coincodex.com
Key highlights:
- Total value locked has ballooned over 4 times to a whopping $16 million as clever DEXes like Sonic and ICPSwap let traders flip positions without gas fees.
- As social apps like OpenChat make Web3 feel approachable, more folks are experiencing the liberating effects of decentralized tech for themselves.
- If innovative applications keep engagement high and teams like Dfinity deliver the goods, CoinCodex predicts the ICP price could rocket over 500% within a year to around $54 - and that's without counting potential wider macro boosts.
The Internet Computer blockchain, better known as ICP, has seen immense growth in on-chain activity over the past year. With Total Value Locked (TVL) in decentralized applications (dApps) surpassing $16 million according to DeFi Llama, and over 2.3 million verified Internet Identities tracked on the ICP Dashboard, could this be an indicator that the ICP price may continue its upward trend? Let's take a deeper look at what's fueling this surge in activity and what it may mean for ICP's price trajectory going forward.
ICP TVL Chart. Source: DefiLlama
TVL in ICP DeFi skyrockets as innovative dApps take off
Anyone who's been keeping tabs on ICP's ecosystem development over the last 12 months can't have missed the explosion in DeFi usage on the network. Fast forward to today, and that figure has swelled more than 4-fold to over $16 million according to DeFi tracking resource DeFi Llama.
Several innovative DApps have helped fuel this astronomical growth, such as Sonic and ICPSwap - decentralized exchanges leveraging ICP's reverse gas model to offer zero gas fee transactions finalized in just one second. With services like these lowering the barriers to entry, it's unsurprising that both traders and liquidity providers have been flocking to the space.
Image: The number of Internet Identifiers created on the ICP network has ballooned over the past year. Source: ICP Dashboard.
Internet identities boom points to burgeoning Web3 adoption
Another telling metric is the surge in Internet Identities tracked on the ICP Dashboard. These represent pseudonymous profiles created by users to securely interact with dApps without relying on centralized credentials. As the graph below shows, the number of verified identities has gone parabolic, by more than 9% in the last year from under 2,100,000 to over 2,290,000.
This breakneck growth indicates that as user-friendly services emerge, such as SocialFi apps OpenChat and Distrikt, more and more people are experiencing the liberating effects of decentralized technologies for themselves - a bullish sign for long-term mainstream adoption.
Positive momentum could continue driving ICP price higher in 2024
Given the red-hot activity currently firing up across DeFi applications and identity profiles on Internet Computer, one would expect this positive momentum to flow through to ICP's market performance. A look at price predictions from leading analyst firms lends weight to this hypothesis.
CoinCodex, for example, forecasts that the ICP price will appreciate over 500% by this time next year to around $53.65, factoring in both on-chain growth as well as external macroeconomic forces like inflation.
If innovative Dapps help mainstream Web3 and decentralized identity solutions cement their use cases through 2024 as anticipated, there is reason to believe ICP could outperform these bullish calls. One thing is certain - with 40,000+ daily active users already across SocialFi and DeFi applications according to Dfinity, real utility and adoption are growing hand-in-hand with the Internet Computer ecosystem at a rapid clip. For investors, now may be an opportune time to get in before this virtuous cycle potentially takes the ICP price even higher.
In closing
Increased usage of DeFi, novel DEXes supplanting CEXes, and skyrocketing identity profiles all point to expanding real-world utility driving on-chain momentum. If the technical progress by teams like Dfinity and builders in the ecosystem continues apace, we may just be witnessing the early stages of sustainable growth unlocking fresh price appreciation potential for the ICP token in 2024 and beyond.