One overlooked altcoin has put in an incredible move, doubling in less than a day while most of the crypto market corrects.

Injective Protocol (INJ) is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that offers margin trading, derivatives and other services on an extensive cross-chain platform.

The project has optimized connections to the main Ethereum (ETH) chain while being backed by a Cosmos-enabled layer-2 sidechain infrastructure. Injectives architecture also allows for zero gas fees while also controlling network congestion.

INJ is the exchanges native utility and governance token, which plays a role in collateralization, security, incentives and fees.

INJ has been on fire this weekend, skyrocketing from around $4.78 on Friday to $10.00 the following day, representing an increase of nearly 110% in just 24 hours.

The tokens parabolic move coincides with several developments, including an announcement from the Injective team that it is working on a new user interface to allow anyone to list a spot market trading pair.

Working on an instant nINJa listing UI. Basically, itll allow anyone to list any spot market of their choice instantly by using $INJ

Itll be out in a few days max.

The team also announced it has enabled zero-gas fee leverage trading for Cosmos (ATOM) perpetual futures on its platform.

INJ has cooled off from its price explosion and is currently trading at $6.86.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Tithi Luadthong/Natalia Siiatovskaia

Excerpt from:
Under-the-Radar Decentralized Finance Altcoin Rallies Over 100% in Less Than a Day As Ecosystem Explodes - The Daily Hodl

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Any type of cryptocurrency other than the worlds most popular crypto, is called an altcoin. Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH), Cardano (CRYPTO:ADA), and Ripple (CRYPTO:XRP) are examples of altcoins. The three are gaining investors attention and could be the best alternatives to Bitcoin.

You can liken digital currencies to growth stocks because of their massive return potentials. Bitcoin rose to an all-time high of US$67,566.83 on November 8, 2021, but the rally did not last. Bitcoins volatile nature showed once more and the price dropped 48.2% to US$35,030.25 on January 22, 2022.

As of this writing, BTC trades at US$44,388.80, a year-to-date loss of 4.2%. While the crypto has climbed above US$40,000, dont discount a pullback. Some crypto analysts think Ethereum, Cardano, and Ripple could have better chances of providing triple-digit returns in 2022.

Ethereum, the second-most popular cryptocurrency, outperformed Bitcoin last year. Its total return was 399.1% compared to BTCs 59.7%. This altcoin also went on a tailspin after peaking to US$4,812.90 in November 2021. The price sunk below US$3,000 but currently trades at US$3,239.46 (-12% year-to-date).

Many observers in the crypto sector believe that ETH has a higher price potential than BTC. The Ethereum blockchain is among the extensive networks in the industry and the upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 could propel the crypto higher. The networks overhaul began in 2020 and should finish by the summer of 2022.

ETH holders should welcome the upgrade because transaction fees will be lower. Moreover, replacing the proof-work mining structure with staking will make the traditional mining system obsolete. According to crypto experts, the Ethereum network is more versatile as other cryptos, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), trade on the platform.

Some crypto bulls recommend Cardano because the open-source blockchain network boasts excellent prospects. Its platform is similar to Ethereum as developers can also build decentralized applications (dApps) and launch smart contracts. Thus, you can say that this fast-growing blockchain network is Ethereums chief rival or competitor.

Cardanos overall return in 2021 was an astronomical 622.3% and it currently trades at US$1.1948. Its potential increase in value hinges on the success of projects in the pipeline. One of its aims is to carry complex transactions without the need for conduit banks or brokers.

Ripple might have a significant market share by now if not for the U.S. SEC lawsuit filed last December 2020. The company operates RippleNet, a payment and exchange network. XRP is the national token of the network that offers faster and more affordable money transfer fees. Cross-border payments are likewise instant compared with traditional systems.

Unfortunately, Ripple cant take off due to the pending case. On February 8, 2022, CoinDesk reported that XRPs market cap rose above US$40 billion to overtake Cardano. Its now the sixth-largest cryptocurrency in the world. The price climbed to $0.878 and some analysts say XRP could appreciate exponentially if the court rules in favour of Ripple soon.

Bitcoin is the still the undisputed crypto king with its market cap of US$832.32 billion. However, that doesnt mean its the most appealing cryptocurrency. Ethereum and Cardano have delivered higher gains already and Ripple could soon too.

More:
3 Altcoins, not Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC), Have Triple-Digit Return Potential - The Motley Fool Canada

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Avalanche is a smart contract crypto that's going places.

The cryptocurrency industry had an incredible 2021. The total market cap -- the amount of money invested in crypto -- stood at about $770 billion on Jan. 1 and finished the year at $2.25 trillion. And various individual cryptos outperformed the market. For example, smart contract crypto Avalanche (AVAX) gained over 3,000% across the year, taking it to 10th place in the crypto charts.

Avalanche launched in 2020 and quickly became a serious player in the crypto space. It has a strong team behind it in the form of Ava Labs and has also secured investment from major players such as Polychain and Three Arrows Capital.

Here are some of the reasons Avalanche could skyrocket in 2022.

Programmable cryptos are the building blocks of the crypto industry. These are whole ecosystems where other applications and cryptocurrencies can be built. Ethereum (ETH) was the original smart contract crypto, but it struggles with network congestion and high fees. As a result, a number of Ethereum alternatives have grown in popularity -- including Avalanche.

It is early days and it isn't clear which smart contract cryptos will come out ahead. But these networks will be at the heart of any upcoming developments in the crypto industry. Whether it's metaverses, decentralized finance, Web 3, or non-fungible tokens (NFT), they all run on smart contract platforms.

We don't yet know which of these sub sectors will blossom, nor do we know for sure which individual projects will succeed. But we do know smart contracts are the secret sauce that powers all of them, making the platforms themselves a solid investment choice.

There are a few different metrics we can use to evaluate programmable cryptocurrencies. These include transactions per second (TPS) and time to finality. The time to finality is the length of time it takes for a transaction to become permanent and irreversible. It's a bit like how a credit card payment is listed as pending on your account before it's completely finalized.

Avalanche says it is the fastest platform when it comes to finality. According to its site, Bitcoin (BTC) has a time to finality of about 60 minutes, whereas Avalanche's is less than two seconds. It achieves this by having three interconnected blockchains, each of which serves a different purpose.

Another key metric when looking at cryptos is total value locked -- the amount of money that's been deposited on all the applications on that network. According to DeFi Llama, Avalanche has around $9 billion locked on its system, putting it in 4th place ahead of Solana, another one of last year's top-performing cryptos. It still has a way to go to catch up to Ethereum, which tops the list with about $126 billion on its network.

What's interesting is that decentralized finance projects that were originally built on Ethereum, like Aave (AAVE), Curve (CRV), and SushiSwap (SUSHI) are now also running on Avalanche. So, for example, traders can now use the SushiSwap decentralized exchange without having to pay exorbitant Ethereum fees.

Avalanche also announced a strategic alliance with Deloitte at the end of last year. Deloitte will use Avalanche's blockchain to help state and local governments demonstrate their eligibility for federal emergency funding. The Close As You Go platform helps officials streamline disaster reimbursement applications to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

If you're considering buying Avalanche, it is available from most of the top cryptocurrency exchanges. However, make sure you do your own research and only invest money you can afford to lose. This is still a relatively new industry and cryptocurrency prices can be volatile.

We've covered some of the reasons to be optimistic about Avalanche. But it's also worth considering what's happening in the wider crypto market. Prices have slumped in recent months, primarily due to tightening economic policies around the world. People are pulling out of riskier investments like crypto. Depending on how the economic situation evolves, crypto prices might not see the same extraordinary growth they did last year.

There's also the spectre of increased regulation. In the long term, regulation could help bolster investor confidence and remove some of the bad actors in the market. But in the short term, regulatory moves worldwide may hit crypto prices even harder. As a result, it's important to see any crypto investment you make now through a long-term lens. The question is not whether AVAX can skyrocket in 2022, but whether it can perform well in the coming five to 10 years.

There are hundreds of platforms around the world that are waiting to give you access to thousands of cryptocurrencies. And to find the one that's right for you, you'll need to decide what features that matter most to you.

To help you get started, our independent experts have sifted through the options to bring you some ofour best cryptocurrency exchanges for 2021. Check out the list here and get started on your crypto journey, today.

See more here:
This Altcoin Gained Over 3,000% in 2021 -- and Could Skyrocket in 2022 - The Motley Fool

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With $338 million in sales in 2020, and $24.9 billion in 2021 (a 73x difference), theres no denying the NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) market is on fire. And many analysts predict things are just heating up, with Nasdaq.coms Luke Lango speculating the NFT Market Could Really Grow by 1,000x.

And its not slowing down. According to The Block Research, NFT trade volume jumped almost 3x this past month of January to $6.86 billion up from $2.67 billion in December. With this surge in interest and the NFT market at an all time high, investors are looking for ways to invest.

One option with a lot of potential is the tiny altcoin, Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA). Dubbed the Ethereum killer by many, its focus is on transaction speed and low fees the very problems currently plaguing projects on the Ethereum blockchain.

Cryptocurrencies with blockchain technology to host, mint, and handle transaction speed are key to the NFT market's growth. And with more than 100,000 NFTs Cardano hosted on Cardano-based marketplaces, and a talented team of software developers working tirelessly on the project, Cardano looks promising.

Bondly COO Robert Tran agrees and preaches about the benefits of Cardano. His biggest concern is that Ethereums current energy consumption is unsustainable. He was recently quoted saying:

One transaction on Ethereum literally uses as much power as the conventional hospital uses in a day and a half. Its simply just not sustainable.

He goes on to say that interoperability is key to sustainable growth.

Environmental concerns and the speed of transactions we feel will be key drivers in onboarding major consumer brands in the future. The other one is you know our view as a company but the future of blockchain is interoperability. Bondly has been built as an interoperable transparent portable swap protocol and we feel that this is the future of NFTs and Cardano is literally the most anticipated smart contract platform in the blockchain space.

As more and more companies start to work with NFTs and the market continues to expand, Cardano is perfectly positioned to seize a large percentage of the market share.

Another interesting byproduct of the interest in NFTs is the renewed interest in contemporary art. And its not just digital art, but physical, tangible artwork by masters. Platforms like Masterworks have become very popular with over 320,000 investors buying shares of million-dollar paintings by famed artists like Monet, Banksy, and Picasso.

Paintings have been selling out in hours, with crypto investors opting to buy art versus Lamborghinis. One example is the $7,428,000 Banksy called Mona Lisa which sold out in 3 hours, handing investors on Masterworks a 32% annualized appreciation, net of fee.

With the recent market dip, Cardano has dropped in price, trading for just $1.05 at the time of publishing. Thats a drop of 64% from its all-time high. But that gives investors the opportunity to take advantage of this recent market pullback with this undervalued altcoin.

While nothing is certain in the market, many in the space predict Cardano (ADA) is positioned to capture the lion's share of the market with its increased transaction speed and low fees.

See important disclaimers at Masterworks.io/disclaimer.

Read more from the original source:
Is This Altcoin About To Dominate The NFT Market? - Benzinga - Benzinga