Three projects that have interesting developments and trends happening at the moment.

The top 3 coins to watch

With the broader cryptocurrency market still in an uncertain position, we’ve taken a look across the crypto top 100 to find three projects that have interesting developments and trends happening at the moment. Here’s our top 3 coins to watch this week.

3. Solana (SOL)

Solana is a highly scalable Proof-of-Stake blockchain that has emerged as one of the most significant competitors to Ethereum. The platform allows developers to deploy smart contracts and decentralized applications that users can interact with at fast speeds and low costs (the average cost per transaction is estimated at $0.00025). One of the main reasons for Solana’s scalability is its implementation of Proof-of-History, which allows for block time, block propagation and ledger storage optimizations. The Solana project has attracted prominent backers, such as FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
According to a recent report by CoinDesk, United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is looking to start supporting tokens from the Solana ecosystem. SPL tokens are fungible tokens on the Solana blockchain, and can roughly be understood as Solana’s version of Ethereum’s ERC-20 standards. Per the report, Coinbase is planning to support withdrawals of the USD Coin stablecoin to the Solana blockchain.
If Coinbase starts supporting SPL token withdrawals for the coins it already lists (like USD Coin), this could potentially open the door for future listings of Solana-based tokens. Currently, the biggest SPL token by market capitalization is Serum (SRM), with a market cap of $287 million.
From a price perspective, Solana’s native asset SOL has dropped by a whopping 47.8% since January 1, which could represent a solid buying opportunity for those who have a long-term bullish view on the project.

2. Fantom (FTM)

Fantom is another layer 1 blockchain contender that started gaining momentum in 2021 as an alternative to Ethereum. The network is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which makes it simple to deploy apps and smart contracts that have already been built for Ethereum to Fantom. The platform offers cheap and efficient transactions thanks to its aBFT consensus mechanism, which different blockchains deployed on top of Fantom get their security from. In Fantom’s architecture, every decentralized app deployed on the network has its own customizable blockchain, while still being able to interoperate with others chains deployed on Fantom because they’re all connected to the same Lachesis consensus layer.

Decentralized finance on Fantom has been trending upwards. According to DeFi aggregator DeFi Llama, there’s currently $9.6 billion in TVL (total value locked) across DeFi protocols on Fantom. For reference, the platform’s DeFi TVL at the start of the year was sitting at just under $5 billion. Currently, the platform’s largest protocol by far is Multichain, which allows tokens to be bridged and swapped between 10 different blockchains.

Fantom is currently the 4th largest DeFi platform in terms of TVL, while the FTM token is currently the 29th largest crypto asset by market cap. Avalanche, Solana and Polygon have considerably larger market caps despite their DeFi ecosystems having a lower TVL. While TVL alone doesn’t tell the whole story about the level of activity and user interest, this “imbalance” is an interesting perspective to consider.

1. Theta Token (THETA)

Theta is a project that’s creating a blockchain platform for decentralized video delivery. In Theta Network, users are rewarded with tokens for providing their internet bandwidth and computing resources to the network. According to the Theta team, their model allows video and streaming platforms to save on infrastructure costs, while also unlocking a new way to reward users for their engagement. The Theta blockchain is maintained by both Enterprise Validator Nodes, which operate as a committee, as well as a large number of Guardian Nodes, which are run by the community of users. Theta features a dual token design where Theta Token (THETA) is used in governance and staking, while Theta Fuel (TFUEL) is used to pay for on-chain operations.

Theta Network is close to the launch of TDROP, which is a token powering the project’s ThetaDrop NFT marketplace. The idea behind TDROP is to drive “NFT Liquidity Mining” on ThetaDrop, providing rewards to users who buy and sell NFTs on the marketplace. At launch, the TDROP token will have three main use cases: VIP benefits for token holders on ThetaDrop, access to staking, and governance.

TDROP will be launching on February 1, and the initial distribution of the token will be going to users who staked THETA tokens between August 1 2021 and January 15 2022. Besides the initial distribution to THETA stakers, TDROP tokens will also be distributed through the previously mentioned NFT Liquidity Mining program.

The Theta Network team has made it clear that there will be no token sale for TDROP, and is urging users to be on the lookout for potential scams.