What Brought WAVES Above $20
While Bitcoin (BTC) is in what looks like an accumulation phase, altcoins that were lagging in the recent cycle are making a mark again.
WAVES, one of the major decentralized projects that gained prominence in 2017 and 2018, is back again. The market price of WAVES is near a three-month high, moving to $20.59 ahead of the weekend. WAVES rallied hard in the past week, adding more than 116% to the market price.
WAVES is now a top 50 coin in terms of market cap, though in the past it has gone as high as the top 20 or top 15.
What Made WAVES Move
One of the reasons WAVES is active again is a recent announcement from Binance. WAVES was added as a collateral to one of the Binance Loans passive earnings vaults.
Binance has extended its earnings and deposits programs, including some lagging assets. The market operator offers small-scale deposits with significant annualized deposit rates.
WAVES also went for a short-term pump based solely on hype and impulsive trading. The breakout raised hopes for continued growth in the next day.
WAVES has a relatively slim market with volumes of around $88M in 24 hours. Because of the slightly lower volatility index, WAVES may slip faster than other assets. The stability of trading hinges on Binance trading pairs, possibly cutting or extending the rally of WAVES.
WAVES joined the list of smaller altcoins making faster gains in the past day, as adoption and hype grows for older projects.
How WAVES Evolved
WAVES was one of the prominent ICO projects in the earlier days of crypto. Its goal was to become an “Ethereum killer”, hosting a full ecosystem of tokens. WAVES could contain synthetic versions of other assets, and was one of the first networks to offer wrapped BTC. Initially, the blockchain had problems with faked wrapped assets and faked tokens.
Over time, WAVES built a grass-roots community, but the asset failed to climb to predicted levels around $100, with prices stalling at a peak of $35 in 2021. WAVES was one of the few assets where the 2021 bull market achieved a higher peak compared to the late 2017 bull market. In the past 12 months, WAVES has added a net 84% to its price, most due to last week’s series of rallies.
WAVES did not manage to take up as many projects and follow the hype of Terra (LUNA) or Solana (SOL). But the project built its own series of decentralized apps. WAVES has also grown a small DeFi space, holding in $1.63B in value. The value locked in WAVES is now close to that of Polkadot, and the project is ranked on the 12th spot based on DeFi Llama data.
Additionally, WAVES carries multiple smaller protocols and tokens. WAVES was also added to Allbridge, to potentially connect to other protocols. Connectivity between blockchains allows for assets to flow more freely, especially stablecoins and other basic tokens to supply liquidity.
WAVES Invites DEX, Gaming
Like other projects, WAVES has a top decentralized exchange, Neutrino Protocol, with a balance of about $876M in value locked. WAVES Labs also plans to expand its products and presence on the US market, after establishing a US-based office.
Among top distributed apps was also Waves Ducks, one of the leading play-to-earn decentralized games. On the NFT side, the network carries WAVES Punks, its version of the Crypto Punks collection on Ethereum. However, the WAVES games attract smaller inflows of players.
WAVES Became More Accessible
WAVES potential users had to resort to native wallet apps. Now, WAVES assets can be accessed through the MetaMask wallet as a browser extension.
At this point, the future of WAVES remains uncertain, and the asset has fallen to significantly lower positions. If WAVES joins the current DeFi space and joins other projects, this may bring additional value to the network.
WAVES 2.0 Coming Soon
After years of running, the WAVES protocol is in a process of migrating to WAVES 2.0. The new network will have a stronger consensus protocol.
Unlike Ethereum, WAVES has always been a proof of stake network, and will not delay its migration indefinitely. The actual launch of WAVES 2.0 and the period leading to the network completion is seen as potentially bullish for market prices.
In the short term, WAVES expects to attempt a rally above $20. Currently, WAVES is still 55% under its all-time high, but is up 137% since its recent low around $7.65. In the short term, the performance of WAVES may falter, especially if BTC resumes a downward move.
In the past day, BTC abandoned the levels above $44,000 and returned toward $42,000, giving way to altcoins for their short-term price moves.
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