The price of Bitcoin is on the rise again, which means that altcoins are also growing! Although this week we haven’t seen a massive rally yet, most of the alternative cryptocurrencies managed to increase significantly, and some were even able to make truly spectacular gains. However, the most interesting thing to happen in the altcoin ecosystem this week was not the price movements of existing altcoins, but the announcements of new, potentially game-changing altcoins that will soon be launched!
Iconic NFT Project Finally Launches Its Own Altcoin
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is one of the most successful and most popular NFT projects in the world. It’s very likely that Non-Fungible Tokens would not become as widely known as they are now if not for Bored Apes profile pics which have taken over social media platforms like Twitter by storm.
Most of the details about the upcoming cryptocurrency called ApeCoin (APE) have not been made public yet. All we know for now is that APE will be governed by a Decentralized Autonomous Organization called ApeCoin DAO, and that most of the APE supply is supposed to be distributed among the Bored Ape Yacht Club community.
All current Bored Ape owners will presumably be eligible to receive free APE tokens in an airdrop. People who don’t own any Bored Ape NFTs will be able to invest in ApeCoin in a standard way.
BAYC was always known as the NFT project with the best marketing, but launching its own altcoin might truly take the project to another level. It’s very likely that other NFT collections will not want to be left behind, so we’ll probably see many more NFT-backed altcoins launched in the near future.
Popular Crypto Wallet Teases Its Own Token
Bored Ape Yacht Club is not the only popular crypto brand that has recently announced plans to launch its own alternative cryptocurrency. MetaMask, one of the most popular multi-currency software wallets in the world, has also decided to release its own crypto asset.
Just like with BAYC, the token will be accompanied by a DAO. But in the case of MetaMask’s plan, we don’t have any details except for a very vague announcement that ConsenSys, the company behind the wallet, is working on creating a Decentralized Autonomous Organization.
Although we don’t even know the name or the ticker of MetaMask's altcoin yet, it’s not too soon to observe that a new trend of “altcoinization” is emerging in the blockchain ecosystem. Between Bored Ape Yacht Club’s and MetaMask’s altcoin announcements, it’s clear that popular crypto names are starting to rediscover the power of altcoins yet again.
ThorChain Is On the Rise - What’s Behind RUNE’s Massive Rally?
Most altcoins have only managed to make small gains over the past 7 days. ThorChain is not one of them: over the past week, the RUNE price has increased by over 69%, making it the best performing major altcoin by far.
The spectacular rally caused the RUNE price to reach over $8, which made ThorChain one of the top 50 largest cryptocurrencies with the market capitalization of over $2.75 Billion. However, it’s worth noting that ThorChain is still down over 60% from its All Time High of over $21 achieved in May last year.
The ongoing ThorChain rally, which has been lasting for the past few weeks, is mainly caused by the increasingly stronger technological fundamentals of the project. Recently, ThorChain has added the support of synthetic assets, and the developers are working intensely to include more DeFi features in RUNE in the near future.
The Graph Keeps Growing
While nothing beats ThorChain’s gains, The Graph’s price increase is also impressive. Over the past week, GRT has grown by over 27%. Currently, The Graph is the 54th largest coin on the market.
Although GRT is already a popular altcoin, it’s essential to note that it’s still a project at an early stage of development. Currently, The Graph is in the process of migrating from the Ethereum blockchain to the recently launched The Graph Network mainnet.
According to experts, The Graph’s main use case of easily integrating blockchain solutions with off-chain oracles and APIs will be massively important as we transition towards Web 3.0. Because of that, the GRT price is likely to continue growing in the future.
