July 8th, 2023

Cardano ‘ghost chain’ outperforms top blockchains in NFT market

Cardano ‘ghost chain’ outperforms top blockchains in NFT market

The declining number of non-fungible token traders on the Cardano blockchain has given it the “ghost chain” nickname, but data from Forkast Labs show that the network’s NFT market performance in June outperformed some of the top blockchains in the industry.

Cardano picked up the ghost chain moniker as its monthly unique NFT buyers plunged from its October 2021 peak of 254,383, according to CryptoSlam, the data arm of Forkast Labs. The number of unique NFT buyers fell to 13,559 in June, 10.12% lower than May.

The Forkast CAR NFT Composite, a CryptoSlam index to measure the Cardano NFT market performance, dropped 3.84% to 982.01 last month, giving an estimate of losses for NFT traders in some of the top collections on Cardano.

While that looks like all bearish news for the so-called ghost chain, Forkast Labs data suggests that NFT traders on Cardano suffered fewer losses than those on some of the world’s top NFT networks, such as Ethereum, Solana and Polygon.

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Throughout June, the Forkast ETH NFT Composite suggests that traders that bet on the top NFT collections on Ethereum, the most popular blockchain for NFTs, would have copped an estimated loss of 14.41%.

Over the same period, Forkast SOL NFT Composite (Solana) fell 14.71%, and the Forkast POL NFT Composite (Polygon) slumped 13.49%. The Forkast 500 NFT Index, the gauge for the overall NFT market, dropped 16.14%.

Cardano’s native cryptocurrency, ADA, is the world’s eighth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, with around US$10.4 billion in circulation. And despite it being the sixth largest blockchain for NFTs by all-time trading volume with US$597 million in sales, the network’s NFT ecosystem has on numerous occasions been declared dead by social media users.

But Moosa Zaidi, the founder and chief executive officer of NFT advertising firm NFT Hive Club, said he wouldn’t dismiss Cardano from the top NFT blockchains.

“There are still some die-hard Cardano supporters and projects out there that back the chain, and as past crypto portfolios show, a single market bull run can be a game changer,” Zaidi told Forkast.

“New founders and upcoming investors have Ethereum or Solana as their primary preference… Those wanting to venture out in Cardano tend to invest in the projects down the top 10 ranks to make the most out of it.”

Enthusiasts

The falling number of buyers has not stopped creators from releasing their NFT collections on Cardano.

Australia-based digital artist Joel Moore, better known as Mulga, released the MulgaKongz NFT collection on Cardano on June 23, a collection of 5,555 gorilla NFTs that sold out within 48 hours of its launch.

Moore said choosing Cardano to house his digital art was an “easy decision.”

“Cardano is a blockchain with a good future, community and ecosystem,” wrote Mulga, in a Twitter response to Forkast. “There’s been some great support from the community and the future is looking bright.”

See related article: Can Azuki’s new Elementals spark the entire NFT market?

While most top Cardano NFT projects remain engaged with their community, a few notable ones have been inactive on social media.

CardanoBitz, a 10,000-piece NFT collection on Cardano with over US$1.12 million in total sales, has not shared any original Twitter posts since June 10.

Zombie Chains, a collection with over US$1.73 million in total sales, has been silent since May 18. Unsigned Algorithms, a collection with US$423,799 in total sales volume, last posted on Feb. 2, while Clumsy Ghosts, an NFT gaming project with over US$1.78 million in sales, last tweeted on April 11.

“More and more top 50 projects on Cardano are going silent,” a Twitter user posted on June 24. “Do we need to do more as a community to support real builders? Or continue to hype dead weight?”

Input Output Global, the Colorado-based tech firm behind the Cardano blockchain, hadn’t responded to Forkast‘s request for comment by the time of publication.

Buyers

Solana had 65,459 unique NFT buyers in June, almost five times that of Cardano. But average NFT sales on Solana were US$78.79 in June or less than the US$95.22 on Cardano, suggesting that traders on the network were willing to pay a higher average price for their NFTs.

According to Anndy Lian, author of the book “NFT: From Zero to Hero,” Cardano’s forte is offering a user-friendly experience for NFT creators and traders.

“The platform offers low-cost transaction fees, making it an attractive option for enthusiasts seeking cost-effective and scalable solutions,” Lian told Forkast.

Lian added that low crypto market liquidity is affecting the NFT market performance across all blockchains, including Cardano.

“When liquidity is limited, it becomes more challenging for NFT holders to find buyers willing to purchase their tokens at desired prices. This can lead to longer waiting times and difficulties in selling NFTs. Additionally, a decrease in overall market activity may result in a decline in demand for NFTs, which can further affect their liquidity,” said Lian.

Count Stackula, a pseudonymous Space Budz NFT holder, a collection of 10,000 NFTs with over US$46 million in total sales, said that Cardano developers keep building, despite the market conditions.

“There was some more hype around the Cardano NFT scene when smart contracts were still to be announced, but it’s an overall healthy NFT ecosystem,” Count Stackula told Forkast.

“Admittedly, there have been a lot of the typical clone projects that don’t display much originality, but Cardano devs also know it’s important to focus on building the perfect roads and freeways before perfecting the automobile.”

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cardano-ghost-chain-outperforms-top-164500757.html

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

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May 17th, 2022

Polkadot crypto price prediction: Connecting all blockchains

Polkadot crypto price prediction: Connecting all blockchains

After a strong April 2022, the price of DOT, the native cryptocurrency of the Polkadot blockchain, declined by over 50% to $11.22 on 16 May 2022.

Triggered by overall negative market sentiment that saw bitcoin (BTC), the number one cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, fall to $26,000 levels for the first time since 2020, the polkadot token has been also acting bearish.

Currently in the final stage of its development, polkadot aims to connect all the blockchains through one platform. Will it be able to succeed, and what is in store for the polkadot crypto forecast? Read on for our analysis.

What is polkadot coin?

Founded in 2016 by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, the Polkadot network is one among many software competitors aiming to incentivise a global network of computers to operate a blockchain, on top of which users will be able to launch and operate their own blockchains.

The project is being developed by Web3 Foundation’s Parity Technologies, which focuses on the development of innovations that break down centralised online services and enable institutional innovation.

Unlike similar projects such as Ethereum, Cosmos and EEOSIO, Polkadot’s protocol connects a whole network of purpose-built blockchains, allowing them to seamlessly operate with one another, through its so-called parachains.

Polkadot allows for a number of transactions to be conducted at once and is easy and open for more innovations and collaborations due to its collaboration with other blockchain protocols.

Additionally, the network enables blockchains to upgrade without having to fork the chain, which used to take months and at times split the community.

The Polkadot network is powered by DOT, which has three leading purposes:

Governance: DOT holders have complete control over the Polkadot protocol like deciding which events take place within the protocol (upgrades and fixes) through voting.
Staking: through storing funds in a digital wallet, users can earn DOT tokens by running operations on the blockchain. There are four ways in which DOT holders can interact with the staking system.
Bonding: DOT holders can block a certain number of tokens for a certain period of time.

DOT holders can become:

As of 16 May, the total supply of DOT coins stands at over 1.1 billion, with over 987 million tokens in circulation, according to data provided by CoinMarketCap. The cryptocurrency has a market cap surpassing $10bn, ranking it as the 11th biggest cryptocurrency.

Polkadot chart analysis: Does Polkadot have a future?

Polkadot launched in late August 2020 at $2.875. For the next six months, the DOT token price moved sideways before gaining some momentum in mid-January 2021. It jumped 187.4% since its launch to hit $8.2641 by 12 January 2021.

The token continued on a bullish trend, skyrocketing to $39.7 by 21 February 2021 – a 380% surge in a little over a month. However, positive sentiment did not last long as DOT dropped below the $32 mark in the next four days and continued to fluctuate between $33 and $38 for the entirety of March 2021.

By 14 May 2021, the DOT cryptocurrency surged to $47.95, a then all-time high, ahead of Polkadot’s launch of parachains – the network’s final launch in a series of multi-phase processes. On 23 May 2021, however, the token dipped by over 60% to $18.03 as Polkadot nodes failed with an out of memory error while trying to build a block. While the nodes themselves did not crash, their runtime did. It kept a bearish trend throughout the summer months, falling as low as $10.98 in mid-July.

The polkadot coin price started to resurface once again at the start of September 2021 following news that the crypto was planning the launch of its cross-consensus messaging format.

On 4 November 2021, DOT reached its all-time high, surging by over 390% since its July lows to $53.88, as the network announced the passing of referendum 42 in a community vote that would enable parachain registration and ‘crowdloans’.

The following day, Polkadot announced the passing of referendum 41 in a separate community vote, which saw the registration of its first parachain, keeping the polkadot token valued above $50 for the next few days.

A Polkadot technical analysis provided by CoinCodex showed the short-term sentiment for the token was largely bearish at the time of writing (16 May).

What is your sentiment on DOT/USD?

A Relative Strength Index (RSI) reading of 38.73 indicated neutral territory. A reading of 30 or below would indicate the asset has become undervalued and a trend reversal is likely. Meanwhile, the token was trading above its three and five-day moving averages (MAs) but below its 10-day MA.

Following its November 2021 success, the token embarked on a bearish trend losing over 79% of its value since its all-time high and reaching $11.22 by 16 May 2022.

Is polkadot a good investment?

Recent DOT crypto news has seen the platform developing its parachain rollout stage, the final part of the Polkadot v1 launch process. As of 16 May 2021, the Polkadot community is on the final stage of voting to enable parachain functionality via a runtime upgrade. Once the vote is complete, parachains will be live on Polkadot and the network’s launch will be complete.

SmartBlocks and Fanatics Media fonder Mark Fidelman told Capital.com:

“Overall, the DOT is down but it’s not as down as other tokens. So, this is a good sign. What’s driving it, of course, are all the parachains… I believe the infrastructure that Polkadot is creating is driving the [token’s] value because there’s true value here.”

On 3 May 2022, cross-chain functionality went live on Polkadot which, according to BigOne Exchange chair in Asia Anndy Lian, “sets an example for interoperability and sets the tone for their network expansion of substrate-native assets and tokens”.

“DOT can now be used on several DeFi apps and on their parachains involving yield farming, borrowing, lending and liquidity sharing. As their cross-chain use cases increase within their ecosystem, I hope to see positive trends in their pricing too,” Lian noted.

Future Polkadot upgrades include the development of the Cross-Chain Message Passing, which will allow parachains to exchange messages with other parachains. As well as the launch of parathreads, that temporarily participate in Polkadot security without needing to lease a dedicated parachain slot.

Following the recent crypto crash surrounding stablecoins, many investors are looking to turn towards more trustworthy cryptocurrencies. Media Coin LLC founder Jeff Freiberger told Capital.com:

“There have been some recent press mentions that [DOT] is a good one to invest in and it shows how hard the market is looking for some hope to bounce back with many people ready to buy in. I think people are finding value in its uniqueness to connect to several different blockchains.”

Freiberger added that the DOT/USD future price had a lot of potential to resurface due to recent positive coverage around the cryptocurrency.

“The fact that news is circling it in a manner that gives the consumer hope is a good thing. I also see a lot of cryptos eventually growing again after the final current sell off is reached.”

SmartBlocks’ Fidelman added that the token has potential to be better adopted by the wider market, however, it also runs several risks, like a failed mission to unite all blockchains in one.

Polkadot prediction 2022-2025, 2030

Despite the latest downward price action, algorithm-based forecasting service Wallet Investor gave a bullish DOT crypto price prediction at the time of writing (16 May). The site noted that DOT was “an awesome long-term investment”, adding that it has a long-term earning potential amounting to 348.53%.

Based on its analysis of past price performance, Wallet Investor expected that DOT could be valued at $20.549 in 2023. The polkadot long-term price prediction was expected to reach $50.379 by 2027.

DigitalCoinPrice supported the positive DOT coin price prediction but saw a much slower pace of growth in the following years, projecting that the polkadot 2022 value could grow to $14.62, reach $20.26 by the end of 2024 and jump to $25.48 in 2025.

By the end of 2028, the site predicted the DOT coin could reach $39.37. The price of polkadot in 2030 was projected to grow to $54.12.

Note that predictions about the future of DOT can be wrong. Forecasts and analyst expectations shouldn’t be used as a substitute for your own research. Always conduct your own due diligence and rely on your own projections. And never invest or trade money you cannot afford to lose.

Original Source: https://capital.com/polkadot-forecast-will-dot-price-rise

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

j j j