The popular Ethereum rival has surged nearly 80% in the past week alone, breaking the $8 billion market cap and coming close to breaking into the top 20 cryptoassets by market cap.
is a smart contract-enabled decentralized application (DApp) platform that tries to compete with Near Protocol (NEAR), Ethereum (ETH) or Polkdadot (DOT).
The project’s native token, NEAR, hit an all-time high of $15.87 in less than five days, with 100% gain. NEAR is used to pay for transaction fees and storage. It can also be staked by token holders who participate in achieving network consensus as transaction validators. NEAR was trading at $14.96 at the time of writing.
The rise of Ethereum rival joins the wave of Layer-1 altcoins locked in huge gains while ETH maintains relatively modest price action. The biggest Ethereum competitor, Solana (SOL), has also gained 8% over the past seven days. With that said, stablecoin-focused Terra (LUNA) is up 35% in the last seven days and an incredible 130% in the last 30 days. LUNA is currently the best performing altcoin in the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap.
Also noteworthy is the smart contract platform Avalanche (AVAX), which has seen a modest 2% increase in the last seven days, but a massive 46% increase in the last two weeks. AVAX ranks 11th in terms of market capitalization.
Another Layer-1 altcoin making big moves is Phantom (FTM). FTM is up 61% in the last seven days and is currently trading at $2.30.