As there were no bigger moves on the cryptocurrency market last week, the sector is entering Week 23 with an almost unchanged total market capitalization of $1.29 trillion. Among the biggest gainers out of crypto Top 100 in the last 7 days are WAVES (+92%), HNT (+28%) and ADA (+20%). In total, 60 out of top 100 cryptocurrencies ended the week in the green, while the remaining 40 posted red numbers. The ratio is surely indicating a slightly recovering market, but the relative changes in valuation have been too little to significantly increase the total market capitalization. Do you think we could see more green numbers or higher gains at the end of this week and potentially enter a period of recovery?
3. TRON (TRX)
TRON is a delegated proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus blockchain platform that launched its mainnet in June 2018. However, TRON’s native asset TRX existed even before the mainnet launch in the form of an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. Like Ethereum, Solana and Polkadot, TRON blockchain is designed to host smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). TRON blockchain is known for its fast transactions and low transaction fees. TRON blockchain can also host custom TRON-based assets, issued using the TRC10 and TRC20 standards. The project was founded by Chinese entrepreneur Justin Sun, and its development is headed by the Tron Foundation, which was established in 2017. Since than TRON has grown to become a major player in the blockchain sector. Its network hosts some of the leading apps in the industry and sees a huge volume of data and wealth transferred across its ecosystem each day.
TRON ecosystem’s TVL grew by over 40% in May
On May 5, the TRON DAO rolled out a new TRON blockchain-based decentralized stablecoin called USDD. The newly-launched stablecoin is designed to maintain a $1 peg through an arbitrage mechanism against TRX, much like the one utilized by the recently collapsed TerraUSD (UST). In addition, the launch of USDD came at a time when the market was still reeling from the Terra ecosystem crash. However, TRX markets responded positively to the announcement and, perhaps also due to the launch of USDD, TRON ecosystem grew a lot in May. DeFiLlama recorded a more than 40% month-over-month increase in total value locked (TVL) in the TRON ecosystem in May, which propelled TRON to the third spot in DeFi chain rankings. In addition, CoinMetrics data showed that TRON has the highest number of active addresses compared to BTC, ETH, XRP, XLM, BNB, DOGE and many other popular blockchains. In short, May has been a very successful month for the TRON ecosystem. The ecosystem growth is also starting to reflect in the price of TRX, which is up by 38% against USD in the last 3 months. It will be interesting to see whether TRON can carry this momentum over into June or even maintain it through the summer.
2. Optimism (OP)
Optimism is a popular Ethereum Layer 2 network that approaches solving the scalability issues by reducing the cost and latency of Ethereum transactions through the use of Optimistic Rollups technology. OP is Optimism’s freshly launched governance token. OP holders will form the so-called Optimism Collective, a large digital democratic governance community that will vote on protocol upgrades, direct incentives to projects, and determine the allocation of treasury funds.
Optimism launched and airdropped first OP tokens
On June 1, Optimism officially launched its own OP governance token. Soon after the launch, 5% of the total token supply was distributed to Optimism early adopters through the first airdrop last week. According to Optimism’s data, more than 248,000 Ethereum wallets were eligible to claim OP in the first airdrop. It is worth pointing out that the OP airdrop season is not over yet as Optimism has allocated another 14% for future airdrops. According to the Optimism’s OP allocation model, the rest of the token’s supply is intended for the so-called Ecosystem Fund (25%), funding public goods (20%), and rewarding core contributors (19%). The remaining 17% will be made available to Optimism investors. However, investors should be aware that the total supply of OP is expected to increase at a rate of 2% per year from the initial supply of 4.3 billion tokens at genesis. Since the launch, the OP token has been listed by virtually every major cryptocurrency exchange including Binance, Bybit, KuCoin, OKX and many others. Currently OP is changing hands at $1.22 per token, but the price of this governance token is likely going to appreciate as Optimism Collective gains functionality and authority.
1. Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum is an open-source blockchain that pioneered smart contract functionality in 2015. The blockchain operates as a decentralized virtual machine that can execute scripts – also called smart contracts – in a fast, immutable, and trustless manner. Ethereum’s native asset is Ether (ETH), which is currently the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Although it can also be used as a medium for the transfer of value between different Ethereum addresses, it is more commonly used to execute various smart contracts. The Ethereum blockchain hosts a number of ERC20 tokens with different utilities – these include Exchange tokens (OKB, HT, UNI), DeFi tokens (LINK, MKR, COMP, SNX, etc.) and several stablecoins such as USDC, DAI, TUSD, and USDT. Ethereum is currently transitioning from proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake blockchain. Once Ethereum 2.0 is fully launched, the network will be able to perform more transactions at a higher speed than today. Hopefully, this will also lower the network fees, which are a well-known Achilles’ heel of Ethereum ecosystem.
Longest-running Ethereum Testnet will transition to Proof-of-Stake on June 8
Ropsten, Ethereum’s longest-running testnet is going to switch from proof-of-work consensus algorithm to a more environmentally friendly proof-of-stake consensus on June 8. Following a successful shift to proof-of-stake on Ropsten, Ethereum developers will move their focus to the Goerli and Sepolia testnet. Since Ethereum mainnet is already the next in line, the highly anticipated event where Ethereum’s PoW mainchain and PoS Beacon Chain join, also known as “The Merge”, could be completed as soon as in August 2022 if everything goes according to the plan. While there are no official information as to when “The Merge” is going to happen, Ethereum developer Time Beiko recently revealed that we are in “the final chapter of PoW on Ethereum” and that the switch from PoW to PoS is likely going to take place “a few months after June”. Nevertheless, Ethereum’s PoS Beacon Chain is up and running ever since December 2020 and you can already stake your ETH, but you will only be able to unstake once the Beacon Chain will start processing transactions, this is after “the Merge”. In addition, several cryptocurrency analysts have noted that the Ethereum’s move to the faster and more environmentally-friendly Ethereum 2.0 has not been priced in yet. According to their analysis, ETH, which is currently changing hands at a discounted price of around $1,800, could surge as high as $2,600 once ETH 2.0 FOMO starts influencing the ETH markets.
