In case you’ve been wondering which tokens are growing with quantum leaps, we’ve prepared a short overview
The fastest-growing tokens in 2021: an overview. Source: pixabay.com
Cryptocurrencies have been on the rise this year. Moreover, five of the 20 fastest-growing brands in the world are related to the crypto industry.
Solana (SOL)
At the moment of writing, SOL is trading at about $183 which is an incredible result for a token that started 2021 with $1.80. A staggering growth of over 10,000% makes Solana the fastest-growing crypto ecosystem. When we dive a little deeper into the trading history, we’ll discover that SOL witnessed its lowest price ($0.5) in May 2020. Thus, throughout the last 18 months, it skyrocketed over 36,100%. The approximate return on investment if purchased at the time of launch (or earliest known price) equals about 83,100%.
Besides, the token reached its all-time high of $260 in November, so there’s still room for growth. Interestingly, Solana’s growth didn’t stop when the general bullish trend on the crypto market abated. Experts predict a bright 2022 for Solana after a series of meaningful partnerships including the popular privacy-focused and crypto-friendly browser Brave, top crypto exchange FTX and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Its involvement with the multi-billion web3 gaming industry is very promising for Solana’s resilience as well.
Shiba Inu (SHIB)
This meme coin has shown an impressive market performance this year. With an opening value of $0.000000000073 per SHIB on Jan. 1, it moved to almost $0.000028 per token as of Dec. 20. Thus, Dogecoin killer has grown almost 31,000,000% over a year. Moreover, at the moment of writing, SHIB has been steadily falling for about a week. When we take into consideration its recent peak price of $0.0047 (as of Nov. 30), the token grew by an unbelievable 60,400,000%. In October, Shiba Inu coin hit an all-time high of $0.00008845. This means a gain of 121,000,000% in less than a year.
It’s no wonder since every piece of media hype significantly influences the SHIB price. For instance, one innocent tweet of Elon Musk sent volumes of SHIB trading soaring over 770% in one day. Besides, the Shiba Inu ecosystem is robust and quickly developing. There’s an acting crypto exchange, NFT collection, and the upcoming SHIB game. The token will soon have some utility in the real world as well, becoming a payment method for the largest cinema chain in the United States and Canada, with over eight thousand screens – AMC.
The Sandbox (SAND)
Starting the year with $0.038, this crypto has grown by 13,157% to $5 in December. The coin’s all-time high was $8.4 on Nov. 25, bringing gains of over 22,000%. The growth rate is amazing since it largely took place in one month. Before November, the SAND token was below $2.
A steep change was probably inspired by popularization of Metaverse by brand-name companies like Facebook. The Sandbox is directly connected to the Web3 virtual environment that seems to be the next big thing in online communications. Built on top of Ethereum, the Sandbox uses its blockchain to manage and track ownership of the digital land along with the NFT digital assets present on the platform. It operates a play-to-earn model, in which players can monetise their gaming experience using SAND, its utility token. Sandbox also attracted some institutional attention. The blockchain platform raised $93 million in an investment round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 in November.
Axie Infinity Shards (AXS)
Another token skyrocketing this year comes from the creators of the most popular NFT marketplace, boasting over 44,000 unique user accounts. Its play-to-earn (P2E) model enables people to earn real money from playing games and/or performing other services in the gaming environment using cryptocurrency.
AXS is a governance token used to participate in key votes and give holders a say in how funds in the Axie Community Treasury are spent. It started a year with $0.53 and is now trading at $90, bringing a gain of up to 17,000% to its long-term holders. The crypto went as high as $165 this year too, almost doubling the above-mentioned numbers. The brilliant performance was triggered by the late-September airdrop and a move to enable staking of the AXS token.
Right now, the asset is underperforming. However, tech analysis suggests that its bearish momentum finally weakens, with possible gains up to 27% soon-to-come. Furthermore, Axie Infinity is planning a major upgrade to 2.0 version that will enhance game functionality and invite more players to the platform.
Dogecoin (DOGE)
Although the meme coin now costs only 17 cents, it managed to grow over 5,600% in 2021. Moreover, the DOGE’s all-time high during this period was $0.73. Thus, the maximum growth achieved by Dogecoin this year exceeded 24,300%.
Dogecoin has been used primarily as a tipping system on Reddit and Twitter to reward the creation or sharing of quality content. Due to media popularity and support from Elon Musk, it also starts getting some real-world use cases. Thus, Musk has recently tweeted that his electric car company, Tesla, will start accepting Doge as payment for its selected official merchandise. Earlier this year, the billionaire announced that SpaceX would launch the “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon” in the first quarter of 2022, with the company accepting the meme-inspired cryptocurrency as full payment for the lunar payload.
Back in March, the professional basketball team Dallas Mavericks became the first NBA team to accept Dogecoin for tickets and merchandise. AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron also hinted on social media that AMC could add the meme coin dogecoin to the list of cryptocurrencies it accepts for online payments.
Terra (LUNA)
Starting the year with $0.63, Terra crypto grew by 13,000% over 2021 and is now trading at $82. The unique nature of Terra blockchain unites borderless benefits of cryptocurrencies with the day-to-day price stability of fiat currencies.
The South Korean platform uses algorithmic fiat-pegged stablecoins to power price-stable global payments systems and cross-chain DeFi ecosystem. Its native coin LUNA is a reserve currency that can be swapped to either expand or contract the stablecoin supply to match demand. LUNA holders can also validate transactions on the network. The project partners with a dozen payment platforms, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, Terra is supported by the Terra Alliance, promoting its adoption.
Due to the latest Columbus-5 upgrade and deployment of another “bridge” protocol, Wormhole V2, Terra is now interoperable with Cosmos, Solana, and other platforms using the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) standard. Cross-chain movements of UST and other Terra assets to ETH have also gotten easier.
Polygon (Matic)
Another asset delivering strong 2021 results is the native token of Polygon – a Plasma-based aggregator, which is a layer-2 solution for Ethereum, that provides a framework for building decentralized apps (dApps) off-chain. It grew by over 16,100% in a year from $0.14 to $2.26. The maximum price reached by Matic this year was $2.68.
Formerly known as the Matic Network, Polygon is a scaling solution that aims to improve the speed and reduce the cost and complexities of transactions on blockchain networks. The platform acts as an add-on layer to Ethereum that does not seek to change the original blockchain but solves most usability issues with multiple tools.
MATIC token is used as the unit of payment and settlement between participants who interact within the network. The Matic Network went live only in 2020 but has already attracted some of the top names in the DeFi industry, including Decentraland and MakerDAO.
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