Here is a look at 5 cryptocurrencies investors should watch out for in March 2022:
Bitcoin’s BTC
Cryptocurrency has seen a lot of net accumulation from whales. Clemente, who is an on-chain analyst and the lead insights analyst at Blockware, said he remains bullish on Bitcoin. He stated, “Quite bullish for Bitcoin to see this prolonged regime of spot premium over perps. Summer 2021 regime lasted 88 days, we are currently on day 83 of this current regime.”
He further stated in another tweet, “Am bullish BTC over next few months. Strong holding behaviour on-chain paired with a lot of relative dry powder sitting on exchanges, stacked beside in order books, & prolonged regime of spot premium over perps.” He also suggested that the interest rate hike expected from the U.S Fed is likely priced in. He stated, “March will be here next week, max hawkishness likely priced in.”
In January, William Clemente had earlier stated that “Illiquid supply shock ratio continues to climb. This means that coins are moving from entities that hold less than 75% of the coins they take into entities that hold more than 75% of the coins they take in. In laymen’s terms, this shows that coins are moving to strong hands. The qualitative aspect of Bitcoin’s float looks very healthy. Of course, this is only one side of the equation. We can have all the holding behaviour in the world but if there’s no marginal demand stepping in it doesn’t translate to price appreciation.”
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He was right, as we saw that big money players are coming back into the market, as February saw significant whale accumulation as Bitcoin dropped to $34,000 level.
Bitcoin ended the month trading at $43,193.23.
Decentraland’s MANA
Decentraland was founded by Esteban Ordano and Ariel Meilich in 2015. The platform is a 3D virtual world, browser-based metaverse, that is built on the Ethereum blockchain. The platform seeks to incentivize a global network of users to operate a shared virtual world. The platform combines the power of two tokens; LAND and MANA, to deliver a unique gaming economy and virtual experience.
LAND is a non-fungible token (NFT) used to define the ownership of land parcels representing digital real estate while MANA is the native token of the platform that facilitates purchases of LAND, as well as virtual goods and services used on the platform. Also, MANA acts like a governing token for the platform. This means it gives users the ability to vote on policy updates, LAND auctions and subsidies to improve the platform. Also, when LAND is auctioned, the MANA tokens used to purchase the parcels are burned, or removed from circulation, making the supply of MANA deflationary.
Decentraland has been the platform to go to for many institutional investors looking to invest in the idea of a metaverse. JPMorgan, one of Wall Streets’ and America’s largest banks, becomes the first major banking giant to establish itself in the Metaverse by opening a lounge in Decentraland, an Ethereum based metaverse, created based on blockchain technology. Asides from this, in January, electronics giant Samsung opened a version of its New York store in Decentraland and in November 2021, Barbados established a metaverse embassy in Decentraland. Also, a few weeks ago, Decentraland hosted the first-ever metaverse wedding.
Due to the huge traction Decentraland has been getting and the caliber of investors the project has been able to bring closer so far, it puts its governance token, MANA, on our watch list for March 2022.
MANA ended the month trading $2.84.
Sandbox’s SAND
Sandbox is also a blockchain-based virtual world allowing users to create, build, buy, and sell digital assets in the form of a game using its native token called the SAND token. Sandbox was launched in 2011 by Pixowl and is built on the Ethereum ecosystem. It combines the powers of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), to create a unique decentralized platform for a thriving gaming community.
On the 29th of November the platform opened up part of its metaverse after four years of development, to 5,000 players for the first time via a multi-week, play-to-earn (P2E), Alpha event called The Sandbox Alpha.
Since the platform opened up part of its metaverse, it has been racking up partnerships. Sandbox announced partnerships with American rapper Snoop Dogg and Warner Music, a major record label. Asides from this, they also partnered up with Warner Music Group (WMG), to create a musical theme park and concert venue within the gaming metaverse.
The firm also recently launched its Metaverse Accelerator Program, which will push the development of the open metaverse by investing $50 million in startups. The token is also part of those in consideration to be invested in by Greyscale, one of the largest crypto asset management firms. Sandbox’s native token, SAND, ended the month trading $3.21.
Cardano’s ADA
Cardano is a proof-of-stake open-source blockchain that aims to “redistribute power from unaccountable structures to the margins to individuals,” helping to create a society that is more secure, transparent and fair. Cardano is one of the biggest blockchains to successfully use a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which is less energy-intensive than the proof-of-work algorithm relied upon by Bitcoin. Although the much larger Ethereum is going to be upgrading to PoS, this transition is only going to take place gradually.
The Cardano blockchain has been a very significant leap upward in the level of transaction volume seen on the blockchain. Currently, of all the blockchains, Cardano is now ranked #2 in total transaction volume with an average daily volume of $12.85 billion as of the time of this writing, surpassing Ethereum. This is evident due to the increase in chain activity of the Cardano ecosystem as its first Decentralized Application, SundaeSwap launched in January. On SundaeSwap, users have complained about increased transaction settlement times due to the high volume of transactions seen on the blockchain.
The ADA token is currently ranked #8 with a market capitalization of $32.5 billion as its price trades levels have not been seen since July 2021. Due to its increased on-chain activity and more people excited about the launch of its DApp, it makes it one to watch in March 2022. ADA ended the month trading at $0.9598.
XRP
XRP is the native token of the XRP Ledger and can be used as a currency to transact on the platform and other supported platforms.
XRP, popularly known as the banker’s coin as made it to the list. This is because Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse took to Twitter to announce that his company has bought back its Series C shares which were sold to investors to raise funds in December 2019, at a $15 billion valuation.
This news also comes while the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) case against Ripple is ongoing. In December of 2020, the SEC charged Ripple with allegations stating that its executives sold $1.3 billion worth of XRP in an unregistered securities offering. Ripple objected to the claims, saying that XRP should not be considered a security.
One of the pillars of Ripple’s defense is that it simply did not know that its XRP token could be categorized as a security. Ripple argues that the SEC should have notified the company of its intentions before taking the matter to court. By not doing so, the agency denied Ripple what is known as fair notice.
In the latest development concerning the case, Judge Analisa Torres has granted Ripple’s permission to respond to the SEC’s Memorandum of Law in support of the Motion to Strike fair notice defense, according to court documents. So far, ripple has been given the opportunity to unseal a series of 2012 documents whose contents is believed to show that the firm did not know that the XRP token could be categorized as a security, which the SEC claims the company knew.
Many are predicting that Ripple will win the case and this has caused a whale to make a purchase of $700 million worth of XRP in the month of February. This is described as the second-biggest accumulation in the XRP’s history. Also, a former SEC official also predicts that the SEC will lose on the merits of the case against XRP. Attorney Joseph Hall stated, “I’m not entirely sure what the SEC is planning on proving in the XRP litigation… And I continue to think there is a pretty good chance that [the SEC] will lose on the merits.” This is why XRP makes our list for March. XRP ended the month trading
