The uptrend observed during Week 11 has continued throughout Week 12 as well, causing the total capitalization of the crypto market to further grow. While it stood at just $1.92 trillion at the beginning of last week, it has grown back above $2 trillion, to $2.07 trillion, to be exact, by the end of the week. Do you think that we are back on track to reclaim the $3 trillion crypto market valuation, or will the market cap soon drop below $2 trillion again? The fact is, nobody knows for sure, but by keeping an eye on one (or all) of our top 3 coins to watch, you can never do wrong.
3. Ocean Protocol (OCEAN)
Ocean Protocol is a blockchain-based ecosystem that enables people and organizations to effortlessly unlock the value of their data and monetize it using ERC-20 datatokens. Each datatoken, which represents a data service on Ocean Protocol, can be bought and sold on the Ocean Market. At the same time, the Singapore based non-profit foundation that develops the Ocean Protocol is aware of the risk posed by the massive centralization of data and shares the universal worry that a handful of organizations with both massive data assets and AI capabilities could endanger the free and open society that we (think we) live in today. Therefore, their aim is to offer a service that gives power back to data owners. In addition, the Ocean Protocol allows third parties who purchase a certain dataset to conduct operations on the data without it ever leaving the publisher’s safe enclave. This way the data storage remains decentralized.
OCEAN rallies in anticipation of the Ocean v4 Upgrade
After months of continuous downward price movement, OCEAN pulled a small rally last week. The OCEAN price initially surged from below $0.50 to $0.71, but then quickly settled at a lower value of around $0.60, where it still trades. The rally is likely a consequence of the growing anticipation of the Ocean v4 upgrade, which should be deployed to mainnet in Q2 2022. The v4 version of the protocol, which is currently in public testing, will introduce Data NFTs, data wallets, and federated learning to mention just a few novelties. In addition, data owners will have more control over fee rates, which were hardcoded in v3. V4 will also support pay-as-you-go, compute-to-data, and more innovative fee payment methods. As soon as Ocean v4 is fully operational, the team also plans to launch a Data Farming campaign to incentivize data providers to feed data into new datasets, or as the project developers like to say: “fill the Ocean”. In summary, Ocean Protocol Version 4 has the potential to disrupt the established data management systems by creating monetizable data funnels never seen before. The fact that the Ocean Protocol Foundation provides $140 million in developer grants should also help the project in securing a bright future. And since we are already mentioning the grants – the OceanDAO is currently accepting applications for the Round 16 of their grant program. Projects building or improving Ocean applications will split the 200,000 OCEAN available in this round.
2. Mina Protocol (MINA)
Mina Protocol is a simple blockchain, designed to minimize the system requirements needed to run a full node or interact with the blockchain. The Mina network is merely 22 KB in size, which is why it has been repeatedly dubbed the “lightest blockchain in the world”.
In addition, the blockchain size is designed to always stay at 22 KB and not gradually grow as the adoption of the Mina protocol increases. Despite its minuscule size, Mina maintains a balance between security and decentralization. To achieve that, Mina utilizes Zero-Knowledge Proofs technology (ZK Proofs). Mina started out as Coda Protocol in 2017 but was rebranded into Mina Protocol in October 2020.
MINA price explodes following major venture capital inflows and Coinbase listing
The Mina Ecosystem announced on March 17 that it has successfully raised $92 million through a private funding round led by FTX Ventures and Three Arrows Capital with participation from Brevan Howard hedge fund, Amber Group, Blockchain.com, Circle Ventures, Finality Capital Partners, Pantera, and others. The venture capital will be used to propel Mina Protocol to become the leading zero-knowledge platform within Web3. Mina Foundation CEO, Evan Shapiro, revealed that part of the fresh capital injection will be used to finance developer grants. He stated:
“Our main goal right now is to give out grants to people who are doing effective work for Mina; this will help us do that much more effectively. We’ve given out more than a thousand grants so far to people who are running block producers, building tools, developers, and others that build community… this [funding] will help us like really double down and grow what we’re able to do.”
Just a week after the competition of Mina’s funding round, the coin already began trading on the leading U.S. centralized exchange Coinbase. The funding round alone was very well received by investors, but the Coinbase listing provided an additional boost to the already ongoing MINA rally. In this two-step surge, MINA’s price increased by over 45%, from $1.79 on March 17 to $2.59 on March 27. Do you think Mina could once become the smallest blockchain with one of the biggest price tags?
1. Axie Infinity (AXS)
Axie Infinity is Pokémon-inspired blockchain-powered trading and battling video game. The game is developed by a Vietnamese gaming studio Sky Mavis and has netted more than $2 billion in NFT sales to date. 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 represented by a one-of-a-kind NFT. The growing userbase and protocol revenue has made Axie Infinity one of the most expensive NFTs collections.
AXS spikes by 40% on the tailwind of ecosystem growth
Axie Infinity native AXS token has earned a spot among the best-performing crypto assets last week as it entered a smaller bull run that pushed its price from $51 on March 23 to as high as $74 on March 25. While AXS price has since retraced to $66, the token still ended the week with a gain of almost 30%. Analysts attributed the positive price action of AXS to the growth of the broader AXS ecosystem, as both the number of players and AXS stakers are on the rise. According to Dune Analytics, the number of addresses interacting with Axie Infinity is fast approaching 210,000. At the same time, there are more than 25,000,000 AXS (worth around $1.7 billion) being staked in the Axie Infinity ecosystem. It is believed that both players and investors are amassing AXS in anticipation of the “Origin” update. Doing so they are essentially betting that the revolutionary update will improve the gaming experience and positively influence AXS price. But this could be a high-stakes game as a recent report from Delphi Digital, revealed that Origin will bring a “completely reimagined version of the popular Axie Battles game that everyone is familiar with.” The new version will reportedly feature completely new game mechanics and a redesigned storyline, both designed to improve the overall player experience. In addition, Origin will introduce free starter packs that will help attract new players to the game and make their first steps in the game a bit easier. As usual, the update will also bring new in-game items like runes and charms, used to power up players’ Axies. To add to the reasons that make AXS a top coin to watch, the Axie Infinity developers plan to release the game for iOS and Android devices in the first half of 2022 Axie Infinity is already among the leading blockchain gaming projects, but going mobile could further boost its userbase. The fact that blockchain-based gaming is still booming and that ”play to earn” is gaining popularity, leaves Axie Infinity plenty of space to grow its potential.
