THORChain
A RUNE with a view: How smart crypto traders caught a 48% price pump
THORChain and Kyber provide the perfect examples of how quant analysis and breaking news can help cryptocurrency investors to capitalize on volatile markets.
Disparities in information access and data analytics tech are what give institutional players an edge over regular retail investors in the digital asset space.
The core idea behind Markets Pro, Cointelegraph’s crypto intelligence platform powered by data analytics firm The TIE, is to equalize the information asymmetries that permeate cryptocurrency markets.
Markets Pro bridges the gap with two world-class functionalities: the quant-style VORTECS™ score, and breaking NewsQuake™ alerts.
The former is an algorithmic comparison of several key market metrics around each coin to years of historical data, which assesses whether at any moment the outlook for this asset is bullish, bearish, or neutral given the historical record of price action.
NewsQuakes™ are automated notifications driven by an AI routine that monitors thousands of information sources to deliver potentially market-moving news to members, often within seconds.
Neither of these is a predictive tool. What both the VORTECS™ score and NewsQuakes™ are designed to do is to notify traders that something has just happened that, in the past, reliably moved asset prices. That’s why a good Markets Pro chart is the one that shows events happening in the right order and in the right time: First comes the indicator, and then price action follows.
In the last couple of days, we have observed a number of exemplary scenarios illustrating classic Markets Pro reads on the market.
RUNE: VORTECS™ shoots up, price follows shortly
June 13 did not start off as a particularly great day for those who were invested in THORChain (RUNE) and looking to make some gains. The coin has been on its way down, falling from above $9.00 a couple of days ago to just above $7.00.
However, the coin’s VORTECS™ score has been steady in the green (bullish) zone, sometimes even venturing into dark green (confidently bullish).
While most traders only saw what was on the surface — a coin’s weak performance — Markets Pro members have had access to a wider view. Even if the price trend did not look promising at all, the market conditions remained historically favorable for RUNE, suggesting a dip potentially worth buying.
Shortly before noon, RUNE’s VORTECS™ line tipped over 80, foreshadowing a rally that began to unfold six hours later. When the price went up, it went up sharply: from $7.00 to the peak of $10.34 twenty-six hours later.
It might also seem from the chart that fuel for the rally came from a NewsQuake™ detected a couple of hours before the pump. While the announcement of a RUNE giveaway by an investment company Qi Capital has definitely added to the momentum, it is unlikely that it had actually triggered the massive pump: As a sequence of strong VORTECS™ scores pointed out, RUNE’s breakout was propped up by an overall healthy outlook in the first place.
KNC: Polygon partnership news shakes up the market
Big announcements that promise more liquidity for the DeFi sector are usually a boon for the coins involved. When Kyber protocol’s team announced the deployment of their first liquidity mining program on Polygon and Ethereum, worth $30M in rewards, the market rewarded the KNC token with a pump from $1.78 to $2.06 (a 16% increase) within 8 hours.
However, the effect of the news began to recede almost as quickly as it kicked in, so only those quick to react were allowed to feast at the profit table. A safe way to secure a spot was through receiving a NewsQuake™ (red circle in the graph) notifying users of the collaboration. Alerts were sent to Markets Pro several minutes after the deal was publicly unveiled, but before the price of KNC had begun ascending.
These classic patterns are replicated day in, day out on Cointelegraph Markets Pro, where the top-performing strategy the team has been monitoring since Jan 3 2021 (Buy at 80, Sell after 24 hours) has now delivered a staggering 3,694% return in live-testing. Full details of the methodology used are available here.
Cointelegraph is a publisher of financial information, not an investment adviser. We do not provide personalized or individualized investment advice. Cryptocurrencies are volatile investments and carry significant risk including the risk of permanent and total loss. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Figures and charts are correct at the time of writing or as otherwise specified. Live-tested strategies are not recommendations. Consult your financial advisor before making financial decisions. Full terms and conditions.
Weekly Decentralized Exchange Volumes Near $20B, Uniswap Captures Lion’s Share, Pancakeswap Trading Climbs
On Tuesday, the founder of the decentralized exchange (dex) Uniswap tweeted about the trading platform passing $10 billion in weekly trade volume for the first time. Decentralized trading volumes have grown massively, as dex platforms built on Ethereum have seen more than $18 billion in volume during the last week. Meanwhile, the dex Pancakeswap, an […]Shapeshift Reveals Platform Supports Unwrapped Swaps via Thorchain With No KYC
Just recently, Shapeshift founder and CEO Erik Voorhees published a blog post about a new project called Thorchain, a protocol that allows for decentralized exchanges without wrapping or bridging technology commonly used today. Thorchain launched on April 13, 2021, and the Shapeshift founder recently revealed his company is first to leverage the multi-chain protocol in […]Shapeshift to Pioneer Cross-Chain Trading With THORChain
The biggest event in crypto this week ISN’T Coinbase’s listing: Erik Voorhees
The first truly native cross-chain DEX is about to go live.
ShapeShift CEO and crypto industry stalwart Erik Voorhees has suggested that the launch of ThorChain is arguably the biggest event in crypto this week.
And considering all eyes in crypto are on the direct listing of major United States exchange Coinbase on the Nasdaq on Wednesday — with a potential valuation of $140 billion according to the FTX derivatives exchange — that’s a pretty big claim.
ThorChain’s launch is scheduled for Tuesday and will mark the first time that native crypto assets can be traded on a decentralized exchange across unique blockchains without bridging technology or wrapping tokens.
In a tweet on Monday, Voorhees asserted that the launch of a native cross-chain DEX will tread new ground for crypto.
“Thorchain has no bridges. It has no wrapping. It is native assets, swapped across chains in a decentralized way, for the first time ever,” Voorhees exclaimed.
Thorchain goes live tomorrow. Native cross-chain decentralized exchange. Never been done before
— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) April 12, 2021
Arguably the biggest event in crypto this week, though it may not be obvious for a year or two ;)
Join us on Clubhouse tomorrow to discuss!#bitcoin #ethereum #litecoin #DEX https://t.co/Y7yCNEfM51
ThorChain will host a launch party on social platform Clubhouse on Tuesday at 18:00 EST. The event will be attended by some of the biggest names in crypto, including Voorhees and several ShapeShift executives, Multicoin Capital managing partner Tushar Jain, Delphi Digital co-founder Yan Liberman and several others.
The DEX will initially host pairings for Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Binance Coin (BNB), with plans to support other crypto assets in the future.
ThorChain operates like other automated market makers, such as Uniswap, but with the important distinction that it enables the trading and swapping of crypto assets from completely different blockchains and networks.
ThorChain is based on the Tendermint consensus protocol, which is also associated with the Cosmos ecosystem. The exchange is backed by its native token RUNE, which acts as collateral to facilitate trades.
Assets are supported by the protocol when blockchains get added to ThorChain’s cross-chain network, called “chaosnet.” Chaosnet allows assets to be swapped without relying on third-party intermediaries such as the custodians of wrapped versions of BTC, for example.
To swap BTC for ETH, for example, the exchange would trade the BTC for RUNE, which is then swapped for ETH. This is all carried out at high speed to ensure the user is not impacted by the intermediary trade.
There has been increased demand for cross-chain solutions, especially from the decentralized finance sector. On Thursday, Cointelegraph reported that cross-chain asset bridge and application hub ChainSwap had closed a $3-million strategic funding round led by Alameda Research.
ThorChain is also developing a native wallet called AsgardEx, which will be built to interact directly with the “chaosnet,” allowing the tokens of unique blockchains to be held by a single wallet.
The platform’s native token, RUNE, has been on fire recently, surging 13% over the past 24 hours to reach an all-time high of $12.65, according to CoinGecko.
Altcoins move to new all-time highs while Bitcoin struggles below $60K
Bitcoin price might be pinned below $60,000, but that’s not stopping THORChain, Akropolis and Helium from chasing after new all-time highs.
According to data from, Bitcoin’s (BTC) Q1 2021 performance was the best since 2013. With strong tailwinds, Bitcoin now enters Q2 which historically has been a good period for BTC price.
Data shows that BTC has only closed Q2 in the red twice and both times the decline was less than 10%. If history repeats itself, Bitcoin investors may witness sharp gains in the next six months.
Altcoins have also participated in the current bull run and this has propelled the total crypto market capitalization to $1.99 trillion which is just short of the $2 trillion milestone.
Let’s take a look at some of the top-performing tokens to see which may continue to rally higher in the short term.
RUNE/USDT
The decentralized finance boom has attracted numerous new players. However, one of the problems facing investors is that the protocols are built on different blockchains.
This necessitates the need for a cross-chain protocol, enabling traders to swap tokens across the blockchains in a decentralized way and THORChain (RUNE) is attempting to do just that.
On March 26 the protocol teased that its multichain Chaosnet, which supports native cross-blockchain swapping across five chains is expected to go live soon.
This feature could attract several new investors who may lock their assets in THORChain for greater yields. If that happens, the total value of assets locked in THORChain could surge from the current $553 million TVL and add further benefit to RUNE investors.
Successful implementation of this feature could increase the demand for RUNE. On Feb. 23, Crypto investment firm Multicoin Capital also revealed a large position in RUNE.
RUNE rallied from an intraday low at $4.50 on March 25 to an intraday high at $8.93 today, a 98.44% rally in eight days. However, the long wick on today’s candlestick suggests profit-booking at higher levels.
The RUNE/USDT pair may retest the breakout level at $6.76. If the bulls can flip this level to support, it may act as a launchpad for the next leg of the uptrend that may reach $10.26.
The upsloping moving averages and the relative strength index (RSI) in the overbought zone suggest bulls are in command.
If the bears sink the price below $6.76, the pair may drop to the 20-day exponential moving average ($6.24). A bounce off this support will indicate the sentiment remains positive and it may keep the uptrend intact.
This positive view will invalidate if the bears sink the price below the 20-day EMA. Such a move could pull the price down to the 50-day SMA ($5.36) and then to $4.50.
AKRO/USDT
The DeFi space is crowded and projects will have to think out of the box and introduce attractive products to stay ahead in the game. However, for the past few weeks, there have not been any major announcements from the Acropolis (AKRO) team.
High Ethereum gas fees continue to be a burden on users and that may have taken a toll. These could be some of the reasons why the protocol's TVL is only at $37.31 million, according to a weekly update on March 31.
The team did mention that it is working on new vault strategies but it did not dish out too many specifics. In a bull market, almost everything rises, but projects that do not have a distinct advantage over their competitors struggle when the next downturn happens. Therefore, crypto investors should analyze the fundamentals of the projects and hold the ones that offer an edge over the others.
AKRO has risen from an intraday low at $0.042 on March 25 to $0.088 today, a rally of 109.50% in eight days. The token’s break above $0.072 completed a bullish ascending triangle pattern that has a target objective at $0.127.
However, the long wick on today’s candlestick suggests profit-booking at higher levels. The bears will now try to sink the price back below the breakout level at $0.072. If they succeed, the AKRO/USDT pair could drop to the 20-day EMA ($0.060).
If the price rebounds off this level, the bulls will once again try to push the price above $0.072 and resume the up-move.
Conversely, if the bears sink the price below the 20-day EMA, the pair may drop to the trendline of the triangle. A break below this support will invalidate the bullish setup and signal a possible change in trend.
HNT/USDT
Helium (HNT) was featured by Cointelegraph on Feb. 9 when it was trading at $3.96. From there, the token rallied to $12.09 on March 28, a 205% rally in just under two months.
The protocol aims to build a decentralized wireless network and connect IoT devices at a fraction of the cost of the current cellular service providers. Since early February, the number of active hotspots has increased from 18,000 to 24,572.
This number is likely to increase as one of its third-party HNT miner suppliers said that it had shipped 2,000 miners to customers in China on March 31. If HNT's popularity increases in China, the number of hotspots could continue to rise.
Helium recently partnered with Streamr, a decentralized platform for real-time data, which can help users transport, broadcast, and monetize data. Helium has also forged partnerships with several firms that provide various types of IoT solutions.
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro turned positive just as HNT was starting the rally on March 25.
The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historic and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for HNT was in the green on March 25, just as the token started its rally from $7.09 to $11.38 on March 28.
The VORTECS™ Score again turned green on March 31 just before the start of the rally and it has remained in the green since then. HNT pric rallied from $9.67 to $11.98 during the period.
Currently, HNT is in an uptrend but the bears are trying to stall the up-move at $12. The bears had pulled the price down from this level on March 28 but the bulls purchased the drop to the 20-day EMA ($8.66) on March 31, indicating accumulation on dips.
The rising moving averages and the RSI in the overbought territory suggest the path of least resistance is to the upside. If the bulls can sustain the price above $12, the next leg of the uptrend could start. The next target objective on the upside is $14.56 and then $17.64.
Contrary to this assumption, if the price again turns down from $12, the bulls will try to sink the HNT/USDT pair below the 20-day EMA. If they succeed, the pair could drop to the 50-day SMA ($6.04).
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.