This week’s selection of top 3 coins to watch features three altcoins, which belong to three promising projects. Since we are already a bit late with publishing the article, let’s cut right to the point.
1. ChainLink (LINK)
ChainLink aims to provide data and price oracles, which are essential for the normal function of smart contract-enabled blockchain platforms. ChainLink’s price and real-world data oracles have seen numerous implementations and their popularity has only been increasing. Their oracles are said to be reliable and trustworthy and the connection with smart contracts is end-to-end secured, leaving very little space for the manipulation of the execution of smart contracts. Furthermore, ChainLink is developing a framework, which allows developers to build customized decentralized oracles. The project launched in 2017, when it also raised $32 million of funding through an ICO. The ChainLink mainnet was launched in June 2019. The associated LINK token has a total supply of 1 billion tokens and is built on the ERC-677 standard.
Technical analysis shows that LINK is at a breaking point pricewise
LINK being featured in this article is largely a consequence of its recent price action. The token reached its all-time high of $20 on August 16, 2020, amidst the peak of the DeFi hype. The bullish market carried Link up and cemented the project among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, where it remains until today, despite loosing more than 50% of its value since then. After a rather long bearish market, the price of LINK dropped to mere $7 last week, but in a swift recovery that followed, LINK reached a price above $10 again.
As of now, the technical analysis shows that LINK is at a tipping point, as it could go either up or down from here. The token is currently trading just below the 21-day EMA, which coincides with the .618 fib extension. Both of which currently represent a major resistance level. Technical analyst Kevin Svenson believes, that if ChainLink manages to close the daily candle above this resistance level, it’s bound to go up to $13.25 (+30% from the current price). If it closes below that line, however, we might see a drop to $9.2 (8% drop). He advises not to place any orders until it is clear where LINK is headed.
2. Uniswap (UNI)
UNI is a governance token of Uniswap an automated liquidity protocol and currently the most popular decentralized exchange (DEX). UNI tokens are ERC-20 tokens and allow holders to decide the on the future of Uniswap by voting on proposals. The governance token holders also overs the usage of funds from the community treasury, and the protocol’s fee switch.
Uniswap just released Version 3.0.0
The team behind the project has just recently released the update 3.0.0 of the Uniswap interface, with further updates already scheduled. In addition, Uniswap v3 is set to move from HTTP to IPFS, a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol. Uniswap users recently received 400 UNI tokens for each Ethereum address that interacted with the exchange, increasing the number of UNI available for trading. All recent changes to the protocol can be found on Uniswap’s GitHub repository.
3. Lisk (LSK)
Lisk is a blockchain platform and associated cryptocurrency that emerged in 2016 forking of Crypti. The blockchain boasts with extremely fast transaction times as a new block is created every 10 seconds. This as achieved by utilizing blockchain apps with their own sidechains and a Distributed Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism. The project has also partnered with Microsoft, whose Azure Blockchain makes use of Lisk for its cloud computing infrastructure.
Lisk Block Reward Reduction Took Place on September 27
The Lisk protocol saw its fourth block producer reward reduction this week. The event, which was scheduled to happen at block number 13451520, halved the reward from previous 2 LSK to just 1 LSK. This happened on September 27, 2020 at 10:58:12 PM (CET). The protocol started with a block producer reward of 5 LSK, but the block reward has seen a 1 LSK reduction each year. More information about the block rewards and fees can be found in the team’s official documentation. Nevertheless, some investors believe that the block reward reduction will likely have little effect on the price of LSK. Perhaps we will see a reduced sell-pressure in the long run, but until Lisk rolls out some crucial updates, the token is going to trade sideways more or less. Lisk 3.0.0. is expected to launch in 2021.
Andrew is a writer that does most of his work on cryptocurrency-related topics. While he’s primarily interested in Bitcoin, he also follows major altcoins and the innovative ideas that new cryptocurrency and blockchain projects are bringing to the table.