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Polygon (MATIC) Makes the Top 3 - Coins to Watch for January 17 - January 23

source-logo  coincodex.com 16 January 2022 19:55, UTC

Bitcoin still can’t quite decide which direction it wants to go, but crypto never sleeps – there’s still a ton of exciting developments happening across the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem. Let’s check out 3 projects that will be worth following closely this week.

3. Stellar (XLM)

Stellar is a blockchain platform that was launched in 2015 to provide a fast and efficient payments network. Unlike Ethereum and similar blockchains, Stellar does not support sophisticated smart contracts. Instead, the Stellar blockchain is optimized for transacting with digital assets as efficiently as possible, and also features a built-in decentralized exchange (DEX) where users can swap between different assets on the Stellar protocol. In an upgrade completed in November 2021, Stellar introduced Automated Market Maker (AMM) functionality to its protocol, opening up new options for trading and earning rewards by providing liquidity.

Why Stellar? The AQUA airdrop for XLM holders

Aquarius, a project that’s building a liquidity management layer for Stellar, will be conducting an airdrop of its AQUA tokens to holders of XLM, the native asset of the Stellar network. To be eligible for the airdrop, an address must hold 500 XLM or more and at least 1 AQUA token. The snapshot date for the airdrop is January 15 at 0:00 AM UTC. As of the time of writing, there’s more than 50,000 XLM network accounts that are eligible for the airdrop.

The airdrop should generate some extra interest for the Stellar blockchain, and it will be interesting to see how XLM markets respond after the snapshot. If a lot of people purchased XLM just to qualify for the snapshot, we could see some additional selling pressure in the XLM markets as we move past the snapshot date. However, the XLM markets have been relatively quiet as of late, so there doesn’t seem to have been massive demand from users to acquire XLM and qualify for the airdrop.

2. Kava (KAVA)

Kava is a blockchain platform that is focused on support decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. On Kava, users can lend cryptocurrency to earn interest, mint stablecoins and swap between different tokens in a decentralized manner. DeFi apps built on Kava can support assets that are native to the Kava blockchain, as well as representations of popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Binance Coin. 

Why Kava? The Kava 9 upgrade is set to bring better interoperability with Cosmos

The Kava 9 upgrade will go live on January 19 at 16:00 UTC. Kava 9 will integrate support for the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC), providing a big improvement in the interoperability between Kava and the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem. After the upgrade, users will be able to move tokens between Kava and Cosmos, unlocking new opportunities in DeFi. Another important aspect of Kava 9 is  that it will lay down important infrastructure for a bridge to Ethereum, which will be activated at a later date.

The upgrade is especially significant since Cosmos has been one of the best performers in the cryptocurrency market this year. With this much attention on Cosmos and its ecosystem projects like Osmosis, the Kava 9 upgrade seems to be going live at a very opportune time.

1. Polygon (MATIC)

Polygon is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain platform that’s compatible with Ethereum. It has emerged as one of the most popular Ethereum alternatives after Ethereum started suffering from high transaction fees. Polygon’s native asset is called MATIC, and it is used for key operations on the network like staking and paying transaction fees.

Why Polygon? The London hard fork is coming

The Polygon blockchain is set to be upgraded with the London hard fork, the same hard fork that went live on the Ethereum mainnet in August last year. The upgrade is expected to happen on January 18 at around 08:00 UTC.

The most notable change that the London hard fork will bring to Polygon is of course EIP-1559, which will overhaul the platform’s transaction fee market. While the implementations are technically different, EIP-1559 will ultimately do the same thing on Polygon as it does on Ethereum – it will introduce a base transaction fee that will be burned instead of being paid as a reward to validators. Users will have the option of including a tip for validators if they want to have their transaction prioritized.

If the implementation of EIP-1559 on Ethereum is anything to go by, we shouldn’t expect a noticeable decrease in transaction fees once the London hard fork is activated on Polygon. However, it will allow wallets to make more reliable transaction fee estimates, and it will also introduce deflationary pressure to the MATIC supply. On Ethereum, more than 1.5 million ETH has been burned since EIP-1559 went live, and MATIC holders will also surely be following the MATIC burn stats with a lot of enthusiasm.  

coincodex.com