The crypto market was not afraid of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since April 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. And some coins showed returns several times greater than others.Singled out 10 projects, whose coins showed excellent results since the beginning of the year, figured out the reasons for their growth and future prospects. Spoiler: most of them are tokens of DeFi protocols.
Aave (LEND) - 1000%
Aave is an open source decentralized DeFi platform that allows users to earn interest on deposits and use borrowed funds. 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 for regular bank accounts.
Since the beginning of the year, the LEND coin increased from $ 0.0157 to $ 0.1573 - by 1000%, and from the March drop - by 811%. The volume of daily trading increased from $ 0.5– $ 1 million in the spring to $ 3– $ 20 million in the summer.
Such LEND growth has several factors at once:
According to Santiment research firm, LEND is one of three coins along with REN and ZRX, which have been actively buying crypto-coins since the spring of this year.
Think that now the interest of users in the coin is satisfied, and we must be prepared for the next correction. But it, in turn, should be replaced by a new uptrend.
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. He is similar to his main competitor 0x , but, unlike him, works on the blockchain. Kyber Network is one of the few cryptocurrency ICO projects in 2017 that managed to not only survive, but also grow well.
Since the beginning of the year, the Kyber Network Charts (KNC), the project’s coin, increased from $ 0.185381 to $ 1.64 - by 885% (on July 4 the coin peaked at $ 1.92 - an increase of 1350%), for the second quarter - by 300%, from June 28 to 4 July - another 180%. The last time a coin cost so much in the summer of 2018. The daily coin trading volume has increased even more - from $ 3.5 million to more than $ 250 million. This shows how rapidly the use of Kyber Network is growing.
KNC owes its rapid growth to:
The explosive growth of the last week of June is also associated with the launch of the long-awaited Katalyst update , due on July 7th. It will allow KNC holders to receive passive income in ЕТН on their coins using staking without a minimum rate and participate in the management of the network by voting on the KyberDAO decentralized platform.
It is likely that in the near future, as the popularity of non-custodian platforms increases, KNC will continue to grow. The turnover of DEX sites for the first six months of 2020 has already exceeded the indicators for the entire 2019.
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 the cost and convert with each other. The project was launched in 2017, setting a record for fees - $ 153 million in three hours of ICO.
Since the beginning of the year, the BNT project’s native token has grown from $ 0.2604 to $ 1.37 - by 526%, from the March low of $ 0.1328 to the July 4 high of $ 1.50 - by 1130%. Trading volume increased from spring $ 5– $ 8 million per day to summer - $ 40– $ 60 million.
The rapid take-off in May and June for BNT is due to the organic growth of 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 Oracle Chainlink. Integration with other credit protocols is also planned to ensure liquidity and generate additional profit.
Zilliqa (ZIL) - 420%
Zilliqa is Singapore's fast-growing blockchain platform that uses sharding technology to scale and speed 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 spring smart contracts were launched.
Since the beginning of the year, the Zilling (ZIL) project coin has grown from $ 0.00451 to $ 0.0189 - by 418%, in the second quarter - by 356%. At a minimum in mid-March, the coin dropped to $ 0.002919, and at the peak in early June it reached $ 0.029485 - a difference of 910% in three months. This is one of the best indicators recently. 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 for market capitalization takes 44th place - $ 194 million. The ZIL price is far from its historical maximum of $ 0.19, which was recorded in May 2018.
The beginning of such rapid growth in May was due to a successful marketing campaign. In early May, Zilliqa launched its SocialPay promotion, and promised to distribute coins among users who retweeted. It worked - the message was retweeted 80,000 times, reaching 35 million Twitter users. The coin rally was also helped by numerous media publications analyzing the rapid growth of the asset, as well as listing the ZIL / BUSD trading pair on BINANCE and evaluating the project by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin as very promising.
The main question is whether short-term hype around SocialPay will lead to sustainable long-term growth of ZIL. Judging by the schedule, this did not happen. Since June 11, the coin is losing value, trading volume is also declining. However, the project itself is interesting and promising, so a turn to an uptrend is quite likely.
Crypto?com Coin (CRO) - 400%
Crypto?com is a Hong Kong blockchain platform that produces Visa crypto cards and combines a cryptocurrency exchange, wallet and credit protocol. The project was founded in 2016, but until 2018 it was called Monaco.
Crypto?com Coin (CRO) - project coin and the main system token. It is used in the exchange between various blockchains and payment transactions in the Crypto?com Chain network.
Since the beginning of the year, CRO has grown from $ 0.0337 to $ 0.1338 - by 397%, and from a March fall to $ 0.0298 - by 448%. This is the best indicator among coins whose capitalization exceeds $ 1 billion. Now the value of the asset has exceeded the previous high of $ 0.1105, achieved in May 2019. Daily trading volume increased from $ 5– $ 8 million in the spring to $ 50– $ 80 million in the summer. The coin rose to 10th place in terms of capitalization, which today stands at $ 2.405 billion.
CRO is bullish. CRO owes its rapid growth, first of all, to an active marketing campaign and positive news:
Against the background of this news, the number of users of the project was growing 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 is not only marketing, but also a good product - a developed cryptocurrency ecosystem that seeks to satisfy all the financial needs of users. The Crypto?com team adheres to its own roadmap, regularly releasing updates.
Chainlink (LINK) - 310%
LINK is a coin of the decentralized oracle service Chainlink , built on the basis of Ethereum . It helps to connect smart contracts of blockchain platforms to external resources using the 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 Chainlink project coin has risen 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, ahead of the growth rate of the MTC and most altcoins and reflecting the interest of buyers. At the time of the publication of the article, Chainlink's capitalization is $ 1.925 billion - the 12th place among all crypto projects on the market.
Recall that over the past year and a half, Chainlink has entered into 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 cooperation with Fantom and the Cypherium blockchain platform, passed listing on Gemini, became a member of the technical steering committee of The Baseline Protocol - the Ethereum protocol for the corporate sector from EY, Microsoft and ConsenSys, and ParaFi Capital, which supports MakerDAO, proposed providing DAI stablecoin with LINK.
It is also significant that Chainlink has become an important part of the DeFi industry. Her oracle solution uses the bZx, Aave, Celsuis Network, Synthetix, Loopring, Ampleforth, and Polkadot loan platforms. Recall that in February, a hacker twice tricked 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 with it similar to the case with bZx.
LINK is a promising but risky asset. When the influence of the news subsides, investors may begin to flip a coin. However, there are no fundamental reasons for the protracted bearish trend LINK either - the project is actively developing and is clearly interesting to investors.
Cardano (ADA) - 300%
Cardano is a decentralized system, which 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 cryptocurrency coin 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, i.e. by 418%.
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 an imminent update, the coin has grown by 186%. Since June 30, after activating the update on the Cardano network, the asset has risen another 18%. On August 18, users of the new network will have the opportunity to make money on staking. It is likely that at least up to this point the coin will maintain an uptrend.
ADA has excellent prospects for further growth. Shelley is just the second leg of the Cardano roadmap. It is assumed that soon after it, the remaining updates will start:
At the end of March, the release of Ouroboros Hydra scaling technology, an off-line protocol of the second level, which will significantly increase network bandwidth, as well as implement micropayments and insurance contracts, was also released. In April, the upcoming rebranding and rethinking of the marketing strategy was announced. At the end of April, Weiss Ratings assigned Cardano an excellent rating, considering the project was technologically ahead of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Cardano has long been on the market. The project is developing slowly, but thoroughly. The recent rise in the coin shows that users still believe in it. At a price, ADA still has a huge margin for growth, but prolonged drawdowns are not ruled out. Last June, the coin was trading at $ 0.090, having fallen three times by winter. At the same time, the historical maximum of $ 1.24 from January 2018 is still very far away. If developers can do what they claim to be - a self-sufficient and fully decentralized self-sustaining system - then the project will again have a chance to take off.
Celsius Network (CEL) - 270%
Celsius Network is a centralized platform that allows you to take a loan in cryptocurrencies and earn on deposit storage up to 3-10% per annum. The project was launched in 2018 and claims to replace the traditional banking system. High interest rates are ensured by the fact that most depositors are retail customers, and most lenders are cryptocurrencies. Among the partners of the Celsius Network: Chainlink, Korbit, Litecoin Foundation, Bitcoin?com.
Since the beginning of the year, CEL, the native Celsius Network token, 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 0.5030 - by 926%. Trading volume increased several times, but still does not exceed $ 1 million.
The increase in the price of CEL is due to the organic growth of the project, successful marketing and simply favorable payment conditions. So, in June, the total volume of deposits at Celsius reached $ 1 billion, and the amount of payments to depositors - $ 407,000 per week. Amid growing popularity of DeFi platforms, the Celsius Network attempted to become more decentralized and in March integrated the Chainlink oracle technology. In May, the company launched a referral program offering $ 10 to the MTC for inviting a new user, as well as $ 10 to the newly joined platform user.
Although 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 custodial service BitGo, but most of them are stored on the platform’s cold wallets. However, so far 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 a derivative trading platform based on Ethereum, which allows users to create their own synthetic assets inside it and make money on traditional assets, exchange rates and staking. Users can create synthetic assets (Synth), tied to the exchange rate of the BTC and ETN, as well as to traditional assets: gold, stocks, the foreign exchange market, commodities. Traders who hold Synth can bet on whether specific stocks or currencies will rise or fall. For investors, this is an opportunity to profit from price fluctuations without ownership of the underlying asset. At the same time, users who decide to put their SNX tokens as collateral can earn up to 60% on stake, receiving a reward for “freezing” funds. The minimum steak is only$ 29 . The Synthetix system is similar to MakerDAO, in which ETH is blocked to create DAI.
Having started as a stablecoin, Synthetix moved to the DeFi industry, and it was here that the project became popular. He brought decentralized financing the opportunity to capitalize on fluctuations in prices and traditional assets.
Today, Synthetix is ??the third largest DeFi platform with blocked assets worth more than $ 328 million and a market capitalization of $ 212 million. Synthetix Network Token (SNX), the project’s coin, has grown from the beginning of the year from $ 1.23 to $ 2.55 - by 200%, and since the March fall up to $ 0.367 - by 695%. The volume of daily trading from the previous $ 1– $ 2 million per month increased to $ 8– $ 14 million.
There is no special news about Synthetix development in the last quarter. The growth is due to an organic increase in user interest in the project and the earning potential in it.
Synthetix is ??a unique idea for the DeFi sector. But while investments in the project involve high risks. So, the price of its stablecoin is too volatile and can fall by $ 0.05– $ 0.06. The problem remains the liquidity of the coin - it is not so much on major exchanges. However, we are sure that the situation will soon change - there are more and more users testing the platform. SNX, without a doubt, is one of the most promising coins this year - you need to look at it, but proceed with caution.
Basic Attention Token (BAT) - 35%
Basic Attention Token - Ethereum tokens of the private BRAVE cryptobrowser that 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 Eikhon - creator of the JavaScript programming language and co-founder of the Mozilla browser.
Brave immediately attracted the attention of the audience - all tokens were sold for $ 35 million during the ICO in a record few seconds. However, after this, interest in the project began to decline, and the price for a 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 the 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 - only 36%. She showed her annual maximum during this time in February, reaching a price of $ 0.3149. In mid-March, the BAT fell to $ 0.1046 - since then, to date, it has grown by 239%. And this is an excellent result. However, the coin is still constantly jumping in price and is still far from its historical maximum of $ 0.86 in early January 2018.
However, while previously 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 to use BAT as collateral for lending, and in November 2019, the coin became the second asset after ETN, which MakerDAO accepted as collateral for obtaining DAI loans. As DeFi BAT grew, it also attracted more and more attention.
The BAT has the potential to shoot well before the end of the year. Although, according to the assurances of the developers, users can already earn up to $ 70 a year by viewing ads, and later up to $ 200– $ 300, but so far this does not really motivate them. But at the same time, they like the convenience, speed and blocking of advertising by the Brave cryptobrowser (the author of this article himself has been using it since November last year ). If developers can find a model that will attract advertisers and be convenient for users, the project can quickly gain tens of millions of users. Now the team is planning several more innovations. Without a doubt, all this will affect the BAT course and, most likely, for the better.
But rely on a significant rally, perhaps, is also not worth it. It may turn out that Brave is a niche product that has already attracted almost its entire target audience. It will be difficult for the project to compete with Chrome, Safari or Opera and achieve the profitability of its business model.
Finally
As you can see, most of the coins that showed the best results this year are DeFi sector tokens. It attracts more and more funds and shows real prospects - the market reacts to this by rising prices for fixed assets. Although the uptrend seems to be ready to give way to a correction, the rally of DeFi-projects may well continue for another year. The upcoming launch of Ethereum 2.0 may also have a stimulating effect on these projects.
