After another week of green numbers, the cryptocurrency market has climbed to a total valuation of $2.52 trillion. Most of the total market capitalization increase can be attributed to appreciation of the 3 largest cryptocurrencies – BTC, ETH and BNB, which gained 7%, 5% and 10% respectively last week. Bitcoin, which climbed as high as $62,500 during Week 41 is again in the centre of attention. However, the reason is not only its amazing price performance, but also the rumoured launch of a US Bitcoin futures-based ETF. We are very excited to see what Week 42 has to offer for the crypto investors and followers.
3. Olympus DAO (OHM)
Olympus DAO is a decentralized reserve currency protocol that launched and operated the OHM token. OHM token is a free-floating reserve currency. It must be emphasized that OHM is not a stablecoin as it is not pegged to any government issued currency, such as USD. Olympus DAO notes that the perception that stablecoins always keep their value is false, as the currency they are pegged to can depreciate, meaning that the stablecoin depreciates as well, even though its dollar denoted price stays the same (say 1.00 USD). To address this issue, OHM is backed by a basket of assets kept in the Olympus treasury. Each OHM is backed by, but not pegged to, 1 DAI. If OHM trades below 1 DAI, the protocol will buy back and burn OHM. In addition, Olympus offers staking and bonding based on unique game theory-based incentives and penalties.
OHM rallied to over $1300 riding on strong project fundamentals and Olympus v2 announcement
Olympus has been recently very successful in terms of cross platform integrations. Among the latest integrations is OHM/TOKE staking pool that is expected to launch next month following the vote that showed that TokeMAK community members support Olympus DAO’s inclusion to Token reactor network. In addition, the developers of the reserve currency project recently announced Olympus v2, which will feature improved decentralization and immutability, revamped bond offerings and the launch of Olympus Pro. All this positive news inevitably translated to a growing OHM price, which recently shot above $1300 again. While the price has since dropped to $800, OHM is expected to perform well in the future, both due to the strong fundamentals as well as the protocol tokenomics. According to data provided by OpenOrgs.info, Olympus DAO’s treasury currently holds over $370 million worth of assets and is the seventh-largest DAO treasury in existence. Furthermore, Olympus partner Rari Capital offers a 7,900% return on supplied sOHM. It is no wonder that sOHM is one of the most staked assets on DeFi protocol Rari Capital.
2. Polkadot (DOT)
Polkadot is a blockchain solution that allows multiple specialized blockchains called parachains to run at the same time and interoperate. Polkadot can connect diverse blockchains into a single, decentralized and highly scalable ecosystem. The network operates using a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm and utilizes a native currency DOT. The project was originally designed by Dr. Gavin Wood, one of the co-founders of Ethereum and the inventor the smart contract programming language named Solidity. Along with Cardano, Solana, and several other networks Polkadot is considered one of the potential “Ethereum killers”.
Polkadot Parachain auction schedule approved, first auction scheduled for November 11
Polkadot Council has recently approved the parachain auctions schedule. The first batch of five parachain slots will be auctioned on a weekly basis with the first auction slated for November 11. Each slot auction will last 7 days, but the first five parachain auction winners will only be deployed to Polkadot on December 15. The winning projects will get a parachain slot for a duration of 96 weeks. The Polkadot Council has also approved the second batch of five parachain slots. The auction of the second batch will begin on December 23 and will take on the same format as the first batch, except that a new slot auction will begin on a bi-weekly basis as opposed to one slot auction every week in batch #1. Interestingly, cryptocurrency giant Binance already announced that they will support the Polkadot Parachain Slot Auction process in order to help with Polkadot’s ecosystem development. The exchange noted that more info about the event and its support of it is coming soon. Following the competition of the Parachain Slot Auction vote, DOT jumped up by more than 20% and reclaimed $40 valuation. Polkadot’s native currency is still changing hands around that value. Nevertheless, technical analysis and historical events from Kusama, Polkadot’s canary network, shows that DOT could be eying a breakthrough to $75, while some people in the industry are optimistic that we will see DOT changing hands at $100. Let’s remember that KSM, the native token of Kusama, surged by more than 70% following the announcement of first Kusama parachain slot auctions in February 2021. If DOT manages to pull a rally of a similar magnitude, $75 is a totally reachable target.
1. Bitcoin (BTC)
Although we believe Bitcoin does not need much introduction and that all eyes would be on it even if it were not featured on our list, here is a short summary of the history and key characteristics of the first truly decentralized digital currency. The world’s pioneer cryptocurrency was launched by pseudonymous figure named Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 and has a capped supply of 21 million coins. The decreasing miner block rewards makes the cryptocurrency scarcer with time, ensuring a deflationary nature. Bitcoin is also often referred to as the barometer of the cryptocurrency market as other assets usually follow BTC’s price performance.
The first-ever US Bitcoin futures ETF could very likely commence trading next week
According to Bloomberg, the US SEC is likely not going to oppose the proposal for a Bitcoin futures-based exchange traded fund (ETF) filed by ProShares within the determined deadline, which expires this week. This effectively means that these BTC futures ETFs could hit the US market. Although the regulator has repeatedly rejected every Bitcoin ETF application for the better part of the last decade the ETF proposal in question is based on Bitcoin futures contracts and not BTC itself. In addition, the proposal was filed under mutual fund rules, which the SEC Chairman Gary Gensler believes provide significant investor protections. Both the US SEC spokesperson as well as an official from ProShares declined to comment the news, while Bloomberg cites anonymous people close to the matter as the source of the information. To sum it up, this is almost pure speculation for now, however, if the news does turn out to be true, it could give BTC market a significant boost. BTC and the crypto market as a whole have experienced substantial growth in the past two weeks, and a Bitcoin ETF being traded in the US could very likely push the price of Bitcoin past its previous ATH of $64,800.
