessible to a wide range of dApps and projects. As already mentioned, Columbus-5 also introduced a major change to the project’s tokenomics model, which states that instead of being channelled into the community pool, all LUNA used to mint UST shall be burned. These two changes combined, could prove to be very beneficial for LUNA price action in the long-term as interoperability will likely result in a more wide-spread use of Terra’s blockchain and greater use will cause accelerated burning of LUNA. In fact, many investors speculated on the possible consequences of these changes, which caused a small LUNA rally that peaked at a price of almost $50 on October 4. Since then, LUNA has dropped below $40 again. However, with time, the deflationary pressure generated by LUNA burning should show up on the price charts again. In addition, according to data provided by DeFi Lama, Terra is the 4th largest chain according to the total value locked (TVL) in protocols running on it. It boasts with a TVL of over $8 billion even though just 8 DeFi protocols (most well-known are Anchor, Mirror, and Lido) are operating on its chain. Do you think Terra could turn out to be the real ”Ethereum killer”?

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 40

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 40

    Last week was marked by the China FUD – the fear, uncertainty and doubt that spread among crypto investors following the further crackdown on cryptocurrency transactions and trading by China’s central bank. While the total cryptocurrency market capitalization dropped by almost 5% to reach a low of $1.82 trillion in the day following the release of the news, cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology once again proved that they cannot simply be banned. Although week 39 started with red numbers, at the end of the week the total market capitalization has already climbed to $2.18 trillion. It seems that China’s restrictive measures only led to further decentralization of the space as Chinese investors and traders simply switched to decentralized trading platforms that are not operated by centralized entities and do not implement know-your-customer (KYC) checks. It is therefore not surprising that this week’s selection consists of 3 DeFi protocols. 

    3. Rocket Pool (RPL)

    Rocket Pool is a fully decentralized Ethereum 2.0 staking protocol that allows holders with less than 32 ETH to participate in the staking process. Rocket Pool users can stake as little as 0.01 ETH. For dedicating their holdings to the staking pool, they receive rETH, which is a tokenised staking deposit token. rETH can be held or traded from the moment of ETH deposit and it will still generate staking rewards, which are also paid out in rETH. It is also possible to offer staking node services to the pool. Users who run their own full node and stake 16 ETH can benefit from higher rewards, but will have to deal with node set-up, monitoring, and maintenance. RPL serves as the governance token for the Protocol DAO. Nevertheless, it is also used for incentives and to insure the value behind rETH in case of penalties or slashing events.

    Buy/Sell RPL

    Rocket Pool to Release its Mainnet on October 6

    The Rocket Pool team recently announced that the Rocket Pool mainnet will see the light of day on October 6, 2021 00:00 UTC. After many beta releases over the last few years and multiple protocol audits, Rocket Pool will soon claim the title of the first ever decentralised staking protocol for Ethereum 2.0. The team noted that the staking site will be available at https://stake.rocketpool.net/, but beware – Rocket Pool’s mainnet launch will take place in 4 4 short to medium length stages. At each stage there will be a limited number minipools and the size of the rETH deposit pool. Once the rETH deposit pool has reached its limit, stakers will not be able to swap ETH for rETH. The same goes for the number of minipools – once the limit is reached, node operators will not be able to join the pool. The limits will be increased as the protocol will progress to the next launch stage. The purpose of the staged launch is to ensure everything is functioning properly before increasing the total value locked in the protocol. RPL has recently seen a small 7% correction and is currently trading at around $33. Nevertheless, RPL is up by more than 1400% YTD, which can be attributed to the popularity of ETH staking and the excitement around ETH’s next big upgrade. More information regarding Rocket Pool mainnet launch can be found here.

    2. 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 – the platform, which facilitates quick swaps between various Ethereum-based tokens, has recently been struggling to keep its users and market share because of high fees on Ethereum. In March this year the project released Uniswap V3, a new and impoved version of the AMM protocol on Ethereum mainnet. In July 2021 Uniswap made an effort to reduce the costs of trades by launching on two Ethereum Layer 2 networks: Optimistic Ethereum and Arbitrum. Nevertheless, both Uniswap’s Layer 2 deployments are still in beta.

    Buy/Sell UNI

    Chinese traders are flocking to decentralized exchanges after Chinese Government imposed a ban on cryptocurrencies

    On September 24, two documents concerning cryptocurrency regulation issued by the China’s central bank were made public. The documends, which reveled the next steps in China’s cryptocurrency crack down, stated that “providing cryptocurrency-related services like trading, token issuance and derivatives is illegal”. Furthermore, the bank emphasized that this applies to Chinesse exchanges as well as overseas crypto bussiness offering their services to Chinese residents. In the day after the news have spread like fire through the crypto communities all around the globe, the cryptocurrency markets were hit hard. While Bitcoin dropped for 6.5%, exchange tokens issued by Huobi and OKEx, i.e. exhcanges with a large number of volume deriving from China, suffered much greater losses. Huobi token (HT) and OKB prices more than halved. Interestingly, the news of crypto ban in China had an opposite effct on DeFi and especially DEX tokens, which posted high gains in the days following the event, as iinvestors anticipated that Chinese traders will flock to DEXs now that centralized exchanges are not accessible. And they were right. Data shows that users have withdrawn massive amounts of crypto holdings from centralized exchanges. The increase in total value locked in various DeFi protocols and the increase in trading volume on several DEXs indicates that Chinese crypto has been put to work in the DeFi protocols. Since Uniswap is the biggest DEX, it stands to benefit the most from the recent shift to decentralized trading platforms. In addition, Uniswap is making an effort to continuously improve its services. The recently introduced Auto Router function optimizes the end price by splitting the order route across multiple pools. Furthermore, Uniswap added support for EIP-1599 and improved user experience (UX) for Uniswap on Layer 2 networks in September.

    1. dYdX (DYDX)

    dYdX is a non-custodial decentralized cryptocurrency derivatives exchange. The same named DYDX token is a governance token for the dYdX exchange protocol. Token holders govern the dYdX Layer 2 protocol to align incentives between traders, liquidity providers, and partners. Aside from governance, traders are eligible for trading discounts of up to 50% when trading on dYdX provided they hold the required amount of tokens. dYdX governance token, which launched in early September, was airdropped to protocol users retroactively based on their trading volumes on the platform prior to its full decentralization. 25% of the initial token supply will be distributed to users who trade on the dYdX in the form of trading rewards while liquidity providers can benefit from the reward pool that consists of 7,5% of the initial supply. In addition, a community treasury has been put in place in order to grow the ecosystem through grants and liquidity mining programmes.

    Buy/Sell DYDX

    Crypto derivatives exchange dYdX hit a daily trading volume of over $10 billion

    While the reasons behind DYDX being on the top of this week’s Coins to Watch list are largely similar to those listed under Uniswap, DYDX is arguably even more attractive for new users, since it offers lower fees and rewards both traders and liquidity providers with its DYDX governance token. The fact that the daily trading volumes on the dYdX exchange increased almost exponentially following the China ban supports this prediction. In fact, dYdX’s 24-hour trading volume surpassed $10 billion on September 28 according to the exchange’s own metrics. Because of the increased trading volumes on dYdX and decreased volumes on centralized trading platforms, dYdX is routinely surpassing the trading volumes of crypto derivatives on its centralized counterparts. This will likely translate to higher gains and returns on the DYDX token as compared to UNI in the short term, which is why we list DYDX higher on the list that UNI. In addition, DYDX technical indicators are indicating a continuation of the bull run. At the time of writing DYDX is changing hands at a price of over $24. This means that the token almost doubled its price since the documents about the Chinese crypto ban surfaced.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 39

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 39

    Week 38 was the last full week of Q3 2021, so it is time to take a quick look back on how the cryptocurrency market has performed this quarter. The total market capitalization at the beginning of the quarter was $1.4 trillion and it climbed up to above $1.9 trillion at the end of Week 38, which represents an almost 37% increase. While ETH and BTC led the rally in August, this changed in September, when altcoins, such as Polkadot, Avalanche, Solana, Fantom and Algorand, stepped into the limelight of the community’s attention. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) representing digital art, collectibles, and in-game items were still very popular, and, for now, it does not look like the interest in these tokens is dying out. In fact, two of the three projects featured in this week’s Top Coins to Watch article are from the NFT sector. Although pushed a little bit more in the background of media attention, DeFi protocols are still evolving and expanding. The total value locked (TVL) in DeFi increased from below $70 billion to over $85 billion throughout Q3.

    3. Metahero (HERO)

    Metahero is a 3D-avatar blockchain based meta universe (metaverse) that aims to capture several markets that are moving to the virtual/online worlds, such as gaming, social events, fashion, and artworks. Even though the project only launched in July 2021, it has already established a partnership with Wolf Studio, a global leader in 3D scanning and modelling technology. Thereby, users can create ultra-realistic digital 3D avatars of themselves or even scan the physical artwork to mint NFTs. The project notes that the use cases of their platform coupled with the 3D scanning technology by Wolf Studio are only limited by one’s imagination. The CEO of Metahero, Robert Gryn, previously led Codewise, one of the fastest growing start-up companies in Europe. The immense interest in NFTs and online metaverses combined with a wide range of possible use cases could mean that Gryn is currently overseeing another highly innovative company with huge potential for fast growth. 

    Buy/Sell HERO

    Metahero to conduct a historical $10,000,000 Airdrop on September 30 and pursue listings of HERO on centralized exchanges

    The Metahero team has recently announced a historical airdrop, in which the team will distribute $10,000,000 worth of HERO. One of the biggest airdrops in the history of airdrops will require two snapshots of HERO balances – one has already been taken and the second one will take place on September 30. Users need to hold at least 5000 HERO and not sell any HERO before September 30 to be eligible for the airdrop. In addition, Metahero completely removed all fees on September 25 as the project moved into a new growth phase and HERO became a regular utility token. Users can now enjoy fee-free trading and free transfers. The team has also opened the doors to all Tier 1 exchanges. The team is now in advanced talks with some of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world as it plans to get their token listed on multiple centralized exchanges in Q4 2021. For now, HERO is only being traded on BitMart exchange. The requirements to be eligible for the $10,000,000 airdrop will eliminate some of the HERO sell pressure, and drive the price up from $0.10, where it is currently trading. However, the long-term drive for HERO appreciation can only come from platform adoption and new implementations of the 3D avatar technology that Metahero offers.

    2. Illuvium (ILV)

    Illuvium is a collectible non-fungible token (NFT) based RPG game. Players will be able to mine, harvest, capture, and fight Illuvials – deity-like creatures that inhabit this open alien world.  Each Illuvial will possess unique stats, classes, and affinities and the synergy between the individual Illuvials in your alien army will play the decisive role in determining the winner of in-game battles. Open Beta of the game is scheduled to be released in Q1 2022.

    Buy/Sell ILV

    Binance lists Illuvium, a promising 3D NFT-based RPG game that is currently still in development

    Some of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance and Kucoin, recently listed Illuvium (ILV). Binance opened trading for ILV/BTC, ILV/BNB, ILV/BUSD, and ILV/USDT trading pairs while ILV/USDT can be traded on Kucoin. The Illuvium project utilizes ILV token for liquidity and decentralized governance. The ILV listing marks a major milestone for the project and indicated that there is a high interest for NFT-based gaming within the cryptocurrency community. While ILV is tradable and transferrable, once the game launches, there will also be Synthetic ILV token or sILV, which will be used as an in-game currency. Its value will be pegged to the value of ILV, but as opposed to ILV, sILV will be non-transferrable between players. In addition, players will be able to earn in-game rewards in ILV through competitions and tournaments and capture Illuvials and collect resources to trade on an in-game marketplace called Illuvidex. All these mechanisms follow a “play to earn” gaming model, giving players the option to earn cryptocurrency while having fun by playing the game at the same time. ILV is currently trading at $515 and is up more than 1000% in last 3 months even though the working product has yet to be released. The project achieved that by offering lucrative ILV staking opportunities and regularly releasing product teasers that excite the community. Given the extremely high popularity of NFTs and blockchain-based gaming that we are seeing this year, we believe that both Illuvium as well as ILV token have plenty of room to grow.

    1. OMG Foundation (OMG)

    OMG Foundation, formerly known as OMG Network and before June 2020 as OmiseGO, is an Ethereum-based payment gateway that allows users to move any form of money between countries, businesses, and people as easily as sending email. It also facilitates fast and cheap transfer of ETH and ERC20 tokens. The project was supported by Vitalik Buterin, Toyota and Tether. Recently, OMG Foundation’s core developer Enya, has launched a new Ethereum Layer 2 Optimistic Rollups based network called the Boba Network.

    Buy/Sell OMG

    Enya and OMG Foundation launch Boba Network, a cutting edge Ethereum Layer 2 Scaling Solution

    On September 22, the public mainnet of Boba Network, the all-new Ethereum Layer 2 Optimistic Rollup scaling solution went live. The latest addition to the available Ethereum scaling solutions aims to deliver a faster, cheaper, more seamless experience for users of Ethereum. By reducing gas fees, improving transaction throughput, and boosting the capabilities of smart contracts, Boba aims to become the go-to network for DeFi and NFT application developers. Along with the mainnet, OMG Foundation and Enya released BOBA, a new governance token for the newly launched platform. The press release notes, that BOBA tokens will be airdropped to existing OMG token holders who have bridged their OMG tokens to Boba Network by a snapshot date sometime in October. Major exchanges will likely support the airdrop, with FTX exchange already announcing the airdrop support. BOBA tokens will serve as governance tokens for the network. Holders will form Boba DAO, a decentralized governance community that will vote on proposals and decide on the future of the platform. In addition, Boba’s developers noted that they have big plans for the network and that mainnet launch is only the beginning. The press release, reads:

    “Boba has a vision of expanding and democratizing the Ethereum ecosystem, and its L2 is the first step towards bringing that vision to life. Boba and its large, diverse community will focus on creating a great experience for developers and users by offering a native fast exit bridge, NFT bridging between L2 and L1, and leveraging Ethereum for security.”

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 38

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 38

    The total cryptocurrency market capitalization has again dropped by a few $100Bs and the crypto markets ended Week 37 with a total valuation of $2.15 trillion. Furthermore, as we approach the end of Q3 2021 the total crypto market valuation keeps on falling and it reached $1.95 trillion on September 20, the lowest total market capitalization in over a month. Nevertheless, there are a few cryptocurrencies that manage to defy the general downtrend and post green numbers even in such negative market conditions. We have hand-picked three such projects and their respective cryptocurrencies for this Week’s Top 3 Coins to Watch article.

    3. Algorand (ALGO)

    Algorand is a blockchain platform that can be used for digitalization and tokenization of almost any kind of asset via the creation of so-called Algorand Standard Assets (ASAs). Additionally, the project features Atomic transfers – a solution for secure and immediate settlement for multiparty transactions – and supports the on-chain creation of smart contracts. Furthermore, Algorand has implemented a pure proof-of-stake (PPoS) consensus protocol, meaning that anyone holding ALGO can participate in the consensus process through staking and be rewarded for that. Last week ALGO peaked at $2.52, which makes for the highest price of this cryptocurrency since the launch of its blockchain in June 2019.

    Buy/Sell ALGO

    Algorand’s $260 million DeFi incentive program could boost adoption and thereby pave the way to an even brighter future for the project

    By launching Viridis, a cryptocurrency fund dedicated to help grow the DeFi ecosystem on the Algorand blockchain, the project has joined the company of Celo and Fantom, which have recently established similar funds as well. Viridis fund contains 150 million ALGO (currently worth around $260 million), among which 100 million ALGO are going to be spent on liquidity incentives for DeFi apps built on Algorand while the remaining 50 million ALGO will be awarded to developers in the form of “SupraGrants” for the creation of critical DeFi infrastructure. Viridis fund has already announced what the first two grants will be awarded for – they will go to projects building decentralized price oracles and cross-chain token bridges for Algorand. Both the Price Oracle SupraGrant and the Bridge SupraGrant are worth $5 million.

    In addition, SkyBridge Capital a crypto-focused investment firm, recently revealed that it has plans to launch an Algorand Fund. The company’s director Anthony Scaramucci also disclosed that the firm has already raised more than $100 million toward the newly announced fund, which will be capped at $250 million. This proves that there is plenty of interest for such financial instrument among institutional investors as well. In other news, Algorand has reportedly entered a 5 year sponsor partnership worth over $100 million with the New York-based Drone Racing League (DRL) and will be claiming title rights starting with DRL’s sixth season, which begins this month. A bit older yet perhaps more influential piece of information is that El Salvador’s blockchain infrastructure will rely on Algorand blockchain. The announcement was first made by Koibanx, the blockchain financial infrastructure company that is building the infrastructure for the government of El Salvador. With progress being made on so many aspects of project development, we believe that ALGO could soon reclaim and even set a new 2-year high price by breaching past the $2.50 mark.

    2. PancakeSwap (CAKE)

    PancakeSwap is a Uniswap-like decentralized exchange (DEX) and yield farming protocol operating on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). The fact that it does not operate on the congested Ethereum network allows for lower fees and consequently more profit. PancakeSwap currently has a total value locked (TVL) of $4.8 billion and boasts with APYs of more than 100%. All trades are executed via an automated market maker design.

    Buy/Sell CAKE

    PancakeSwap Launches its own NFT Marketplace and the first NFT Collection called PancakeSquad

    According to an announcement on Twitter and a Medium post from August, PancakeSwap, the popular Binance Smart Chain DEX and AMM protocol, is aiming to expend its services and launch a native non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace on September 22. Users will be able to both buy and sell NFTs. All trades will be conducted in BNB/WBNB and fees from the NFT marketplace will be used to buyback and burn CAKE. To accompany the launch of the NFT marketplace PancakeSwap will also be releasing a limited bunny themed NFT collection called PancakeSquad.  Each one of a kind NFT will come with a set of traits to define its rarity. The minting fee will be in CAKE and all CAKE used for minting will be burned. So overall, PancakeSwap’s NFT platform introduces two CAKE burning mechanisms, that will decrease the available supply of CAKE. As NFTs are still very popular, the increased attention combined with CAKE burning mechanisms might have a noticeable effect on CAKE price as well.   

    1. Avalanche (AVAX)

    Avalanche is a highly scalable open-source smart contract-enabled blockchain ecosystem. It relies on its own Proof-of-Stake consensus protocols called the Avalanche consensus protocol and the Snowman consensus protocol, which guarantee blockchain immutability while consuming minimal amount of energy at the same time. In addition, Avalanche ecosystem is also highly interoperable – for example Avalanche applications are compatible with Ethereum’s Solidity smart contract programming language and Ethereum-based tokens can be transferred to Avalanche blockchains via Avalanche Bridge. As such it is most often used for various DeFi applications and enterprise blockchain deployments. Every blockchain within Avalanche is part of a subnet, but validators can choose which subnets they want to participate in. Nevertheless, validators are required to be active on the Primary Network, which consists of three blockchains: the Platform chain or P-Chain, the Contract chain or C-Chain and the Exchange chain or X-Chain. 

    Buy/Sell AVAX

    Partnerships, integrations, and a private investment round, which raised $230 million pushed AVAX to new ATH price

    The Avalanche Foundation recently revealed that is has conducted a private sale of AVAX tokens back in June 2021. The investment round which attracted some $230 million of fresh capital was led by well-known crypto funds like Polychain and Three Arrows Capital. Other participants in the private sale include R/Crypto Fund, Dragonfly, CMS Holdings, Collab+Currency and Lvna Capital. Proceeds from the private sale will be used to support the development and adoption of the Avalanche ecosystem through project grants, token purchases, liquidity mining incentive programs and other mechanisms. Avalanche Rush, a liquidity mining program, which we wrote about in the Top 3 Coins to Watch article 4 weeks ago, is just one of the examples of such mechanisms. In addition, Avalanche is establishing important partnerships and deploying new integrations. Avalanche’s nonfungible token (NFT) ecosystem for example has been recording a large influx of interest following the establishment of a partnership with the sports card and memorabilia company Topps.

    Avalanche is a serious ETH killer candidate and with no definitive date of Ethereum 2.0 full launch, platforms like Avalanche have a perfect opportunity to steal some of its market share. The fact that Avalanche is compatible with Ethereum further simplifies and boosts the migration of liquidity and even projects. In fact, the total value locked (TVL) on Avalanche has recently almost reached $3 billion and is still rising. The TVL on Avalanche could further surge if the community of Aave, one of the top DeFi protocols in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, decides to deploy on Avalanche. The proposal from Avalanche Foundation is currently still in discussions, but the Avalanche community seems to be in favour of the deployment and will soon conduct a Snapshot vote to signal if holders support or oppose the integration. To conclude, Avalanche’s increasing popularity has also affected AVAX price, which is up by 410% in past 6 months and has recently, on September 19, set an ATH price of $75. The AVAX price has since dropped back to $64, but with a roadmap packed with upgrades scheduled for Q4 2021 we believe that it would be very surprising if AVAX doesn’t trade above $100 by the end of the year.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 37

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 37

    Following the prolonged bullish trend that started in mid-July, which saw the total cryptocurrency market capitalization rapidly climb towards the previous peak valuation of $2.55 trillion reached in May 2021, last Tuesday’s flash crash left a considerable dent and put a halt on the upwards momentum. On the tailwind of the historical news of El Salvador being the first nation to officially adopt Bitcoin as a national currency on September 9, the price of Bitcoin reached a four-month high. It wasn’t for long, however, as the cascade of long position liquidations that occurred on the same day pushed the price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency below the $50,000 mark, and towards the $43,000 support level. Along with Bitcoin, the rest of the cryptocurrency market experienced heavy double-digit losses, which, in most cases, have yet to be recovered. As of now, Bitcoin’s dominance is at approximately 40% and continues to drop. The last time it was this low was in May of this year, and before that way back in June 2018. The market metrics show that altcoins are gaining ground. Solana personifies this trend. With more than a 300% monthly increase and over 100-fold YTD gains, the highly scalable decentralized blockchain has grown to become the 6th largest crypto by market cap. IOTA, which we’ve featured in our previous installment of Coins to Watch, scored a major win last week as the European Union decided to use IOTA’s technology to develop Europe’s blockchain infrastructure. With so much potential brewing in the blockchain sector, we went on the lookout to find the best projects.

    3. Quant (QNT)

    With the rise of DeFi, blockchain interoperability has grown to become one of the more sought out after features in the cryptocurrency space. Quant is among the leading protocols that provide seamless interactions between various blockchains. The platform’s Overledger DLT gateway enables institutions and individuals to connect to different systems and DLT networks without the need for new infrastructure. Since being founded in 2015, Quant has managed to secure partnerships with some of the industry leaders, including SIA, Oracle, and Amazon.

    Buy/Sell QNT

    Overledger 2.0.5 update brings significant protocol improvements, Quant Developer Program incentivizes ecosystem growth

    The latest upgrade to Overledger brings exciting new capabilities to the Quant protocol. Firstly, the 2.0.5 update brings significant improvements to the Overledger Payment API, which now allows users to transact and settle value between various crypto assets in a much simpler manner. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the new upgrade bridges institutional networks with stable digital currencies, DeFi, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and a long list of supported ERC20 and ERC721 tokens. As of the latest upgrade, Quant now offers native DLT payment support, collateralising of supported NFTs with stablecoins, and new settlement options for lending and staking products. On top of the milestone development goal the company managed to achieve with the latest upgrade, Quant’s Developer program is attracting a growing number of developers to the ecosystem, particularly due to the fact that building decentralised apps using the Overledger API guarantees universal interoperability and easy creation of multi-DLT apps (mDApp). Quant provides access to educational material, expert feedback, and exclusive events for developers. The market is definitely taking notice of what Quant is doing lately as the price of QNT doubled in the last week and increased by over 30-fold since the beginning of the year. 

    2. Terra (LUNA)

    Terra is a blockchain e-commerce payment network that uses the functionality of fiat-pegged stablecoins to provide much-needed stability when conducting cross-border payments. Additionally, the network’s native utility and staking token, LUNA powers the blockchain capabilities and acts as the platform’s reserve currency. In addition to the LUNA token, the platform also uses a native, algorithmically controlled, and decentralized TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin. Using the Cosmos technology and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, the South Korean-based company Terraform Labs has managed to build a digital payment system that is poised to rival ApplePay, SamsungPay and other established payment solutions. By using blockchain technology with a particular focus on stablecoin functionality, Terra is capable of offering extremely low processing fees, almost instantaneous settlements and seamless international transactions.

    Buy/Sell LUNA

    Columbus-5 upgrade is going live on September 30, bringing token burning mechanism and interchain support

    Although the Columbus-5 mainnet deployment was delayed and pushed back for three weeks, it is now all but confirmed that the “gamechanger” update for the Terra platform will go online by the end of September. Columbus-5 will significantly increase scalability and make the platform capable of withstanding much higher traffic due to a new version of Mantle and the ability to process Wasm queries. The upgrade is also expected to make the process of swapping stablecoins simpler while giving LUNA token stakers the benefit of receiving swap fees. Additionally, once the largest mainnet deployment in Terra’s history is complete, the platform will be able to support interchain assets from Cosmos, Polkadot, and Solana blockchains. It is safe to say that the market is eagerly awaiting the upcoming mainnet deplyoment. Since the start of August, the price of LUNA has more than quadrupled as the community looks forward to seeing how the upgrade pans out. José Maria Macedo, a founding partner at the research firm Delphi Digital, shared his insightful observations and near-term expectations for the project in a Twitter thread.

    1. Fantom (FTM)

    Fantom is an open-source decentralized finance (DeFi) platform built for fast and high-throughput smart contract functionality. The network uses aBFT consensus protocol to ensure high performance and seamless platform scalability as well as secure and near-instantaneous transactions paired with extremely low fees. EVM compatibility makes Fantom compatible with Ethereum, which means that dApps designed for ETH can be deployed and run directly on the Fantom platform. Fantom offers an all-encompassing suite of DeFi products and services, ranging from liquid staking and automated market maker (AMM) exchange functionality, to cryptocurrency lending, borrowing and staking options that are used to their fullest potential when using the network’s native FTM token.

    Buy/Sell FTM

    Fantom Foundation announces a massive 370 million FTM incentive program, FTM price surges by almost 300%

    Fantom experienced a massive market boost with the announcement of a 370 million FTM (worth over $550 million USD at current market rates) incentive program designed to onboard new blockchain protocols and increase the amount of liquidity in the Fantom ecosystem. The program is open to every developer team who decides to deploy on the platform. The reward for interested protocol teams are based on their total value locked (TVL) and ranges from 1 million up to 5 million FTM. The team hopes that the incentive program will be beneficial to users, builders and for the long-term success of the ecosystem. The market has responded in kind as the price of the digital token exploded from $0.63 on the day of the announcement on August 30, to an ATH of $1.92 on September 9, before retracing to $1.49 at press time. The recent success of Fantom is perhaps most evident when looking at the total value locked figures. The total amount of locked assets nearly doubled since the incentive program started and now sits at $1.34 billion, with SpookySwap exchange and Curve protocol topping the TVL rankings. Additionally, Fantom’s long-awaited integration with Orion, which was initially announced in April, is finally coming later in the month, which will further increase platform functionality by enabling users access to endless cross-chain liquidity directly from their Fantom wallet. On top of that, cryptocurrency exchange Profit Global announced Fantom integration last week, and commended the network’s ability to process a higher number of transactions than Ethereum with an almost 2.5x cheaper average transaction fee. For reference, on September 11, Fantom processed 1.727 million daily transactions compared to ETH’s 1.249 million.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 36

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 36

    The total cryptocurrency market capitalization is slowly climbing towards $2.4 trillion as we progress towards the end of Q3 2021. Week 35 has been all about smart contract blockchains since Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Polkadot (DOT), and even oracle provider ChainLink (LINK) all posted weekly gains of over 20%. Even though Bitcoin did climb up a few percent as well and is approaching a market cap of $1 trillion, BTC dominance is still declining and will likely soon reach 40% if the downward trend continues. While it may not be enough to call it “altcoin season” just yet, the past month was, for sure, an “altcoin month”. It is therefore not surprising, that our Top 3 Coins to Watch article focuses on altcoins for the third week in a row.

    1. IOTA (IOTA)

    IOTA is a distributed ledger protocol designed to facilitate machine-to-machine transactions on the internet of things (IoT), which is a network of smart devices with different functionalities that can interoperate and communicate with each other. Since the IoT sector is growing exponentially IOTA is designed to be infinitely scalable. Furthermore, IOTA blockchain had no transaction fees, which is perfect for micro and nano-payments, which are often used in the IoT.  IOTA operates as a peer-to-peer network and relies on a proprietary technology called Tangle to perform consensus and confirm transactions. IOTA has a total supply of 2779530283277761 IOTA with all the tokens being created at launch in 2015 and none minted afterwards. The IOTA development team is based in Germany and the IOTA foundation cooperates with several high-profile advisors.

    Buy/Sell IOTA

    Hornet protocol update causes IOTA to double its price 

    After reaching a local low of $0.96 on September 1, the price of IOTA surged by 55% to reach an intraday high of $1.65 on September 2. The price climb coincided with a 234% growth in the 24-hour trading volume, which reached as high as $681 million. The large increase in interest for the project and subsequently IOTA trading activity can be explained by the roll-out of the Hornet protocol update, which hit the IOTA network on September 2. The update brought back the auto-peering feature and significantly simplified the process of running a private ‘Tangle’ by integrating a faucet plugin with the Hornet node. IOTA rally peaked at $2.06 on September 5. While IOTA has since dipped back below $2, the project has many more updates that could fuel even higher rallies scheduled down its roadmap. The project is currently transitioning to IOTA 2.0 that will feature complete decentralization (the coordinator node will be removed in an even called “Coordicide”). IOTA 2.0 will also allow its users to create digital assets like utility coins and non-fungible tokens on the IOTA network. The IOTA Foundation recently launched the Nectar Development Network, which became “the first fully decentralized, feeless data and value protocol prototype”. The Nectar DevNet is a crucial milestone in the preparatory work for IOTA 2.0, estimated to release in late 2021. Another game-changer will be the deployment of smart contract functionality. According to the roadmap info, developers are currently working on a Beta release of the IOTA Smart contract protocol. You can find more recent news about IOTA in the project’s weekly QuickTakes video.

    2. Zilliqa (ZIL)

    Zilliqa is a high-performance blockchain platform that aims to solve the scaling issues that most of the popular blockchains are facing without compromising the security of transactions. Zilliqa achieves that by incorporating sharding technology, which means that nodes are broken down into groups of 600, i.e., shards, that can run many sub-blockchains simultaneously. As more mining nodes join the network, the network’s throughput increases. The blockchain utilizes a unique consensus algorithm, a combination of Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) and the standard Proof of Work (PoW) mining algorithm is used. In addition, Zilliqa supports smart contracts and has an active community of both users and developers, which is crucial for the long-term success of a blockchain platform.

    Buy/Sell ZIL

    Zilliqa Adoption on the Rise: The project Recorded 150,000 New Users every month since April

    Zilliqa recently published its Ecosystem Growth Report for Q2 2021, which, among other things, sheds light on the amazing growth of the ecosystem’s userbase. The report notes that the number of unique Zilliqa addresses grew by more than 35% in Q2 2021 and exceeded 2 million at the end of the quarter. According to an official tweet, the ecosystem has been recording more than 150k new addresses every month even though the exponential growth of users that reached its peak in April 2021 is over. The increased influx of users can be attributed to the general surge in demand for DeFi and NFT services. All other social statistics, such as Reddit, Telegram, YouTube subscribers and Twitter followers were also up in Q2 2021, indicating that real new users are likely behind the newly created addresses as opposed to old users creating new addresses. In addition to the increased demand for ZIL that could arise from the growing userbase, the blockchain’s native asset is also being made scarcer by transaction fee burning (6.56 million ZIL with an estimated value of over $1 million have been burned in Q2 2021) and the fact that 5.87 billion ZIL, taking up almost half of the ZIL’s total circulating supply are locked in DeFi protocols through staking. At the time of writing, ZIL is trading around the price of $0.130 and the cryptocurrency is up by 20% in the past week. You can find more information about the project’s recently established partnerships and the eight start-ups accepted in the ZILHive 2021–2022 Accelerator program, in Zilliqa’s August newsletter.

    3. Balancer (BAL)

    Balancer is an automated market maker (AMM), decentralized exchange (DEX), and liquidity pool protocol that allows users to swap their ERC-20 assets without having to rely on any centralized entities. Rather than using order books Balancer DEX, directly swaps one asset for another via user-created liquidity pools. Balancer is developed by BlockScience, a blockchain consulting company that raised $3 million in March 2020 for the development of its AMM protocol. Thanks to the wide selection of innovative features that set Balancer apart from its competition, the protocol quickly rose became popular among DeFi users. Balancer (BAL) token is the protocol’s governance token. 145,000 BAL are distributed among liquidity providers as a reward each week. 

    Buy/Sell BAL

    Balancer Launches on Arbitrum in a Bet to Significantly Reduce Gas Fees and Scale Liquidity

    In a recent press release, the Balancer protocol developers announced that they are launching support for the popular AMM protocol on Arbitrum, a leading Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution. Like many other DeFi projects, Balancer made this move in an effort to significantly reduce gas costs and scale liquidity on their AMM protocol. Lower fees and even higher liquidity will make Balancer an even better product that is going to be more likely to attract new users or convince users of other similar protocols to start using Balancer instead. Furthermore, according to this April announcement, Balancer is expected to soon launch on Algorand as well. After this integration, which is scheduled for Q3 2021, Balancer is going to become the first AMM available for use by the Algorand community, allowing Algorand users to create programmable liquidity pools and trading pairs with any Algorand Standard Asset (ASA). The additional positive piece of news is that BAL has been listed on the KuCoin exchange on September 2, which further increased the number of BAL on-ramps.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 35

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 35

    Although the cryptocurrency market ended week 34 with roughly the same total market capitalization as it has started it several altcoins managed to post gains significantly above the sector’s average. Projects that posted high gains within the past 7 days include Solana (SOL), Tezos (XTZ), Terra (LUNA), and Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHA). Bitcoin and ETH, on the other hand, both lost a few percent. Since it seems that the altcoin season is in full swing, we went on the lookout for new altcoins with rally potential in this week. Here is what we found out.

    1. Solana (SOL)

    Solana is a smart contract enabled blockchain platform developed with a focus on scalability. Due to its top throughput of 65,000 transactions per second and absurdly low transaction fees (an average transaction on the blockchain costs just 0.00001 $), Solana is considered one of the strongest Ethereum competitors. Such a high blockchain efficiency is made possible by utilizing an innovative proof-of-stake consensus mechanism combined with proof-of-history (PoH) timestamping mechanism. Because of the reasons, Solana is very popular among various non-fungible token (NFT) projects and decentralized finance applications of all kinds. Solana’s popularity reflects in the SOL token’s total market capitalization, which has recently surged above $30 billion, making it the 8th largest cryptocurrency by market cap. In addition, the project also backed by major investors such as Alameda Research, Polychain and Andreessen Horowitz. With $314 million raised in a private token sale in June 2021, Solana Labs have more than sufficient funds for further development of the Solana blockchain. 

    Buy/Sell SOL

    Even VISA’s executives have eyes on the highly efficient blockchain platform after its amazing rise to 8th place by market capitalization

    SOL’s price rally is largely driven by the increased usage of the Solana blockchain and frequent media exposure due to several popular NFT sales, such as the Degenerate Ape NFT sale two weeks ago that garnered a massive amount of interest and netted the creator more than 100,000 SOL (around $6 million at the time). On the tailwind of being in the centre of crypto community’s attention, Solana soared towards new highs. At the time of writing, Solana is trading at its ATH price of $109 and is very likely to set new ATH prices before publishing. It has to be noted however, that it is far more than just NFTs and hype that are driving SOL to new and new highs. For example, Solana Labs developers have recently deployed Chainlink Price Feeds to Solana Devnet. With the launch of this feature on Solana mainnet, which is expected to happen in this year, developers will be able to feed accurate and reliable price data to their Solana-based smart contracts and dApps. In addition, Solana seems to have captured the attention of some financial industry giants as well. Raj Parekh, director of crypto products at Visa, recently tweeted, saying that people come to Solana for NFTs but stay for its gas efficiency. In another tweet, he shared his opinion about the NFTs being a “critical building block for the future of commerce and consumer experiences”. Visa has also established a partnership with FTX exchange, whose CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is a huge supporter of Solana. Should this links with Visa ever materialize into integration of Solana into one of Visa’s products, SOL will, without a doubt, surge even higher.

    2. Sora (XOR)

    The DEFI SORA Network is specialized at providing blockchain services to enterprises, universities, and governments. Soramitsu, the company that leads Sora’s development also issues its own crypto wallet service and operates Polkaswap decentralized exchange. XOR token, Sora’s governance token, is also used for providing liquidity to Polkaswap trading pairs and for transaction fees.

    Buy/Sell XOR

    Soramitsu to co-develop a VR NFT gaming platform for ANA, Japan’s largest airline

    In a recent press release, ANA Holdings, the holding company of Japan’s largest airline All Nippon Airways (ANA) revealed that it has partnered with a game studio JP Games to develop an interactive virtual reality platform called ANA NEO. Users of ANA NEO will be able to experience virtual travel and do online shopping among other things. So what is the big news, you may ask? Well ANA Holdings revealed that, in-game transactions will be processed on a blockchain and the virtual world will also include some NFT-based items. While there are plenty of reputable institutions and companies participating in the project, the only blockchain project listed among partners is Soramitsu, the creator of SORA Network and XOR token. Besides the new venture into the world of blockchain-based gaming, Sora developers are currently also working on redesigning the SORA mobile application and launching the Polkaswap mobile app module. 

    3. Monero (XMR)

    Monero is the largest privacy-focused cryptocurrency. It that is designed to provide as much privacy and security as possible to its users. The Monero project is fully open-source and run by volunteers. Nevertheless, the project enjoys a high reputation within the cryptocurrency community. The Monero whitepaper was created in 2014 by an unknown developer using the pseudonym “Nicolas van Saberhagen”. Monero has recently made mainstream news when John Oliver attacked it due to XMR being used by hackers to collect the ransom to avoid being caught. While it is sad that the technology is being used for illegal purposes, the story is a testament that Monero’s privacy features work as intended.

    Buy/Sell XMR

    The launch of Monero Atomic Swap triggered a smaller (+20%) XMR rally

    Monero Project recently rolled out an Atomic Swap implementation, aiming to simplify trades between Monero (XMR) and Bitcoin (BTC). The trustless way to exchange between the two coins is facilitated by a cross-blockchain protocol COMIT Network. After the implementation of Monero Atomic Swaps on August 20, XMR saw quite a notable surge in price – it went up by more than 20%, from $265 to more than $330. While XMR has since dropped back blow $300 and the Atomc Swaps-induced rally seems to be over, it is for sure worth keeping an eye on this top-notch privacy coin in the long run, as the projects developers likely have some more aces up their sleeves. Moreover, in a world where one’s each and every click, let alone transaction, can be monitored, privacy is becoming a feature of high importance for a significant chunk of the world’s population. XMR is up by more than 80% in this year, and technical analysts believe that it could near in on $400 towards the end of the year, as it is still trading within the ascending channel pattern.

  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 34

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 34

    Last week we reported that the total cryptocurrency market capitalization is finally back above $2 trillion, but at the end of Week 33 the total valuation of all cryptocurrencies in circulation combined already exceeded $2.1 trillion. Nevertheless, for the second week in a row, market leaders Bitcoin and Ethereum were pushed in the background of attention while altcoins like AVAX, ADA, LUNA, DOT, and SOL claimed the spotlight with their high weekly gains. Furthermore, several altcoins are either at or very near their ATH prices. Together with a drop in BTC dominance, this has led a few analysts to believe that we are at the beginning of a new altcoin season.

    1. Polkadot (DOT)

    Polkadot is a blockchain solution that allows multiple specialized blockchains called parachains to run at the same time and interoperate. Polkadot can connect diverse blockchains into a single, decentralized and highly scalable ecosystem. The network operates using a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm and utilizes a native currency DOT. The project was originally designed by Dr. Gavin Wood, one of the co-founders of Ethereum and the inventor the smart contract programming language Solidity. Along with Cardano and Solana, Polkadot is considered one of the potential “Ethereum killers”.

    Buy/Sell DOT

    DOT could pull an ADA-like rally when parachains get announced

    The genesis block of Polkadot’s Relay Chain has been created in May 2020 and the project now finally all set to launch several Parachains in 2021. Crypto analysts and project followers are speculating that the launch of parachains on Polkadot will have a similar effect on the price of DOT as the announcement of smart contracts roll out had on the price of ADA. Nevertheless, even without parachains, DOT is soaring at a much faster pace than an average altcoin in this bull market as it has more than doubled its price in past 30 days. DOTs are currently changing hands at a price of $27.50. The decentralized governance of Kusama, Polkadot’s test blockchain, announced the auction of another five parachain slots on Kusama. The auctions, that will begin at 12:00 PM GMT on September 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29 will follow the same format as they did in the first round, which took place between June 15 and July 20. Also in this round, there is quite a lot of interest for the auctioned parachain slots, indicating that many projects and developers want to try out launching their code on Kusama, before ultimately deploying it on Polkadot.

    2. Avalanche (AVAX)

    Avalanche is a highly scalable open-source smart contract-enabled blockchain ecosystem. It relies on its own Proof-of-Stake consensus protocols called the Avalanche consensus protocol and the Snowman consensus protocol, which guarantee blockchain immutability while consuming minimal amount of energy at the same time. In addition, Avalanche ecosystem is also highly interoperable – for example Avalanche applications are compatible with Ethereum’s Solidity smart contract programming language and Ethereum-based tokens can be transferred to Avalanche blockchains via Avalanche Bridge. As such it is most often used for various DeFi applications and enterprise blockchain deployments. Every blockchain within Avalanche is part of a subnet, but validators can choose which subnets they want to participate in. Nevertheless, validators are required to be active on the Primary Network, which consists of three blockchains: the Platform chain or P-Chain, the Contract chain or C-Chain and the Exchange chain or X-Chain.

    Buy/Sell AVAX

    Avalanche Foundation brings Aave and Curve onboard and dedicates $180 million worth of AVAX to accelerate adoption of Avalanche in the DeFi

    While Avalanche has already attracted several renowned projects onto its platform, the project’s team is putting up a real effort to further boost Avalanche adoption rate. Circle’s stablecoin USDC, decentralized oracle service Chainlink, indexing protocol The Graph, tokenized securities platform Securitize, and many others which already have versions of their protocols running on Avalanche were recently joined by two DeFi space giants: Aave and Curve. This news alone could represent a significant boost for the project, but Avalanche Foundation introduced a special liquidity mining program called Avalanche Rush at the same time. As part of the Avalanche Rush program, the team will distribute $180 million worth of AVAX to users providing liquidity on Avalanche, among which $20 million worth of AVAX are reserved for Aave and up to $7 million worth of AVAX are reserved for Curve liquidity mining in Phase 1 of the program. These announcements triggered the bull run that carried AVAX from below $25 to above $50 in three days. AVAX markets have since corrected a bit and the coin is now trading at slightly less than $42 apiece. Nevertheless, the positive market sentiment does not derive entirely from the announcement. Looking at fundamentals, the number of daily active addresses and the cumulative address count on Fuji, an Avalanche testnet, stands out as both numbers seem to be entering parabolic growth. A high activity on the testnet usually means that many users are trying out Avalanche and among them are likely several developers that are eying Avalanche deployment.

    3. 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. Hoskinson and the company IOHK stive to follow the principles of academic peer review in Cardano’s development process. The native asset of the Cardano blockchain is called ADA, but previously this year, the developers rolled-out an update, which allows users to issue other tokens on Cardano blockchain as well.

    Buy/Sell ADA

    ADA Sets New ATH Price and Now Ranks 3rd by Market Capitalization

    As we predicted in the last week’s Top 3 Coins to Watch article, ADA managed to overtake BNB on the list of cryptocurrencies sorted by market capitalization and now claims the title of the cryptocurrency with the third largest market cap, right after BTC and ETH. This was made possible by ADA’s amazing price performance, which is largely due to the last week’s announcement that the Alonzo upgrade, which will introduce smart contract functionality to Cardano, is soon to be deployed. By successfully riding the wave of anticipation, hype and attention, ADA soared towards $2.65 during Week 33, which was this crypto’s ATH price until today, when ADA climbed even higher, setting yet another ATH price – the bar now sits at $2.96. At the time of writing, ADA is trading at $2.82, which is 2% below its new ATH. Nevertheless, even at that price, ADA is still up by more than 35% in the last 7 days. Predictions for the future are even more bullish. In one of the interviews, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson himself predicted that ADA price will hit $150 by the end of this year, which translates into huge almost 60x gain from its current price. Several other crypto analysts believe that ADA will post smaller yet still incredibly high gains in the range of +600% to +1000% from now to the end of 2021. Judging by the fact that ADA is up by more than 1300% YTD, these predictions may prove to be more realistic, as Hoskinson’s sounds a bit too far-fetched to be believable.