We’ve discussed several of the hottest layer-1 decentralized finance coins other than Ethereum in our recent commentary, and in our recent monthly member training. Today we will be discussing two more that you may not be familiar with just yet.
Right now it looks as though Layer-1’s are the strongest sector/aspect of the cryptocurrency market. With Web3 being the clear global crypto/blockchain initiative for 2022, the emergence of Layer-1 cryptocurrencies is not at all surprising.
It is extremely unlikely that we see only 1 Layer 1 currency like Ethereum corner the market for much longer, and far more likely that emerging competition within the space will encourage more rapid innovation.
Ethereum has already run into major troubles with the development of Ethereum’s NFT market over the past year, as the platform simply can’t support all of the world’s NFT demand without transaction fees (gas fees) going up and transaction speeds slowing down. This is just one example as to why we are going to see multiple layer-1’s emerge into the mainstream.
We’ve already seen a diversification amongst layer-1 cryptocurrencies in the latter half of 2021, with coins like Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX), and Terra (LUNA) emerging almost out of thin air and then quickly becoming some of the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap.
Assuming that this trend of layer-1 cryptocurrencies is to continue, we must also assume that a year from now there will be several cryptocurrencies with multi-billion dollar evaluations that we haven’t even heard of yet.
Today we would like to point out two layer-1’s that we have not written about or discussed in the past. Fantom (FTM) is currently the #28 cryptocurrency by market cap and operates as its own layer-1 network with its own native smart contract platform. Unfortunately for Kraken or Coinbase Pro users, FTM is not currently available on these exchanges, however, it is available on exchanges like Gemini and FTX.
For another interesting layer-1 with similar price action to FTM and its own native blockchain protocol, you can look into Cosmos (ATOM) which is available on both Kraken and Coinbase Pro exchanges.
Both FTM and ATOM put in local bottoms in the latter half of December and have been steadily moving up since. Another thing that these coins have in common is that they are both currently re-testing previous all-time highs after multiple failed breakthrough attempts. Local support levels for anyone interested in trading these coins are at $32.34 for ATOM, and $2.34 for FTM, with resistance at all-time highs for both.
Coins to Watch: Polkadot (DOT) looks to have reclaimed its 200-day moving average and has hopefully bottomed, with $31.32 as the resistance level to beat before a move back up
Today’s Winners: In-line with the subject of this article, it looks as though alternative Layer-1’s are the big winners thus far this week, with coins like ATOM, FTM, Near Protocol (NEAR), and Tezos (XTZ) almost all making double-digit gains in the past 24 hours.
Today’s Losers: On the other side of today’s market action are more established Layer-1’s like Terra (LUNA), Avalanche (AVAX), and Algorand (AGLO) all down on price. It appears that value may be moving from established Layer 1’s into newer or more speculative Layer 1’s, a potential indication of increased appetite for risk in the market.**If we discussed a cryptocurrency that you would like to trade but isn’t offered on your current crypto exchange, please see coinmarketcap.com in order to view a profile on any tradable cryptocurrency, as well as a list of exchanges that do offer the coin for trading.**