The cryptocurrency sector’s total market capitalization has climbed from $840 billion to $858 billion last week. It seems that the sector is slowly recovering from the big bleed caused by the FTX and Alameda fiasco, but this time the recovery is surprisingly not being led by Bitcoin and Ethereum. Rather than that, altcoins like BNB, DOGE and LTC have contributed the most towards the increase in the sector’s total market cap. Will Bitcoin wake up or will these coins continue to be at the forefront of the recovery wave? Find out what we think in this week’s Top 3 Coins to Watch article.
3. Theta Token (THETA)
The Theta Token is the native asset of Theta, an end-to-end infrastructure for decentralized video streaming and delivery that provides revolutionary technical and economic solutions. The Theta platform, which is often called the blockchain alternative to video streaming services like YouTube and Twitch, incentivises various network participants via the use of cryptocurrencies. Several big players from the crypto and IT industry, including Sony, Samsung, Google and Binance, are participating in Theta’s consensus algorithm by running enterprise Theta validator nodes. The project underwent several significant upgrades this year, including the launch of a DEX platform called ThetaSwap and the roll-out of the TDROP token, which is used to incentivize the usage of Theta’s NFT marketplace.
Theta is launching Metachain as part of the Theta Mainnet 4.0 upgrade
All is set for the Theta Network to roll-out the Theta 4.0 upgrade to its mainnet on December 1. The mainnet upgrade in question follows the successful launch of the upgrade on Theta testnet, concluded previously this month. With the new and overhauled mainnet, Theta aims to disrupt the subscription-based streaming businesses, pay-per-view entertainment platforms, free ad-supported video platforms such as YouTube and Twitch as well as several other industries (e.g., ticketing platforms, website hosting platforms, sports franchise fan platforms and metaverse industry). Full list of features and the Theta Labs’ vision in full can be found in the Theta Mainnet 4.0 whitepaper. At the focal point of the mainnet upgrade is the launch of the Theta Metachain, which was announced already back in April 2022.
According to the team, the Theta Metachain is an interconnected network of blockchains, or “chain of chains” as they put it. As such it will play a vital role in the scaling of the network. Utilizing Theta Metachain, the network will be able to achieve potentially unlimited transactional throughput while keeping the block finalization time under 1 second, the developers claim. Investors seem to be bullish on the project as Theta Token is currently trading at the price of $0.96 – up by 10% in the past 7 days.
2. Litecoin (LTC)
The Litecoin blockchain is a Bitcoin fork created by former Google employee Charlie Lee in 2011. The Litecoin network has a target block time of 2 minutes 30 seconds (1/4 of Bitcoin’s 10 minutes) and a four times larger eventual total supply than Bitcoin. In addition, Litecoin utilizes a different Proof of Work consensus algorithm called Scrypt. The development process and efforts to increase the coin’s adoption are led by a Singapore-based non-profit organisation called the Litecoin Foundation. Even though Charlie Lee sold all his personal LTC holdings in December 2017, he continues to be involved in the project.
Litecoin sets a two-year high price denominated in BTC
Litecoin was one of the biggest movers in the crypto top 40 in the past week as it diverged from the broader crypto market downtrend and gained more than 22%. Since Bitcoin’s price remained rather stagnant, the value of LTC against Bitcoin shoot up by almost 50% in November, resulting in a price of over 0.005 BTC per LTC on November 23. The Litecoin’s price in BTC achieved on that day marks the highest such price in over two years. The pump was likely associated with Michael Saylor, a prominent proponent of Bitcoin, likening LTC to BTC in terms of both being a digital commodity. In addition, Twitter user and crypto analyst CryptoKaleo believes to have cracked the “secret” of Litecoin.
However, if Litecoin fails to break out of the descending channel, in which it trades on the LTC/BTC chart, the coin’s price might be headed to new lows, so make sure to trade with caution. In addition, LTC holders and potential investors who are planning to be in for the long run need to be aware of the Litecoin halving, that will take place next August and will definitely affect LTC markets. Do you think that we will see LTC at over 0.02 BTC before the halving?
BNB (BNB)
Binance Coin (BNB) started out as an ERC-20 token sold through an initial coin offering (ICO) back in 2017. In April 2019, the Binance rolled-out its native Binance Chain and all the existing Binance Coin ERC-20 tokens were replaced with BNB, which became the native cryptocurrency of the new blockchain. As of today, Binance Chain is still almost completely centralized, with Binance having complete control of block management. Binance gives users who utilize BNB to pay for trading, withdrawal, and listing fees hefty discounts. While this used to be pretty much the only use case of BNB, the coin has a far greater utility now as it allows users to pay for gas fees, earn cashback on Binance Visa card purchases, stake BNB and participate in liquidity pools and other DeFi activities. BNB is also used to determine eligibility to participate in Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs). Furthermore, the Binance ecosystem is continuously expanding, which means that new products and services are regularly added and many of them give BNB some new utility.
BNB pumps to over $310 on the tailwind of several Binance-related developments
BNB is another top coin that saw considerable price growth (+16%) in the past week. The BNB bull run was likely fuelled by the recent Binance-related developments, including but not limited to Binance launching the industry recovery fund to reduce the negative effects of the FTX’s collapse on the crypto sector. While the crypto giant initially allocated $1 billion BUSD for helping crypto companies that got in trouble because of the FTX’s bankruptcy, CZ soon announced that they have decided to double the allocation to the fund:
In addition, Binance has recently launched a new Binance Launchpad token sale. After a multi-month hiatus, Binance will finally host the HOOK token sale. HOOK is the governance token of the Hooked Protocol, a project that is developing gamified “learn-to-earn” solutions that will help onboard a broader audience to the web3 ecosystem. Interest for the HOOK token is apparently high, as BNB saw a big spike on the day of the Launchpad sale announcement. Last but not least, Binance has successfully deployed a Proof of Reserves System that lets users verify that Binance actually holds their digital assets. For now, the system has only been deployed for Bitcoin, but Binance plans to add other cryptocurrencies and networks in the next couple of weeks as a reliable and verifiable Proof of Reserves system has recently become the cornerstone of investors’ trust in the past few weeks. For now, Binance has managed to keep its good name and has only grown bigger after the FTX’s collapse. Will BNB continue to grow as well?
