Although it seems like Bitcoin is losing its bullish steam as it is struggling to get back above the $45,000 zone, Avalanche seems to just be getting started as its native token AVAX gained 100% in the past 7 days and 40% in the last 24 hours.
What you should know
Avalanche is an umbrella platform for launching decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, financial assets, trading and other services like the Ethereum network. The platform provides decentralized asset trading which anyone can launch and use and it does so with a network which is unique in the digital realm in providing subsecond transaction confirmations.
AVAX, its native token which forms the in-house payment method for Avalanche and is used for fee collection during transactions, is currently ranked among the top 30 cryptocurrencies, coming in at #27, with a market capitalization of $5.7 billion at a current market price of $32.74.
Avalanche is a layer-one blockchain protocol that claims to be the “fastest smart contracts platform in the blockchain industry,” as measured by time-to-finality. The project also boasts having “the most validators securing its activity of any proof-of-stake protocol.”
Avalanche received a boost yesterday as a result of an announcement that it had partnered with Aave and Curve to create a $180 million liquidity mining incentive program called “Avalanche Rush.” According to the announcement, the goal of the program is to “bring blue-chip DeFi applications to Avalanche, starting with two popular protocols, Aave and Curve.”
This announcement caused the price of the native token to skyrocket by over 40% in just barely 24 hours.
Bottomline
The overall cryptocurrency market capitalization has fallen below the $2 trillion mark to currently stand at $1.9 trillion with Bitcoin currently trading at $44,400 as of the time of writing this report. The price of Ether also dropped below the $3,000 zone, currently trading at $2,990. While some analysts are speculating that it is just a retracement, others are calling it the end of the short-term bull run. This however has not stopped altcoins like AVAX from appreciating triple figures.