Cryptocurrencies To Watch: Week of Jan. 30

Keep an Eye on These Coins

Is the crypto market finally pulling out of its slump? Bullish investors say yes as Bitcoin inches closer to $24,000. While the market shows some signs of a bull run, it is important to remember that it's still volatile. A few tokens stand out as noteworthy in the latest week amid the strengthening market.

This week, we examine Threshold Network (T), Fantom (FTM), Avalanche (AVAX), Gala (GALA), and Polygon (MATIC). In selecting these assets, we've considered factors including positive technical developments, significant news events, and noticeable changes in price.

Threshold Network (T)

The Threshold Network (T) was the most notable gainer this week, with the token increasing by 80%. The increase came after Coinbase said it would list the T token and that trading started Jan. 26. The project is also expected to launch the minting feature for tBTC soon.

Threshold Network is a decentralized finance, or DeFi, service that offers such features as staking and liquidity provision. It allows users to deposit and redeem their Bitcoin in DeFi without a third party. T started last week at 0.023 cent and is now valued at around 0.044 cent (see chart below).

Fantom (FTM)

Fantom's FTM coin increased 27% after it announced the Jan. 19 launch of the Ecosystem Vault on its network. The vault is a fund that operates on-chain, taking 10% of the transaction fees for funding projects, ideas, and creations. The Fantom community controls how the funds are used. 

Also last week, the Hector Network launched on Fantom its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace. This Fantom-focused project released the Atlantica Market on Jan. 23 in what is another major step forward for the network. FTM was trading around 38 cents at the start of the last week and is now hovering at around 47 cents (see chart below).

Avalanche (AVAX)

Avalanche’s AVAX increased by 18% after it experienced adoption on multiple fronts. Several new DeFi integrations for the token have taken place in the past week, including those by transfer service SafeTransfer and Delta Prime DeFi. The coin is now priced at around $20.50 (see chart below).

However, it also could be that Avalanche is still riding an early January partnership start with Amazon Web Services. AWS now fully supports Avalanche’s infrastructure and decentralized applications, or dApp, ecosystem. 

Gala (GALA)

The Gala project's GALA token increased 16% after several major announcements in the last week. First, there are said to be collaborations with Hollywood actors Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, although neither agreement has been confirmed.

The Gala team also said it acquired gaming studio Ember Entertainment, indicating that it has plans for the gaming market. GALA started last week at around 0.04 cent and is now valued at around 0.052 cent (see chart below).

Polygon (MATIC)

Polygon’s MATIC token rose in the last week by more than 20% to $1.11 thanks to a sizable increase in network activity (see chart below). The activity growth is so significant that Polygon overtook Ethereum in terms of daily active users. Polygon now is only behind Binance's BNB Chain in terms of daily active users.

Polygon also has been gaining increased DeFi activity as the total value locked (TVL), or the overall value of crypto assets deposited in the protocol, hit $872 million. That’s a healthy amount during a period when the crypto market is considered to be in a slump.