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Altcoin Roundup: Post-crash prices give investors a chance to build a diversified portfolio

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Welcome to Cointelegraph Market’s Altcoin Roundup, an in-depth newsletter that focuses on investing from the perspective of fundamental analysis and seeks to identify emerging blockchain projects and tokens that fill niche demands within the growing cryptocurrency market.

The concept of multi-sector investing has long been advocated in traditional finance as the conventional approach to building a balanced portfolio. Typical allocations include representation of stocks, government and corporate bonds, commodities and real estate.

Now that the cryptocurrency market has grown to a multitrillion-dollar ecosystem with numerous emerging assets, clear sectors are beginning to emerge. Savvy crypto investors looking to apply portfolio diversification practices to their holdings should begin to pay attention.

Total cryptocurrency market capitalization. Source: CoinMarketCap

The previous Altcoin Roundup discussed some of the top layer-one solutions and coins like Polkadot/DOT, Cosmos/ATOM and Solana/SOL that have been gaining prominence over the past year, but these projects could also fall under the large-cap investment umbrella alongside high-profile assets like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Cardano’s ADA.

Once an investor has an adequate representation of blue-chip projects, other emerging sectors like decentralized finance (DeFi), oracles and stablecoins can be considered.

DeFi: Uniswap, Aave and PancakeSwap

Decentralized finance emerged during the summer of DeFi in 2020, and the sector helped kick off the current bull market by bringing a new level of excitement to the crypto ecosystem, which was in need of the next big innovation.

One of the best metrics used to demonstrate the rising success of DeFi as a whole is the total value locked (TVL) ranking, which collectively reached an all-time high at $157.63 billion on May 14, according to data from Defi Llama, and stands at $116.62 billion at the time of writing.

Total cryptocurrency market capitalization. Source: CoinMarketCap

The release of Uniswap’s decentralized exchange (DEX) interface — which enabled new projects to immediately launch and made tokens available to the general public — helped ignite a wave of growth and innovation across the market that continues to expand to this day.

In less than a year, Uniswap evolved into the top DEX serving the crypto community, seeing an all-time record of $5.74 billion in 24-hour trading volume during the market sell-off on May 19 and $5.37 billion in total volume locked on the platform.

Daily DEX volume. Source: Dune Analytics

The vast array of liquidity pools is the primary allure for investors looking to diversify their crypto portfolio. Through these pools, stakers have the ability to earn a yield by providing liquidity for the exchange in return for a portion of the trading fees. A number of pools offer staking returns ranging from 25% to 2,000%, and traders are able to select pools based on a variety of factors, including their appetite for risk.

While Uniswap has led the way for DEXs, there are other options like Aave’s lending platform that has emerged as the highest-ranking DeFi protocol by total value locked, with more than $14.1 billion in TVL at the time of writing.

Aave’s recent decision to offer layer-two (L2) access on Polygon has brought renewable energy to the AAVE ecosystem, as traders and liquidity gladly migrated to the lower-fee environment offered on Polygon. This resulted in a significant boost in TVL for both AAVE and Polygon’s native token, MATIC, which is now the second-ranked protocol by TVL, with $11.08 billion locked on the protocol.

Every balanced portfolio also has a small 1% to 5% allocation reserved for higher-risk assets, and the crypto market has no shortage of high-risk, high-growth assets.

For tokenholders who are open to a little more risk in return for higher yields, the Binance Smart Chain-based PancakeSwap boasts a TVL of $7.67 billion, and offers annual percentage rates (APR) of up to 482.54%, according to the project’s website, with all rewards paid out in the protocol’s native CAKE token.

Stablecoins are the new “savings accounts”

Though a token that stays pegged to a fixed value may not sound like the most attractive opportunity for investors, stablecoins have evolved to play a crucial role in the functioning of the wider cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Stablecoins often serve as the backbone of trading pairs on centralized and decentralized exchanges, as well as offering traders a simple way to lock in gains.

The two most prominent stablecoins are Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), which have circulating supplies of $60.9 billion and $21.6 billion tokens, respectively. Tether is currently the most traded crypto token, boasting 24-hour trading volumes that range from $100 billion to $290 billion.

Tether (USDT) vs. USD Coin (USDC) vs. DAI circulating supply. Source: CoinGecko

Other popular stablecoins include Binance USD (BUSD), the stablecoin created for use within the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem, as well as the algorithmically controlled stablecoin DAI, which is minted via pledging collateral on the Maker protocol.

For those looking to earn a little extra yield while in the safety of stablecoins, there are multiple options available such as depositing tokens into a lending protocol like AAVE to earn up to 5% on deposits or the decentralized stablecoin exchange Curve, which offers yields of up to 50% for some stablecoins pools offered.

Other popular options include supplying liquidity for the various decentralized exchanges like PancakeSwap, which offers 8.64% for its DAI-BUSD liquidity pool, or QuickSwap, which offers a reward plus fee of the annual percent yield of 15.01% for its USDT-USDC pool and 26.75% for its DAI-USDC pool.

Oracles

In a world that is becoming increasingly dominated by digital data, no cryptocurrency portfolio would be complete without access to an oracle provider. These entities are the industry’s heavyweights that facilitate the secure exchange of data and information within the cryptocurrency ecosystem, as well as wider financial markets.

Currently, Chainlink is one of the most dominant oracle projects and a key player that comprises a thriving open-source community of data providers, node operators, smart contract developers, researchers and security auditors.

While the Chainlink network doesn’t currently offer a direct way to earn a yield through a simplified staking or governance mechanism, it is easy for tokenholders to put their stash to work in DEX liquidity pools and DeFi protocols like Aave.

For investors who are not ready to trust decentralized exchanges and DeFi platforms, centralized yield-bearing companies like Nexo, Celsius and BlockFi are also available for crypto investors looking to earn a return on their holdings.

Centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Binance also offer direct staking capabilities. For example, investors could stake BAND for up to 11.7% APR on major exchanges.

As a result of the May sell-off, which saw more than $1.2 trillion in value wiped out of the cryptocurrency market, many of the top projects are now well below their all-time high values and trading at what some investors would describe as “bargain bin” prices.

While market participants remain unsure as to which way prices are headed in the short term, it would be wise to investigate these opportunities sooner rather than later, as the notoriously volatile crypto market can make significant moves at the drop of a hat.

Want more information about diversification into the above mentioned projects?

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Altcoin Roundup: Post-crash prices give investors a chance to build a diversified portfolio

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Cointelegraph Consulting: DeFi projects launch on Polygon, usage skyrockets

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In the midst of the hectic crypto market, the gas fees in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector have skyrocketed, once again highlighting the value of layer-two scaling solutions. Cointelegraph Consulting teamed up with Covalent to discover the numbers behind Polygon, the network that is onboarding an increasing number of decentralized applications, from SushiSwap to bZx.

Aave, DeFi’s lending giant, launched on Polygon this April and has already lured away about 66,000 unique users to the layer-two version. Nearly $12 billion has been deposited since the launch, and over $7 billion has been borrowed. Though what is important is that only $158 has been spent on gas across the entire Aave’s Polygon version.

Notably, the major fraction of borrows involves stablecoins, with USD Coin (USDC), Dai and Tether (USDT) making up roughly 60% of borrowings on Aave’s Polygon version. In fact, the breakdown of the borrowings reveals that Aave managed to execute its strategy that prevents users from risky borrowing against volatile assets, which in turn usually leads to liquidations.

Hot off the heels of 1inch Network’s launch on Polygon on May 12, we take a look at its usage as well. 1inch on Polygon has reached almost $18 million in daily swaps by dollar value, with the most swaps denominated in USDT, Wrapped Ether (WETH), USDC or DAI. 

There have been nearly 10,000 swaps facilitated thus far. The platform has already facilitated $43 million in swaps, but only $25 of gas was used to swap this amount.

Amid Ethereum network congestion and rising costs, Polygon is gaining momentum due to its astonishingly low transaction fees. With more DeFi projects pursuing multichain strategies, Polygon could onboard more projects in the near future.

For more charts, market signals and carefully curated news analysis, download the full edition of this issue.

Cointelegraph’s Market Insights Newsletter shares our knowledge on the fundamentals that move the digital asset market. With market intelligence from one of the industry’s leading analytics providers, Covalent, the newsletter dives into the latest data on social media sentiment, on-chain metrics and derivatives.

We also review the industry’s most important news, including mergers and acquisitions, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations. Sign up now to be the first to receive these insights. All past editions of Market Insights are also available on Cointelegraph.com.

Cointelegraph Consulting: DeFi projects launch on Polygon, usage skyrockets

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Elon Musk Dogecoin SNL: Time for Caution or Will Price Break $1.00?

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The Elon Musk Dogecoin SNL guest appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) has Twitter in a frenzy with watch parties being organised in expectation of it triggering further big upside price moves for the meme coin.

This latest development in the DOGE story follows Musk’s regular tweets about the coin, earning him the nickname the ‘Dogefather.’ His backing is a big part of why Dogecoin has turned it from being a joke into one of the leading cryptocurrencies in the world.

The Tesla CEO will co-host the SNL show at 11.30 p.m. EDT. His appearance will put both Elon Musk and Dogecoin in the spotlight. But even though Dogecoin has been gaining massively, up 14,000% this year, Tesla stock has seen last year’s bullish rally reverse, with the shares falling 4.7% year to date.

The next price target for the coin is $1.00, with some traders seeing Dogecoin reaching $5 by year’s end.

Is Elon Musk’s cautious tone a downer for Dogecoin pre SNL?

Unlike most prominent CEOs who tend to stay well away from cryptocurrencies, Elon Musk has taken a leading role in cheering for crypto by highlighting the benefits he thinks they could provide. In February, Musk, in a backhanded endorsement of Bitcoin, stated on Twitter: “…when fiat currency has negative real interest, only a fool wouldn’t look elsewhere. Bitcoin is almost as bs as fiat money. The key word is ‘almost’.”

The main coin that Musk promotes is Dogecoin. When the billionaire tweets about DOGE it often leads to massive price spikes for the crypto. He is also a supporter of Bitcoin (BTC). Tesla’s can now be purchased using Bitcoin and the company now holds the digital currency on its balance sheet. The Tesla treasury announcement was among the contributors to Bitcoin’s bullish rally this year.

Because of the effect of Musk’s tweets on the value of crypto, some developers have created bots that purchase or sell as soon as the Tesla CEO mentions crypto. However, this week, Musk advised people to be cautious when investing in crypto. He attached a video clip on the tweet in which he says “it should be considered speculation at this point. And so, you know, don’t go too far in the crypto speculation …”

Musk’s cautious tone may serve to hold back some buyers, but alternatively it will confirm for some that he is merely setting the scene and will have something to say about Doge in a few hours’ time.

Will Elon Musk effect spark buying frenzy?

Most of the time, whenever Elon Musk tweets about Dogecoin, its value shoots up. It has gained over 800% in the past month alone and surpassed XRP to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap. The market capitalisation for Dogecoin now stands at $81 billion. Data on CoinMarketCap shows Dogecoin reached an all-time high of $0.70 on May 8.

DogeCoin Chart
DOGE/USD 1 day chart, Binance, 8 May 2021. Courtesy TradingView

Dogecoin’s rally has placed it way ahead of prominent cryptocurrencies such as XRP, Tether, and Litecoin.

However, its parabolic price explosion has created nervousness among pro traders and regulators, who fear retail speculators risk losing a lot of money.

So will the Elon Musk Dogecoin SNL platform spark a buying frenzy? At the time of writing Dogecoin is price at $0.64, pulling back from $0.70 touched at 10pm EST. Maybe the near-term top is already in.

Elon Musk Dogecoin SNL: Time for Caution or Will Price Break $1.00?

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TCN Tokens Will Be Officially Listed on Coinsbit Exchange By May 10

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  • Find out the back story of the Tech token network project
  • Why TCN chose Tron blockchain?
  • Recent activities and upcoming plans on the great source- The Tech Token Network
  • TCN and Coinsbit disclosed their partnership for listing TCN tokens
  • TCN token owners can trade with Bitcoin, Tron, and Tether as their trading pairs from 10th

About Tech Token Network

The new project is gathering a lot of momentum with incredible speed- the Tech Token Network (TCN). Our project is looking ahead to boost secure transactions on the blockchain.

We have recently announced the new Tron (TRX) blockchain operating on the Decentralized Finance platform- “TechToken.Network”. After launching the project, we recently released our native token- TCN powered and tokenized on this wonderful protocol.

Our platform is majorly an innovative platform for connecting devices and algorithms to enable collective learning. The TCN project is established on a high throughput sharded ledger. Also, our architecture delivers a reliable smart contract capability to develop and deploy blockchain solutions specifically for decentralized problem-solving.

The developed open-source tools enable users to build diverse ecosystem infrastructures and release some new commercial models. Our platform is made up of a dynamic, quickly-adapting team of engineers, forward-thinking experts, and technology researchers working on the exploration of blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, great technology protocols, and multi-agent systems.

The team has collaboratively come together with a singular aim of putting up a strong technology initiating the partnership with trusted platforms for both today and tomorrow. Our members term it as a collective super-intelligence on top of decentralized economic internet built with a highly scalable next-generation distributed ledger technology. When put together with machine learning, this delivers the predictions and infrastructure to power the future economy.

Behind the Scenes!

Our company intends to provide the best service to their clients. Let’s discuss further the internal working of our project. The public blockchain technology runs on tokens as its fuel. This is mostly because we serve as incentives for unaffiliated individuals to operate or transact within a network that would have required centralized supervision.

Put in another way, tokens substitute the management function of an organization. We incentivize network effects and certain beneficial behaviors on decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. These are the achievements we are cheerful about.

With the excessive rush towards the other more widely published blockchain technologies like Matic, Binance, Ethereum, and the likes, the eagle-eyed Tech Token Network is already poking their nose into the future, and guess what we found- The Tron Network!

The Tron network is one with a very great potential for the future which we believe will ultimately place itself on top of every network within the coming years.  A little research will definitely prove to any doubting Thomas that there is a bunch of truth in this fact.

Recently, the Tron exceeded the 10 billion USD market capitalization with a boast of over 28 million accounts and over 1.7 billion transactions. With this spec of a stat, no one needs no one to convince him or her about the Tron network that has come to be known as the world’s fastest-growing public chain.

The company tech token network is taking a leap rising from the Tron smart contract, TCN token will embrace all the specifications and convenience from the parent platform and will show great results in a very short time.

TCN Plans and Recent Footage

The project has come up with a total supply of over 270 million tokens with a whopping 85% of the supply still available. The TCN token became available since we released the Airdrop with 5.4 million TCN Tokens distributed. This we planned with the aim to grow the TCN community and reward their already existing supporters.

It was a massive giveaway of 5,400,000 TCN Tokens, which equaled the Pre-Sale price to $540.000, in that exclusively designed Airdrop Campaign. We also promise the following bonus:

  • Farming for TCN via TRX Farming
  • Tron application for gaming
  • Peer to Peer application to trade with members and TRX trading
  • Media portal- Deploying TRX for all the latest updates on TCN

TCN and Coinsbit Partnership

On April 20, 2021, TCN retweeted the tweet posted by Coinsbit, where they announced that the TCN token will be listed on their platform for exchanges. However, currently appears in the section “Coming soon” on the exchange portal. This is very great and heartwarming news for all who have been eagerly anticipating trading the TCN token.

The tweet confirmed that the TCN token will be available starting from the 10th of May 2021. It will be available to trade with 3 basics yet most frequently used trading pairs- BTC, TRX, and USDT respectively.

This news of their first listing led to a massive giveaway of a thousand dollars’ worth of TCN tokens to 30 winners of the giveaway. On the other hand, the TCN token price predictions have taken a bullish pattern since the announcement of its listing on the Coinsbit exchange platform.

This is not a fluke as Coinsbit ranks as one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Eastern Europe. The experts who attended the AMA session, price prediction of TCN tokens expects to hit $1 right after listing it on the Coinsbit exchange. The prediction also specifies its price to reach the $5 range within 6 months of listing. With their next motive being to build a big reliable Tron community and the TCN token predicted to reach the $7 range by 2025, what else could be exceptional than this?

We hope you like the read! Let us know your feedback on which should be our next exchange to list TCN tokens? Which is the most reliable platform in terms of service provider according to you?

TCN Tokens Will Be Officially Listed on Coinsbit Exchange By May 10

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Mass adoption looms as South America’s second-largest company accepts crypto payments

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On April 28, MercadoLibre (MELI), the largest Latin American online marketplace, launched a real estate section dedicated to cryptocurrencies. Although the company does not settle property transactions directly, it legitimizes the category as a payment system. 

The $81 billion retailer is the second largest company in South America and is present in 18 countries, including its three largest markets, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico.

The group also owns Mercado Pago, a digital payments system for online and offline transactions, along with Mercado Envios, a logistics platform that provides fulfillment, warehousing, and shipping services.

The current offers include houses, condos, vacant lots, land and commercial real estate located in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and Cordoba.

A new use-case for cryptocurrency in South America

Although this might seem like a niche market, over 300 real estate agents took part in Mercado Libre’s webinar explaining the basic mechanics of cryptocurrencies and their potential impact on the sector. The news might have had a reduced impact as less than 90 offers have been placed in the section, and the prices continue to be displayed in U.S. dollars.

As is already the case with properties paid in U.S. dollars, Argentine pesos, or Brazilian reais, the transaction is handled outside the Mercado Libre platform and combined between the parties. Thus, after choosing the property of preference, the buyer contacts the real estate agent and requests to carry out the transaction in cryptocurrency at the deal closing exchange rate.

However, what analysts might have failed to foresee is the potential of Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Tether (USDT) to effectively serve as a means of exchange in Argentina.

As stated by Juan Manuel Carretero, the commercial manager for vehicles and real estate at Mercado Libre:

“Probably, as cryptocurrencies become widespread, it will no longer be a separate section, but a payment option filter like any other.”

According to Statista, Mercado Libre’s gross merchandise volume accounts for 25.4% of all e-commerce sales in Latin America. Its sales are expected to reach $25 billion in 2021. Therefore, capturing 5% of the $1.25 billion in volume generated each year.

Countries with inflation issues could lead cryptocurrency adoption

Argentina might end up being the poster-child for cryptocurrency adoption as the country’s gross domestic product declined by 10% in 2020, and its cumulative inflation hit 42.6% over the last 12 months.

Considering that people have been limited to purchasing $200 of foreign banknotes per month by the central bank, cryptocurrencies have been effectively functioning as a store of wealth for its citizens.

It may be just a question of time regarding how long it will be before cryptocurrencies gain center-stage as one of the leading digital payment options and marketplaces in Latin America. Meanwhile, the real estate dedicated section should be interpreted as a test drive for consumer demand.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Mass adoption looms as South America\’s second-largest company accepts crypto payments

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UNI rises by 50% Surge To Become 8th Largest Ethereum-Based Asset

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The native token of decentralized exchange Uniswap (UNI) has increased by up to 50% within the past week. This upsurge has pushed UNI into the top ten crypto assets by market capitalization. Speculation bids for the much-expected V3 overhaul are high, and it has helped UNI to maintain the 8th position in the market.

Within 24 hours, UNI has increased its market cap to $17.52 billion from its previous value of $8.8 billion on March 4.

UNI now the second-largest Ethereum-based asset

Based on the current ranking system of Messari, UNI is now the second-largest Ethereum-based asset by market capitalization, only behind Tether.

UNI’s market cap is now bigger than Ripple’s (XRP) market cap ($17.19 billion) as well as Litecoin’s (LTC) market cap ($13.0 billion)

The token entered the top ten on Friday, which makes it the first DeFi DApp native token to do so.

Yesterday, it is price hit an all-time high of $34, but as of the time of writing, UNI was trading at $33 per token. It’s expected to rise further as speculation transactions grow.

The initial token distribution of UNI tokens was airdropped to liquidity providers added to the 400 tokens distributed to every wallet with DEX in September last year.

Hashmasks Sells 16,000 NFTs Related to Artwork for $9 Million

The grand entrance of UNI into the top ten crypto assets is coming after the token recorded an all-time monthly trade volume. In February alone, the record was broken three times, which culminated in a monthly all-time high of $31.9 billion.

But it seems the massive stride in trade volume has come to an end, as trading volume reduced slightly within the past few days. However, even with the drop in volume, UNI still represents 50% of all trades on Ethereum-powered DEXs.

UNI’s surge attributed to several factors

The growth of UNI is also coming at a time when there is increased speculation about the upcoming V3 upgrade. Developer of Yearn Finance Andre Cronje recently stated that there has been increased social media activity by Hayden Adams, Uniswap’s lead developer. According to him, it suggests that the V3 launch is very close.

Cronje created the post after Adams opened a Twitter poll asking followers where they are looking to get the details about the Uniswap V3 launch.

UNI’s impressive rise is a result of several factors, as experts have observed. In particular, the record-breaking figures in trading volume contributed massively to the token’s rise. The surge was also caused by speculation regarding the V3 launch.

UNI rises by 50% Surge To Become 8th Largest Ethereum-Based Asset

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