Solana and Polkadot Ride High as Altcoin Season Heats Up: Markets Wrap

“The increase of altcoins’ price is attributed to anticipation for blockchain upgrades, as well as to other major factors, from institutional adoption to decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs),” said Delio’s Head of Strategy Oleg Smagin.

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Source: AnalyticsInsight

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key takeaways

  • MetaMask said its monthly active users have grown by 19x since July 2020
  • Offchain Labs, an Ethereum scaling solutions developer, secured $120 million in Series B funding

Altcoins continue riding high on Tuesday including Solana (SOL) and Polkadot (DOT) which have shot up over 60% in value over the past month.

Solana is trading at $111.83, ahead 0.89%, according to Messari. SOL reached an all-time high of $114.19 on Monday afternoon amid the continued billowing demand for non-fungible tokens, also called NFTs.

Polkadot (DOT) jumped 24% in the morning, trading at $31.71. Later in the day the token cooled off at $30.08, as of press time. DOT has a return on investment (ROI) of 63.99% in the last 30 days. 

Ethereum outperformed bitcoin on Tuesday. The largest crypto by market capitalization shed 3% on-day while ETH made gains of 2%.

More money poured into crypto projects today. Offchain Labs, an Ethereum scaling solutions developer, secured $120 million in Series B funding, Blockworks reported. The funding will go towards expanding staff and further developing their mainnet, Arbitrum One.

DeFi

  • Uniswap (UNI) is trading at $29.51 with a total value locked of $4,901,587,465 advancing 6.3% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET. 
  • Terra (LUNA) is trading at $32.03, down -9% with trading volume at $1,167,630,907 in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
  • DeFi:ETH is 32% at 4:00 pm ET.

Crypto

  • Bitcoin is trading around $47,283.54, down -2.81% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
  • Ether is trading around $3,408.57, advancing 1.99% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
  • ETH:BTC is at 0.072, up 4.83% at 4:00 pm ET.

Insight

“The increase of altcoins’ price is attributed to anticipation for blockchain upgrades, as well as to other major factors, from institutional adoption to decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs),” Delio’s Head of Strategy Oleg Smagin said. “In addition, as the recent network upgrade of Ethereum is done, it is natural that investors turn attention toward rival blockchains with similar functionality. If the boom in decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens continues, not only Ethereum, but also altcoins like Solana would keep gaining against BTC dominance.”

Polkadot (DOT) trading over the past month. Source: Messari

Equities

  • The Dow declined -0.05% to 35,383.
  • S&P 500 fell -0.07% to 4,525.
  • Nasdaq shed -0.02% to 15,262.
  • VIX advanced 3.21% to 16.71 at 4:00 pm ET.

Commodities

  • Brent crude jumped to $72.96 per barrel, shedding -0.61%.
  • Gold made gains of 0.29% to $1,817.4.

Currencies

  • The US dollar rose 0.02%, according to the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index.

Fixed Income

  • US 10-year treasury yields 1.307% as of 4:00 pm ET.

In other news…

MetaMask, a popular wallet used by DeFi traders, said that it has reached over 10 million monthly active users, up from 500,000 users in July of last year. As the total value locked in DeFi nears $90 billion, the surging user numbers signal further adoption of the decentralized ecosystem at-large, Blockworks reported. 

We are looking out for

  • OPEC+ meeting will be on Wednesday

That’s it for today’s markets wrap. I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

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