What happened
Binance Coin (CRYPTO: BNB), Uniswap (CRYPTO: UNI), and Terra Luna (CRYPTO: LUNA) are up 15.7%, 27.4%, and 10.4% in the past seven days as of 10:58 a.m. EDT. These tokens are now trading for $409.29, $25.01, and $38.41 apiece, respectively.
On Sept. 29, Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, announced that it doesn't conduct any business in China. Investors had been selling its namesake coin over fears that it was exposed to the country's crackdowns on cryptocurrencies.
Image source: Getty Images.
Recently, China banned cryptocurrency mining and declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal. So clever Chinese investors connected their wallets to decentralized exchanges (DEX) like Uniswap to trade crypto, thereby bypassing local regulations. More trading volume leads to greater demand for Uniswap tokens, which can be used to provide liquidity for obscure altcoins, causing its price to go up.
It's a different story altogether for Terra Luna. On Sept. 30, the network's much anticipated Columbus-5 upgrade went live. It introduced a deflationary aspect to its native LUNA coins and created inter-blockchain integration with Cosmos, allowing data to be shared across multiple ecosystems.
So what
The catalysts were just what these dormant altcoins needed for their breakthrough.
Binance Coin's functionality has expanded rapidly, ranging from validating transactions on the network for interest (staking) to borrowing and lending to powering decentralized exchanges of its own and more.
As for Uniswap, there are 442 coins listed on the exchange with 937 active trading pairs. Users earn a 0.3% commission on all trades they help facilitate with their UNI tokens on a pro-rata basis.
Finally, Terra Luna's developers have created an innovative platform for consumers to buy and sell goods and services using its stablecoin TerraUSD (CRYPTO: UST). At the same time, investors can earn rewards by using LUNA coins to maintain UST's 1:1 exchange rate with the U.S. dollar and enjoy capital appreciation.
Now what
Things are looking good for all three cryptos. For example, decentralized exchange PancakeSwap (CRYPTO: CAKE), which is built on the Binance Smart Chain and uses BNB for managing transaction fees, has 2.8 million monthly users making 31 million trades. Next, it's only been a year since Uniswap's inception, but the platform has already facilitated 62 million trades with a total transaction volume of $386 billion. Lastly, Terra Luna's payment app Chai has over 2 million users making over $1 billion transactions per year using the UST currency. You should consider adding these promising cryptos to your watchlist.
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Zhiyuan Sun owns shares of Binance Coin, Cosmos, PancakeSwap, Terra, and Uniswap. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
