BTC, ETH Recovery Boosted DeFi Tokens

Cryptocurrency markets recovered early on Monday, with Bitcoin (BTC) once again crossing the $62,000 tier after a temporary dip under $60,000 over the weekend. Subdued trading saw most altcoins and tokens with a small change, but a handful of assets stood out on their specific price-setting mechanisms. 

BTC inched up to $62,003.90, while ETH regained some of its lost positions to around $4,128.03. The two leading assets are one of the reasons for continued optimism and stronger gains in other markets. The new week once again underlines the potential for strong recovery in the DeFi space, where ETH rallies boost the potential for value creation, arbitrage and increased activity. 

DeFi coins and tokens now have a collective value above $163B, roughly double from the lows in September. The Ethereum-based DeFi space holds in value near an all-time high at above $103B after ETH reestablished itself above $4,000. Aave (AAVE) remains the top DeFi aggregator, with a multi-chain facility for crypto-based lending and passive income. 

Shiba Inu Renews Expansion

One of the signs of enthusiasm returning is the price of Shiba Inu (SHIB). The token proved rather resilient, mostly due to its reactive Binance trading pairs and its presence on Coinbase. 

SHIB even managed to recover after a diss from Tesla’s tech king, Elon Musk. Musk, while a Dogecoin (DOGE) fan and allegedly a large-scale holder, stated he owns no SHIB. 

This is not the first attempt at getting a crypto VIP to shill SHIB. Previously, SHIB stored its treasury in Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum wallet, expecting he would hold onto the tokens. Instead, Buterin liquidated some of the tokens and sent the proceeds to charity organizations. 

SHIB added more than 34% to its price in the past week, and entered the top 15 of crypto assets again due to its large supply. SHIB has grown to $0.00003915, a feat for an asset that started at 12 zeros after the decimal point. So far, despite volatility, SHIB seems to be fulfilling the plan of incentivizing owners to hold onto the asset, while achieving growth against other assets. 

Beyond the speculative trading, SHIB also reflects the growth of the DeFi space, as the SHIB community also builds 

Solana (SOL) Bids for Top 5 Coin

SOL continued its expansion above $200, reaching a daily peak at $208.90. SOL is now within a small distance of its all-time high at $214.04, achieved on October 22. 

SOL has now repeated the feat, with slightly smaller trading volumes around $4.4B. The asset sets expectations for new records, as well as a new price range to reflect the Solana network’s influence among crypto projects. In terms of Total Value Locked and project building, Solana may get close to the importance of Binance Smart Chain as one of the leading ecosystems for DeFi, NFTs, crypto-based gaming and other projects. 

THORChain (RUNE) Breaking Out

THORChain, one of the smaller projects related to bridging smart contracts and DeFi, is yet another network to gain prominence. Over the past day, RUNE broke out, with a bid to line up among top 50 digital coins and tokens. 

RUNE is still far from its all-time high at $20.31, but managed to rally to $12.95, adding another 18% to its price in dollar terms. THORChain only locks in around $229M in value, but its growth is promising. The asset has its own decentralized trading venue, where RUNE can be swapped and transferred to multiple networks, for the purposes of DeFI participation, NFT games and other types of bridging or trading for stablecoins. 

Fantom (FTM) Touched All-Time High

FTM aimed to break the $3 range, though the asset stalled with a daily peak around $2.92. Fantom is one of the networks holding 28,000 ETH locked as collateral and more than 1,800 BTC, and a market cap of around $7.4B. 

FTM is attractive for being one of the low per-unit cost coins. Short-term expectations see the asset potentially climbing to $10. More bullish predictions envision FTM at $50, once again getting measured up against the influence of Binance Smart Chain. 

Bitcoin Still Runs the Show

BTC prices are still relatively dominant, with some DeFi assets still stagnant. Most altcoins are yet to regain their all-time highs from May 2021. The dominance of smaller altcoins is still around 17%. For now, only SOL lines up among notable altcoins, with a 1.95% share of the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization. 

BTC prices remain volatile, as the leading asset added hundreds of dollars during early European trading hours. BTC rose to $62,859.83, putting the start to another week of potential growth. BTC is yet to face the end of October and volatility related to expiring futures positions.