AVAX Rallies 40%, Shows No Signs Of Slowing Down

AVAX token has rallied in the midst of a selloff in Ethereum and Bitcoin.

AVAX has rallied 40.4% in the last seven days and sits at $116.50 at the time of writing. The rally may be due to two factors: the addition of USDC, which saw it rally 10.5% on Tues, Dec. 14, 2021. USDC is a stablecoin issued by Circle, which will be used on the Avalanche blockchain for fast and cheap remittances. Avalanche is the seventh blockchain to support USDC.

Avalanche has recently garnered institutional attention. Crypto custody firm Bitgo recently announced that they would list AVAX, resulting in it reaching a two-week high of $106.11 on Dec. 16, 2021. BitGo provides institutional investors with liquidity, custody, and security. The price dropped after that and then rose again on Fri, Dec. 17, 2021, following an announcement on Twitter that Avalanche would be partnering with Web 3.0 accelerator DeFi Alliance. Avalanche recently reached an all-time high of $144.96, according to CoinGecko, on Nov. 23, 2021. Avalanche is compatible with Ethereum smart contracts.

Institutional Interest

Institutional interest in Avalanche’s breakthrough blockchain technology is increasing. Consulting firm Deloitte has made public plans to use the three-tiered Avalanche blockchain network to create a cloud-based disaster-management platform. A Bank Of America analyst is bullish that Avalanche can be a serious competitor to Ethereum. Ava Labs has been selected to be part of the Mastercard Start Path Crypto initiative, which seeks to expand blockchain use cases. Avalanche also garnered $230M of institutional investment on Sep. 16, 2021, from Polychain and Three Arrows Capital. This announcement was made on Dec. 9, 2021. AVAX also got listed on FTX and on CoInbase in the U.K. during the week of Dec. 15, 2021.

Avalanche’s Value Proposition Growing

Avalanche’s three-tiered blockchain seeks to epitomize decentralization, security, and speed simultaneously. Avalanche has gained a reputation as being a hot destination for decentralized projects, with 364 projects active on the blockchain in the last 15 months. The total value locked in DeFi now exceeds $11B. AVAX has a market cap of approximately $28M. Earlier this year, Avalanche overtook Dogecoin and Shiba Inu to break into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. Avalanche’s proof-of-stake validation mechanism is less energy-intensive than other proof-of-work blockchains.