The price of the Cosmos blockchain’s native token ATOM rose sharply in the crypto market today, despite selling pressure from the rest of the market. The gains today follow an extended period of higher prices for the token, leading to a (for now) failed test of its September all-time high.
As of 16:43 UTC, ATOM traded at USD 43.25, up by 12% over the past 24 hours. Looking at the longer time-frames, the token is up by 43% over the past 7 days and 52% over the past 14 days.
The gains today positioned ATOM as the second-best performer among the top 100 coins by market capitalization over the past 24 hours, following only the smaller cap altcoin frax share (FXS), which saw almost a 14% rise.
90-day price of ATOM:
Following today’s gains, the price is now at its highest since ATOM’s all-time high of USD 44.80 from September 20 last year, and within a short distance of breaking through the important level. A break above that price would then bring ATOM into ‘price discovery’ mode at a time when major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) are struggling.
Among the most important drivers for the recent rally is excitement surrounding the completion of the major network upgrade known as Stargate. In addition to that comes the release of Evmos, the name given to the implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) on Cosmos, which is expected to take interoperability between the two blockchains to the next level.
For the first quarter of 2022, the Cosmos Network’s roadmap also includes some notable upgrades, with the addition of a non-fungible token (NFT) module being perhaps the most interesting for users. According to an article on the Cosmos blog, Evmos will both support NFT deployments and host marketplaces where users can “easily trade and deply NFTs.”
Discussing the recent moves on Reddit’s Cosmos forum, one user suggested that the strong fundamentals underpinning the growth for Cosmos mean it is now part of a group of “fantastic projects” that will become more independent of the moves in broader crypto market, a trend he called “the great dispersion.”
A similar sentiment was also shared by others, with another user writing “I’ve never seen it do this. BTC folding like a chair and ATOM doesn’t even notice.”
Source: Cryptonews
