Top Crypto Gems on KuCoin: Bitcoin Layer 2, DePIN Coins to Watch
While BTC and ETH traders cool their heels as they wait for more developments about potential ETF approvals, altcoins across various sectors are seeing definitive price action in recent sessions. The crypto Fear & Greed Index eased from over 70 last week to 65 on Monday but remains firmly in the Greed zone.
This week, a blend of new listings and trending coins is shaping the market dynamics. Here's a deep dive into what's hot on KuCoin right now.
New Listings on KuCoin to Watch
Here are the top new coins listed on KuCoin garnering significant attention on our platform and the crypto community at large:
1. Dovi (DOVI)
Dovi, a community-driven Bitcoin Layer 2 solution, is an EVM-compatible smart contract platform designed to enhance scalability, reduce fees, and foster a secure, decentralized financial ecosystem. It offers efficient transaction processing, significantly lower network fees, a safer consensus mechanism, and a scalable second-layer network. Dovi (Ordinals) aims to make blockchain technology more accessible, efficient, and secure for its users.
KuCoin Labs, the incubator and investment arm of the KuCoin ecosystem, has announced a strategic investment in Dovi, a company focused on developing innovative solutions for Bitcoin Layer2. This investment aims to optimize the Bitcoin ecosystem's user experience and transaction efficiency. KuCoin Labs' head, Lou Yu, stated that they would continue to assist Dovi in achieving its pivotal milestones, including product innovation, market expansion, and enhancement of user experience.
Watch for: Dovi is a new entrant in the Bitcoin Layer-2 scaling solution segment, offering a unique way to harness the power of smart contracts while making the Bitcoin blockchain more efficient and cost-effective to use.
2. Jito (JTO)
Jito, a Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, uses a liquid staking protocol that leverages both staking and maximum extractable value (MEV) techniques, allowing community members to earn returns by temporarily locking their crypto tokens. The platform was established in 2021 by Lucas Bruder, who aimed to create a public MEV system.
Jito has raised $10 million in funding from investors, including Solana Ventures and Solana Labs. The platform offers features such as staking, a borrowing/lending protocol, and a liquidity pool. Jito also recently launched an airdrop of its new JTO token, distributing 90 million tokens to the public based on user participation. The platform plans to focus on ecosystem development in the coming months.
Watch for: The Jito airdrop will distribute 1 billion $JTO tokens with an initial circulation of 115 million, excluding locked and foundation reserves. Your JTO token reward is based on your JitoSOL staking rewards; simply connect your wallet to the Jito Foundation website to claim and receive your tokens directly.
3. Mantle Network (MNT)
Mantle Network is making waves with its promise of enhanced security and interoperability in blockchain networks. This has piqued the interest of both individual and institutional investors.
Mantle, an Ethereum layer-2 project with a $2.3 billion treasury, has launched its second core product, the Mantle Liquid Staking Protocol (LSP), just six months after the Mantle Network's debut. The new protocol allows users to stake ETH and receive $mETH tokens, offering a way to earn yield on staked assets, with the project ambitiously aiming to become the third-largest liquid staking protocol after Lido and Rocket Pool.
Watch for: A relatively new entrant among Ethereum Layer-2 protocols, Mantle Network is rapidly expanding its ecosystem by offering liquid staking capabilities and other initiatives to help onboard web2 developers to web3.
4. Rats (RATS)
The Bitcoin Ordinals protocol has introduced RATS, a BRC-20 memecoin, enabling the trading of satoshi units with unique identifiers on the Bitcoin blockchain. Utilizing the BRC-20 standard, $RATS facilitates a variety of token use cases, including DeFi.
Watch for: The RATS airdrop aims to reward community members, with RATS leveraging community interest for its value.
5. The Root Network (ROOT)
The Root Network, a new entrant in the open metaverse arena, has witnessed a notable increase in the value of its ROOT token post-exchange listings. It's an L1 blockchain created by Futureverse to enhance the metaverse user experience, offering security, scalability, and interoperability through integration with the XRP Ledger and EVM compatibility. It aims to support the development of community-driven applications and promote a decentralized, inclusive digital economy.
Watch for: The $ROOT price rallied by over 600% following its listing on KuCoin. If the demand for metaverse projects picks up next year, this could be an interesting project to keep an eye on.
The Biggest Cryptos Moving the Market - Trending Altcoins
Moving on from the new listings, here’s a list of the trending altcoins moving the crypto market lately:
1. Bonk (BONK)
The Solana Mobile Saga has experienced a tenfold sales surge due to a rush for a 30 million BONK token airdrop, now worth over $877, surpassing the phone's $599 price tag. This frenzy was sparked by BONK's recent 900% gain, becoming the second-largest meme coin, leading Solana to limit phone purchases and consider a price hike amidst concerns of potential Sybil issues.
2. Internet Computer (ICP)
The Internet Computer (ICP) token has seen a significant resurgence, soaring to $11.81, its highest since May 2022, and marking a 265% increase from its lowest point this year, resulting in a market cap exceeding $4.6 billion. The surge is attributed to the network's unique capabilities for building decentralized applications, its integration with Bitcoin allowing smart contracts to interact with the BTC network, and the growing interest in Bitcoin's role in the NFT space, as evidenced by the 190% increase in Bitcoin NFTs volume over the past month.
3. Injective (INJ)
Injective (INJ), a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, is making significant strides with its layer-2 solutions and cross-chain capabilities, appealing to users interested in borderless trading. INJ has recently hit a record of 370 million on-chain transactions and witnessed a 40% surge in its token value over the past week, reaching an all-time high of $31.30.
With a market cap of $2.6 billion, INJ stands out for its financial applications and cross-chain access from blockchains like Polkadot and Ethereum, further buoyed by the excitement around AI advancements such as ChatGPT-4, which have positively influenced market sentiments.
4. Stacks (STX)
Stacks (STX) has experienced a 13% price surge as a result of increased STX20 inscription minting, leading to higher fees and significant network congestion. The Stacks blockchain set a record with 10,371 transactions in a single block, reflecting a growing interest in building on Bitcoin despite the current network strain. This activity has also caused a spike in the Bitcoin blockchain's congestion and fees, with the STX price reaching $1.17 and trading volumes surging by over 180%, signaling heightened trader interest.
5. FTX Token (FTT)
The FTX Token (FTT) is currently in a consolidation phase, with the market closely monitoring its performance amidst a volatile environment and a complex legal battle with the IRS over a $24 billion tax bill. FTX, which is in liquidation, contends it operated without profits for three years and that meeting the IRS's demands would harm the victims of its collapse; meanwhile, FTT's price action shows a consolidation pattern, with its future direction hinging on whether it can maintain support levels or succumb to a downside breakout.
The FTX Trading Ltd. bankruptcy case is progressing with a new reorganization plan to repay billions to customers and creditors. However, key aspects like the potential relaunch of its exchange and valuation of digital tokens remain undecided. Creditors will vote on the plan, which proposes cash distributions post-cryptocurrency liquidation, before it seeks final approval from US Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey, with major creditor groups already in agreement on the plan's framework.
Major Crypto Headlines to Know
VanEck Predicts Spot Bitcoin Approvals and More
Asset management firm VanEck has released its 15 cryptocurrency predictions for 2024. These include the arrival of a U.S. recession, the SEC's approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, and a historic rally for Bitcoin potentially spurred by political events and regulatory shifts following the U.S. presidential election. VanEck predicts that over $2.4 billion may flow into these ETFs in Q1 2024, supporting Bitcoin's price.
Other predictions include minimal market disruption from the Bitcoin halving in April 2024, a post-halving rise in Bitcoin's price, and significant gains for some low-cost miners. VanEck also anticipates Ethereum outperforming major tech stocks in 2024, although it won't surpass Bitcoin. However, Ethereum's market dominance will face challenges from other smart contract platforms.
The Rise of DePIN
Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePINs) are emerging as a significant trend in the crypto world, leveraging blockchain technology to build and operate real-world physical infrastructure and hardware networks in a permissionless, trustless, and programmatic way. DePINs incentivize participants to build the network by offering more cost-effective and innovative services than traditional models.
The concept of DePIN was first introduced by IoTeX in November 2021 and further developed with concepts like Token Incentivized Physical Infrastructure Networks (TIPINs) and Proof of Physical Work (PoPW). DePINs utilize blockchain technology and crypto-economic protocols to enable globally distributed individuals to collectively build, maintain, and operate physical networks. They require physical infrastructure, off-chain compute infrastructure, blockchain architecture, and token incentives. The future of DePINs is promising as they offer a more efficient, cost-effective, and collective ownership approach to reimagine how we build physical infrastructure networks.
GameFi and Metaverse Expected to Grow in 2024
Web3 gaming execs expect 'tens of millions of gamers to join in 2024 due to cryptocurrency market hype and the commercial release of highly anticipated blockchain games. Data from DappRadar reveals that around 1 million or more unique active wallets have played Web3 games daily in the last three months, with expectations of up to 100 million more next year. Web3 gaming could take off with massive adoption in the free-to-play space, selling skins and user-generated content to be a significant theme next year.
Apple's Vision Pro VR headset is expected to be a game changer for the metaverse, potentially reducing the cost of hardware and overcoming a significant consumer hurdle for entering the virtual space. While Meta has also made strides in the VR space, Apple's iconic brand could drive hardware cost reduction at scale.
Arbitrum Recovers From Partial Outage Caused by ‘Surge of Inscriptions’
Arbitrum, a layer-2 blockchain on Ethereum, experienced a temporary outage that lasted about 1.5 hours due to a surge in Bitcoin Ordinals-inspired inscriptions. The surge triggered a sequencer to stop, halting the processing of transactions. A data researcher noted that 90% of transactions had been inscriptions before the chain stopped, with an inscription called "fair" triggering the halt.
However, Arbitrum announced that all systems were operational again, and gas prices on the network had stabilized. The company plans to provide a full "post-mortem" in the coming days. This incident follows similar problems caused by Ordinals-like tokens on the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain and Polygon last month.
BAYC and MAYC NFT Retrieval
More good news coming in, this time from the NFT market. All Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that were stolen from the peer-to-peer trading platform NFT Trader have been returned after a bounty of 120 Ether (ETH) approximately $267,000, was paid. The hack, which occurred on December 16, resulted in the theft of NFTs valued at nearly $3 million.
The attacker demanded a ransom for the return of the NFTs. A community initiative led by Boring Security, a non-profit Web3 security project funded by ApeCoin, successfully recovered all the assets within 24 hours of paying the bounty. The bounty payment was made by Greg Solano, co-founder of Yuga Labs, the company behind both NFT collections. Yuga Labs facilitated negotiations to recover the stolen tokens and returned them to their rightful owners free of charge.