The crypto market was not afraid of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since April of this year, its capitalization has grow...
The crypto market was not afraid of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since April of this year, its capitalization has grown from $ 126 billion to $ 264 billion, bitcoin - by almost 50%, and ether - by more than 66%. At the same time, the total amount of funds invested in the altcoin market increased from $ 63 billion to $ 92 billion, reaching a maximum of $ 98 billion in early June. Some coins showed profitability many times more than others.
We identified 10 projects, whose coins have shown excellent results since the beginning of the year, sorted out the reasons for their growth and further prospects. Spoiler alert: most of them are DeFi protocol tokens.
Aave (LEND) - 1000%
Aave is an open source, decentralized DeFi platform that allows users to earn interest on deposits and leverage. The protocol is the fifth largest project in the DeFi ecosystem with $ 128 million of frozen liquidity. The Aave Pay system also works, which allows you to pay in digital currencies using regular bank accounts.
Since the beginning of the year, the LEND project coin has grown from $ 0.0157 to $ 0.1573 - by 1000%, and since the fall in March - by 811%. The volume of daily trading increased from $ 0.5– $ 1 million in the spring and to $ 3– $ 20 million in the summer.
Chart of LEND cost since the beginning of 2020 according to CoinMarketCap data. Source .
This growth of LEND has several factors at once:
- In January, Aave became the first DeFi platform to launch an Instant Loan feature, allowing traders to borrow without collateral. The mechanism is imperfect and has serious vulnerabilities, but has become one of the main triggers for LEND's growth this year.
- In late May, Aave added Uniswap v1 tokens as possible collateral. This was the first attempt to use derivatives for this purpose. Prior to this, DeFi protocols added only underlying assets or stablecoins as collateral. Users highly appreciated the opportunity to take out a loan secured by liquidity, although this increases the risks - LEND has been growing throughout June. The Aave team is also looking to add programmable TokenSets strategies as collateral shortly . Each token will be a smart basket of crypto assets that will automatically rebalance based on the strategy chosen by investors.
According to analytical company Santiment, LEND is one of three coins, along with REN and ZRX, that have been actively buying cryptokits since this spring.
We think that now the interest of users in the coin is satisfied, and we must be ready for the next correction. But it, in turn, should be replaced by a new upward trend.
Kyber Network (KNC) - 885%
Kyber Network is a decentralized liquidity protocol and payment service that provides instant and secure exchange between different ERC20 tokens in dApps. It is similar to its main competitor 0x, but unlike it, it runs on the blockchain. Kyber Network is one of the few ICO projects of the 2017 crypto boom that managed not only to survive, but also to grow well.
Since the beginning of the year, Kyber Network Charts (KNC), the project's coin, has grown from $ 0.185381 to $ 1.64 - by 885% (on July 4, the coin peaked at $ 1.92 - an increase of 1350%), in the second quarter - by 300%, from June 28 to 4 July - another 180%. The last time a coin cost that much was in the summer of 2018. The daily trading volume of the coin increased even more significantly, from $ 3.5 million to over $ 250 million. This shows how quickly the use of the Kyber Network is growing.
KNC price chart since early 2020 as reported by CoinMarketCap. Source .
KNC owes its rapid growth to:
- Growth in the number of protocol users;
- News about the listings of coins on Coinbase and Hotbit ;
- Making Chainlink protocol technology;
- The appearance of the KNC / USDT trading pair on Binance;
- Partnership with the Bancor Network (BNT).
The explosive growth in the last week of June is also linked to the launch of the highly anticipated Katalyst update , due on July 7th. It will allow KNC holders to receive passive income in ETH on their coins by staking without a minimum stake and participate in network management by voting on the KyberDAO decentralized platform.
The growth in the number of burnt coins in the Kyber Network. KNC has a limited emission, some of the coins are constantly burned and the recycling rate is growing. Source .
It is likely that in the near future, as the popularity of non-custodial platforms increases, KNC will continue to grow. The turnover of DEX sites in the first six months of 2020 has already exceeded the indicators for the entire 2019.
DEX-exchanges turnover by month according to Dune Analytics data: 2019 is blue, 2020 is red. Source .
Bancor (BNT) - 525%
Bancor Network is a decentralized platform for converting tokens through smart contracts. The Bancor Protocol is a standard that allows any user to create fully liquid smart tokens that automatically calculate value and are convertible with each other. The project was launched in 2017, setting a record for collection - $ 153 million in three hours of ICO.
Since the beginning of the year, the native token of the BNT project has grown from $ 0.2604 to $ 1.37 - by 526%, from the March low of $ 0.1328 to the maximum on July 4 of $ 1.50 - by 1130%. Trading volume increased from $ 5– $ 8 million a day in spring, to $ 40– $ 60 million in summer.
BNT price chart since the beginning of 2020 according to CoinMarketCap data. Source .
The meteoric rise in May and June for BNT is driven by organic growth in user interest in the DeFi sector, as well as the upcoming protocol update . The update should solve the main problems of Bancor, launch automated market makers and integrate the Chainlink oracle. Integration with other lending protocols is also planned to provide liquidity and generate additional profit.
Zilliqa (ZIL) - 420%
Zilliqa is a Singapore-based fast-growing blockchain platform using sharding technology to scale and speed up dApps. The project was launched in June 2017, raising $ 22 million during the ICO.In January last year, the main network was activated, and in the spring, smart contracts were launched.
Since the beginning of the year, the Zilling project coin (ZIL) has grown from $ 0.00451 to $ 0.0189 - by 418%, in the second quarter - by 356%. At a low in mid-March, the coin dipped to $ 0.002919, and at its peak in early June, it reached $ 0.029485 - a difference of 910% in three months. This is one of the best indicators in recent years. The volume of daily trading increased from $ 7-10 million in March-April to $ 40-200 million in June. Since the beginning of last month, the coin has been in a downtrend and has fallen in price by 60%. Now the asset is ranked 44th by market capitalization - $ 194 million. The ZIL price is far from its all-time high of $ 0.19, which was recorded in May 2018.
Chart of ZIL value since the beginning of 2020 according to CoinMarketCap data. Source .
The start of such a rapid growth in May, the coin owes to a successful marketing campaign. In early May, Zilliqa launched its SocialPay campaign, promising a coin giveaway to users who retweeted. It worked - the message was retweeted 80,000 times, reaching 35 million Twitter users. The coin's rally was also helped by numerous publications in the media that analyzed the rapid growth of the asset, as well as the listing of the ZIL / BUSD trading pair on Binance and the assessment of the project by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin as very promising.
The main question is whether the short-term hype around SocialPay will lead to sustained long-term growth in ZIL. Judging by the schedule, this did not happen. Since June 11, the coin has been losing value, and the trading volume has also decreased. However, the project itself is interesting and promising, so a turn to an upward trend is quite likely.
Crypto․com Coin (CRO) - 400%
Crypto․com is a Hong Kong-based blockchain platform that issues Visa crypto cards and combines a crypto exchange, wallet and credit protocol. The project was founded in 2016, but until 2018 it was called Monaco.
Crypto․com Coin (CRO) is the project's coin and the main token of the system. It is used when exchanging between different blockchains and paying for transactions on the Crypto․com Chain.
Since the beginning of the year, CRO has grown from $ 0.0337 to $ 0.1338 - by 397%, and from the March drop to $ 0.0298 - by 448%. This is the best indicator among the coins, whose capitalization exceeds $ 1 billion. Now the value of the asset has exceeded the previous maximum of $ 0.1105, reached in May 2019. The volume of daily trading increased from $ 5– $ 8 million in the spring to $ 50– $ 80 million in the summer. The coin has risen to 10th place in terms of capitalization, which today is $ 2.405 billion.
CRO cost chart since the beginning of 2020 according to CoinMarketCap data. Source .
The CRO remains bullish. CRO owes its rapid growth, first of all, to an active marketing campaign and positive news:
- Crypto․com launched its application to the Indian market this March ;
- In April, the company raised funding from several venture capital funds;
- In May, she began to supply her crypto credit cards in Europe and launched her own wallet;
- In June, Crypto․com became one of the sponsors of the virtual conference from CoinDesk “Consensus 2020”, in honor of the fourth anniversary of the launch, it held a campaign “BTC Anniversary Special” , which made it possible to buy BTC for $ 2 million at a 50% discount;
- She also added her own emoji to Twitter last month .
Against the background of this news, the number of project users grew rapidly. Over the past two months, their total number has increased by 50% - up to 3 million people.
It is worth recognizing that behind the growth of CRO lies not only marketing, but also a good product - a developed cryptocurrency ecosystem that seeks to satisfy all financial needs of users. The Crypto․com team is following their own roadmap by regularly releasing updates.
Chainlink (LINK) - 310%
LINK is the coin of the Chainlink decentralized oracle service built on top of Ethereum . It helps to connect smart contracts of blockchain platforms to external resources using API. This is an increasingly popular service on the market, so the growing interest in the project is not surprising.
Three years after the launch of LINK, the coin of the Chainlink project, has risen in price 20 times. In 2019, it grew by 600%. Since the beginning of 2020, the asset has risen in price from $ 1.78 to $ 5.55 - by 311%, in the second quarter - by 245%. The coin maintains an uptrend, outperforming BTC and most altcoins in terms of growth rates and reflecting buyer's interest. At the time of the article's release, Chainlink's capitalization is $ 1.925 billion - 12th place among all crypto projects on the market.
LINK price chart since early 2020 as reported by CoinMarketCap. Source .
Over the past year and a half, Chainlink has made dozens of integrations of its oracle solution framework with exchanges, node operators and large companies. She now has over 100 partnerships. This year, the company began a partnership with Fantom and the Cypherium blockchain platform, was listed on Gemini, joined the technical steering committee of The Baseline Protocol - Ethereum protocol for the corporate sector from EY, Microsoft and ConsenSys, and ParaFi Capital, which supports MakerDAO. proposed securing the DAI stablecoin using LINK.
Significantly, Chainlink has become an important part of the DeFi industry. Its oracle solution is being used by lending platforms bZx, Aave, Celsuis Network, Synthetix, Loopring, Ampleforth, and Polkadot. Recall that in February, a hacker twice deceived the oracle of the bZx protocol, which used the Kyber network as a single oracle, and withdrew almost $ 1 million from it. Chainlink uses a decentralized oracle network, which does not allow an attack similar to the bZx case.
LINK is a promising but risky asset. When the impact of the news dies down, investors can start dumping the coin. However, there are no fundamental reasons for LINK's protracted bearish trend either - the project is actively developing and is clearly of interest to investors.
Cardano (ADA) - 300%
Cardano is a decentralized system that should become an analogue of Ethereum, but more scalable, faster, confidential and decentralized. So far, it has only its own currency, ADA, but with subsequent updates, smart contracts, dApps and sidechain will be added.
ADA is the eighth coin on the cryptocurrency market in terms of capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, it has risen in price from $ 0.0329 to $ 0.0993 - by 300%, and after the March fall - to $ 0.0237, that is, by 418%.
ADA value chart since early 2020 as reported by CoinMarketCap. Source .
The main reason for the growth is the long-awaited Shelley update, which implements the dPoS algorithm and the possibility of staking. This should make the project 50-100 times more decentralized than Bitcoin or Ethereum. Since the end of May, after the announcement of the imminent implementation of the update, the coin has grown by 186%. Since June 30, after activating the update on the Cardano network, the asset has risen by another 18%. On August 18, users of the new network will have the opportunity to earn money on staking. It is likely that the coin will maintain an uptrend at least until this point.
ADA has excellent prospects for further growth. Shelley is only the second stage in Cardano's roadmap. It is assumed that the rest of the updates will start shortly after it:
- Goguen - implementation of smart contracts, the ability to create dApps, own tokens and tokenization of assets;
- Basho - improved optimization, performance, increased scalability, sidechain implementation;
- Voltaire - the introduction of the voting system and the transfer of project management into the hands of the community.
In late March, also held a release scaling technology Ouroboros Hydra - offcheyn protocol of the second level, which will significantly increase the network bandwidth, as well as to implement micropayments and insurance contracts. In April, an upcoming rebranding and rethinking of the marketing strategy was announced. At the end of April, Weiss Ratings gave Cardano an "excellent" rating, considering that the project is technologically ahead of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Cardano has been around for a long time. The project is developing slowly, but thoroughly. The coin's recent growth shows that users still believe in it. As for the price, ADA still has a huge margin for growth, but long drawdowns are not excluded. In June last year, the coin was trading at $ 0.090, slowly falling three times by winter. At the same time, there is still a long way to go to the all-time high of $ 1.24 from January 2018. If the developers succeed in doing what they claim to be - a self-sustaining and fully decentralized self-sustaining system - then the project will have a chance to take off again.
Celsius Network (CEL) - 270%
Celsius Network is a centralized platform that allows you to take out a loan in cryptocurrencies and earn from keeping deposits up to 3-10% per annum. The project launched in 2018 and claims to replace the traditional banking system. High rates of return are ensured by the fact that the majority of depositors are retail clients, and the majority of lenders are crypto companies. Celsius Network partners include Chainlink, Korbit, Litecoin Foundation, Bitcoin․com.
Since the beginning of the year, CEL, the native token of the Celsius Network, has risen in price from $ 0.1446 to $ 0.3914 - by 270%, and from the March low of $ 0.0543 to the peak of June 30 at $ 0.5030 - by 926%. The trading volume has increased several times, but still does not exceed $ 1 million.
CEL price chart since early 2020 as reported by CoinMarketCap. Source .
The increase in the CEL price is due to the organic growth of the project, successful marketing and simply favorable payment terms. So, in June, the total volume of deposits on Celsius reached $ 1 billion, and the volume of payments to depositors - $ 407,000 per week. Amid growing popularity of DeFi platforms, the Celsius Network tried to become more decentralized and integrated Chainlink oracle technology in March . In May, the company launched a referral program offering $ 10 in BTC for referring a new user, as well as $ 10 for a newly joined user of the platform.
Although the CEL has shown good growth throughout the year, its rate remains volatile, and investments in it are quite risky. The funds are insured for $ 100 million by the custodian service BitGo, but most of them are stored in the platform's cold wallets. However, until now, the site has not had any cases of hacking or non-payment. Another risk factor is huge competition.
Synthetix (SNX) - 210%
Synthetix (formerly known as the Havven stablecoin project ) Is an Ethereum-based derivative trading platform that allows users to create their own synthetic assets inside it and make money on traditional assets, rate bets and staking. Users can create synthetic assets (Synth) linked to the BTC and ETH exchange rates, as well as to traditional assets: gold, stocks, the foreign exchange market, and commodities. Traders who hold Synth can place bets on whether specific stocks or currencies will rise or fall. For investors, this is an opportunity to profit from price fluctuations without owning the underlying asset. At the same time, users who decide to put their SNX tokens as collateral can earn up to 60% on staking, receiving a reward for “freezing” funds. The minimum steak is only $ 29 . The Synthetix system is similar to MakerDAO, in that ETH is blocked to create DAI.
Starting as a stablecoin, Synthetix moved into the DeFi industry, and this is where the project became in demand. He brought to decentralized finance the ability to capitalize on fluctuations in exchange rates and traditional assets.
Today, Synthetix is the third largest DeFi platform with over $ 328 million in blocked assets and a market capitalization of $ 212 million. up to $ 0.367 - by 695%. The volume of daily trading from the previous $ 1– $ 2 million increased over the month to $ 8– $ 14 million.
SNX value chart since early 2020 as reported by CoinMarketCap. Source .
There is no particular news about Synthetix development in the last quarter. The growth is due to an organic increase in user interest in the project and the possibilities of earning money in it.
Synthetix is a unique idea for the DeFi sector. But so far, investments in the project are associated with high risks. Thus, the price of his stablecoin is too volatile and may drop by $ 0.05– $ 0.06. The liquidity of the coin also remains a problem - there is not much of it on the main exchanges. However, we are sure that the situation will change soon - more and more users are testing the platform. SNX is without a doubt one of the most promising coins this year - you need to look closely at it, but proceed with caution.
Basic Attention Token (BAT) - 35%
Basic Attention Token - Ethereum tokens of Brave's private cryptobrowser, which blocks other people's ads and allows you to earn cryptocurrency for viewing your own browser ads and publishing content. The project was launched in 2017 by Brendan Eichon, creator of the JavaScript programming language and co-founder of the Mozilla browser.
Brave immediately caught the attention of the audience - all tokens were sold for $ 35 million during the ICO in a record few seconds. However, after that, interest in the project began to decline, and the price for the BAT coin constantly fluctuates between $ 0.10 - $ 0.40. For almost four years, the browser was available only in preliminary versions, but in November last year the main one - Brave was launched. But even beta versions of the browser were used by almost 10 million people around the world.
Since the beginning of the year, the coin has grown from $ 0.1833 to $ 0.2504 - just 36%. It showed its annual maximum during this time in February, reaching $ 0.3149 in price. In mid-March, BAT fell to $ 0.1046 - from that time to today, it has grown by 239%. And this is already an excellent result. However, the coin is constantly jumping in price and is still far from its all-time high of $ 0.86 in early January 2018.
Chart of BAT value from the beginning of 2020 according to CoinMarketCap data. Source .
However, if earlier BAT grew mainly on audience expectations and news, now it is becoming part of the DeFi sector. Back in September 2018, the Compound protocol began using BAT as collateral for lending, and in November 2019, the coin became the second asset after the ETH, which MakerDAO accepted as collateral for DAI loans. As DeFi grew, BAT also received more and more attention.
BAT has the potential to shoot pretty well before the end of the year. Although, according to the assurances of the developers, users can now earn up to $ 70 a year by watching ads, and later up to $ 200– $ 300, but so far this does not motivate them very much. But at the same time, they like the convenience, speed and ad blocking of the Brave cryptobrowser (the author of this article has been using it himself since November last year ). If developers manage to find a model that will attract advertisers and will be convenient for users, the project can quickly gain tens of millions of users. The team is now planning a few more innovations. Without a doubt, all this will affect the BAT rate and, most likely, for the better.
But you probably shouldn't count on a significant rally either. It may turn out that Brave is a niche product that has already attracted almost all of its target audience. It will be difficult for the project to compete with Chrome, Safari or Opera and make its business model profitable.
Finally
As you can see, most of the coins that showed the best results this year are the DeFi sector tokens. It attracts more and more funds and shows real prospects - the market responds to this by increasing prices for fixed assets. While the uptrend seems poised to be followed by a correction, the DeFi rally could well continue throughout the year. The upcoming Ethereum 2.0 launch could also have a stimulating effect on these projects.