What happened
Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), Speckle (CRYPTO: POINT), and Luna (CRYPTO: LUNA) rose 76.24%, 29.08%, and 67.36%, respectively, for the last seven days at 10:30 a.m. EDT Saturday. They are now trading at $ 76.66, $ 28.73 and $ 28.62 per token, respectively. Projects in the decentralized financial networks (DeFi) behind these tokens have been gaining momentum lately.
Image source: Getty Images.
so what
First, the total value of projects staked to Solana recently exceeded $ 2 billion. It’s also the token of choice for cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX, the world’s fifth largest cryptocurrency. As a result, Solana’s profits didn’t lose momentum even as the network suffered its first rug pull. Luna Yield crypto lending platform developers shut down their websites and social media pages after allegedly defrauding over $ 8 million from investors.
Second, Polkadot is evolving into a powerful Internet of Blockchain (IoB) network that enables the transfer of data and assets between multiple chains. Last month, the first decentralized cryptocurrency exchange on Polkadot’s Acala DeFi hub, valued at $ 3.4 million in total, was suspended. If the functionality is expanded, Polkadot could potentially not only compete with the smart contract functionality of ether but also decentralized cryptocurrency swap protocols like Uniswap.
In addition, on August 18, Acala integrated MetaMask, a browser extension and mobile app that allows users to access their Ethereum wallet to interact with decentralized applications on the Ethereum network to give users equal access to the Polkadot Enable network. MetaMask has over 7 million downloads on alphabet‘S Google Chrome and 1 million downloads on Google Play.
Last, Coin base Pro recently introduced Veiled Luna (CRYPTO: WLUNA) and TerraUSD (CRYPTO: TUSD) on its trading platform. Both tokens, along with Luna, are part of the Terra network ecosystem. The developers behind the Terra network had apparently solved a critical problem in the cryptocurrency space – by allowing a cryptocurrency to be both stable enough to be used as a means of payment and volatile enough to provide room for capital growth.
This is done by linking the value of the Luna tokens to the TerraUSD stable coin, which has a theoretical exchange rate of 1: 1 against the US dollar. Users can buy their Luna tokens for TerraUSD when the latter is at a discount to the US dollar, or sell their TerraUSD for Luna tokens for a premium when the latter is at a premium against the US dollar. In this way, users themselves receive rewards for the exchange rate adjustment with Luna tokens, while consumer transactions are processed in the stable TerraUSD. A recent network update opened integration with Ethereum, with $ 2.7 billion in capital already flowing into Terra’s credit and savings protocol Anchor.
What now
Remember that at some point in history all major cryptocurrencies are like today Bitcoin and Ethereum were little-known altcoins that traded at very low prices. In the past year, the total addressable market for DeFi has grown from around $ 14 billion to over $ 100 billion. So there are currently a multitude of opportunities to get rich in this sector.
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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, serves on the Board of Directors of The Motley Fool. Zhiyuan Sun owns shares of Ethereum, Polkadot, and Uniswap. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Bitcoin, and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
