Cryptocurrencies To Watch: Week of April 10

Keep an Eye on These Coins

For a few weeks running, the cryptocurrency market has remained in decent shape, as Bitcoin's price has held above the $28,000 mark, and investors seem to show support at current levels. There have been several positive developments for other crypto assets as well, which have lifted the performance of some of these tokens.

This week, we examine Injective (INJ), Curve DAO Token (CRV), THORChain (RUNE), Enjin Coin (ENJ), and Chiliz (CHZ). In selecting these assets, we have considered several factors, including positive technical developments, significant news events, and noticeable changes in price.

Injective (INJ)

The finance-focused project Injective (INJ) stands out as this week's biggest gainer, recording a 14% increase in value. This spike in price could be attributed to Injective's anticipated launch of the first Solana rollup for Cosmos, a Layer-2 solution that boosts throughput speed and reduces fees on blockchain networks.

The project offers a streamlined toolkit to create Web3 applications for finance. Developers who are familiar with Solana tooling and language can now write and deploy their applications to the Cosmos ecosystem through Eclipse without needing to learn new programming languages or tooling. Cosmos is a decentralized network of blockchains that are interoperable. The launch will bring Solana’s development environment to the Cosmos ecosystem.

Injective also launched a $150 million ecosystem fund to accelerate the adoption of interoperable infrastructure for decentralized finance, also known as DeFi. The project has raised investment from multiple notable entities, including billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban. INJ is priced at around $5.80, rising from $5.44 a week ago (see chart below).

Curve DAO Token (CRV)

Automated market maker Curve Finance's Curve DAO token (CRV) gained about 10%, likely because of its strong performance in the first quarter of 2023. The platform executed $32.9 billion of swap volume on Ethereum in the quarter, according to crypto research firm Blockworks Research, a volume that dwarfs Curve Finance's competitors.

Over the first quarter, the token gained 78% in price, suggesting the bullishness has been building for some time. CRV recently changed hands for approximately 99 cents, up from 90 cents a week ago (see chart below).

THORChain (RUNE)

Settlement layer THORChain (RUNE) also had a strong first quarter, which may be the reason behind its 12% increase in price. The network said it recorded $1.22 billion in total volume, with 30% growth in liquidity. It also collected $1.92 million in liquidity fees.

THORchain is a Cosmos-based blockchain protocol and can be used to trade assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum across other networks. It could be that projects associated with Cosmos are experiencing price increases because of the overall progress that the Cosmos ecosystem is making. RUNE is valued at around $1.60, up from $1.43 last week (see chart below).

Enjin Coin (ENJ)

Enjin Coin (ENJ) rose by 11% not long after a new Enjin Platform was announced. The gaming and NFT-focused project’s new platform will make it easier for game developers to create collections and tokens.

Enjin is also finalizing public access to NFT.io, a marketplace powered by the Enjin ecosystem. At the start of this week, ENJ is trading at around 43 cents, rising from 37 cents a week ago (see chart below).

Chiliz (CHZ)

Chiliz (CHZ), a project focused on the sports and entertainment industry, recorded a token rise of about 10% as anticipation for the public release of Chiliz 2.0 rises. Chiliz 2.0 is an evolution of the original Chiliz Chain and will let brands and sporting franchises create a Web3 ecosystem that enables them to engage better with fans.

The new chain is a fork of the BSC Chain and will be interoperable with Ethereum in the future. CHZ is priced at around 12.9 cents, rising from around 11.8 cents last week.

As of the date this article was written, the author does not own any of the assets discussed here.

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