Among the tens of thousands of altcoins there are a few crypto assets that have interesting characteristics, such as Matic, Band, Kadena, and Casper.
MATIC (Polygon)
Right now one of the “hottest” ones is Polygon’s MATIC.
In fact, in the last 24 hours, its price has been +17%, while the cumulative gain in the last two weeks is almost 40%.
Polygon is probably the most widely used second layer of Ethereum. It is a project that aims to create an Ethereum-compatible multi-chain system to enable fast and cheap transactions.
Several reports have recently come out regarding Polygon’s adoption, which continues to grow significantly over the months.
After collapsing in May, the annual low for the price of MATIC, which is Polygon’s native token, took place around mid-June at $0.35.
It has now climbed back above $1.1, which is a 220% rebound from those lows. Although MATIC’s price is still 61% below the all-time high of December 2021, the current level is in line with those of early May.
In other words, MATIC’s price has already recovered all the losses accumulated from the May and June crashes.
The reason is precisely related to the steady growth of its adoption. For example, the current daily transaction volume on the Polygon network is in line with that of March, and almost seven times higher than prior to the bubble.
The same price trend does not seem to slavishly follow that of ETH, for example, as MATIC’s current price is similar to that of May 2021, whereas that of ETH is less than half that of May 2021.
MATIC is thus following its own path, although it is heavily influenced by the crypto market cycle, driven not so much by speculation as by its actual use.
Band Protocol
BAND is the token of the Band Protocol project
Although its price is still 85% below the all-time highs of April 2021, it has been exploding in recent days.
Indeed, it has gained more than 120% in the last 24 hours alone, and more than 220% in the last week.
It landed in the crypto markets in 2019, and as early as July 2020 it started to climb, which is months before the start of the most recent big bullrun in the crypto markets.
While it had never previously risen above $1, as early as June 2020 it touched $2, and in September of that year it surpassed $15. In other words, it gained 1,400% in about three months.
After falling back to $4, it rose again in January 2021 following the general trend of the crypto market. It peaked in April of that year at nearly $23.
However, since then its value has fallen a lot, particularly in May 2022 when it plummeted from more than $5 to less than $2.
Until 2 November it had done nothing but fall further, all the way below $1, but in the last two days, its price has rebounded to over $3.5. It now capitalizes just under $150 million.
The Band Protocol project offers decentralized cross-chain oracles. It recently announced the release of an update to BandChain version 2.4, and it is possible that this news has boosted its value.
Kadena (KDA)
KDA is the native cryptocurrency of the Kadena project.
It is a minor cryptocurrency, to the extent that in the ranking of those with the largest market capitalization it is only ranked 145th with less than $300 million.
However, it has only been in existence since 2020, and during the previous bullrun it spiked very noticeably.
Indeed, until April 2021 its price had never exceeded $1, and in mid-September, its value was around this threshold.
Between October and November last year, it jumped in a very few weeks to $27, which is a gain of 2,600% in just over two months.
However, since then it has lost 95% of its value, returning to about $1.3.
It is clear that what happened in October and November 2021 was only a temporary speculative bubble, but it is interesting that the current price is higher than in late 2020, when it was no more than $0.2.
So compared to then, the current price is still 550% higher, and is in line with that of April 2021.
Kadena is a blockchain based on Proof-of-Work, like Bitcoin, but with low energy consumption. It was born precisely to try to prove that it is possible to do Proof-of-Work while keeping consumption low, although this is perhaps due to the relatively low overall value of its native cryptocurrency.
So far it has not yet succeeded in establishing itself as a viable alternative to Bitcoin, or its consensus mechanism, but if nothing else it shows that even Proof-of-Work can be improved.
Casper (CSPR)
CSPR is the cryptocurrency of Casper Network.
Lately, its price trend in the crypto markets hasn’t been good, but the project behind it is peculiar.
Indeed, the current value is 97% below the all-time high of May 2021, but CSPR debuted in the crypto markets in that very month, which was during the first speculative bubble of the recent bull run.
Since then it has practically done nothing but fall, although current levels are still far higher than the all-time low touched in June 2022. In fact, it has recovered 75% since then.
Its debut on the markets at the very peak of the first speculative bubble in 2021 certainly disfavored the subsequent trend of its price.
As of today, it capitalizes more than $400 million, which is more than Kadena.
Casper Network is a Proof-of-Stake based blockchain created to try to facilitate the adoption of blockchain technology by large companies.
For this reason, it initially attracted a lot of attention, although this has waned over the months.
Its goals are high scalability, ease of use, optimization for industrial uses, and low transaction costs.
However, its problem is very strong competition, since in some ways it is similar to many other projects.
