In brief:
- The Coronavirus crash of mid-March has resulted in a lot of crypto traders being cautious.
- The dominance of stablecoins is proof that they are waiting for favorable crypto conditions to get back to trading.
- Staking crypto on the various exchanges has provided an alternative to trading and/or storing value in stablecoins.
The Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto market crash of mid-March was one event that not too many traders believed would happen. The majority of Bitcoin enthusiasts believed that the hype surrounding the Bitcoin halving event would provide much-needed immunity for the crypto markets to survive a shake-out in the event of a possible stock market meltdown. However, the tense days of March proved that Bitcoin is highly correlated to the stock markets during times of turmoil.
$8 Billion Locked up in Stablecoins
As with all periods of unexpected volatility, traders and investors quickly hopped on stablecoins to safeguard the value of their holdings in the crypto markets. As a result, Tether (USDT) has continually risen on Coinmarketcap and is currently ranked 4th after BTC, Ethereum (ETH) and XRP. The stablecoin’s market cap currently stands at $6.4 Billion making up 80% of the total value stored in stablecoins. Tether’s dominance has slowly but surely risen due to the uncertainty brought about by the effects of COVID19 on the global economies.
Staking of TRX, KAVA and other Cryptos is Providing a Profitable Alternative
With the world firmly in the thick of a global recession, favorable trading conditions to go LONG in the crypto markets will probably take a while to present themselves. At the time of writing this, flattening the curve of infections is happening but a return to normalcy has been projected to take months and roll over into 2021 with some estimates pushing it to 2022.
Therefore, many savvy crypto investors have discovered that staking is an easier way of storing their crypto holdings while gradually increasing their holdings.
Exchanges such as Binance, Bitfinex, KuCoin and Poloniex, have started offering staking services for coins and tokens already listed on their platforms.
Using Binance staking services as an example, we observe the following estimated annualized returns in the staked token/coin.
- Tron (TRX): 7 – 8% pa
- ATOM: 6 – 9% pa
- Tezos (XTZ): 6 – 9% pa
- Algorand (ALGO): 8 – 10% pa
- ONE: 8- 10% pa
- Fetch (FET): 8 – 12% pa
- QTUM: 6 – 8% pa
- TROY: 15 – 16% pa
The above list is just a brief one to give the reader a better understanding of the potential investment potential of staking.
Staking Might be a Better Alternative to Trading the Uncertainty
With the Bitcoin halving narrative of gains almost destroyed by the Coronavirus crash of March 2020, trading cryptocurrencies as they range and wick haphazardly in either direction might be one-way traders are losing trading capital through stop losses and the dreaded liquidations.
Staking, on the other hand, might be a better alternative to trading. User funds idly generate profits in a manner more attractive than holding value through stablecoins.
Vitalik Buterin Believes Staking on Phones is Promising
Additionally, in a recent tweet, the Co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, rubbished the idea of mining cryptocurrencies on smart-phones while at the same time identifying staking as a promising option. His tweet can be found below.
Mining on phones is a fool's game. Goes against everything we know about hardware economies of scale and more likely to trick users with false hope than help them.
*Staking* on phones, OTOH, is IMO quite promising…https://t.co/VGgkoHIDsP
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) April 13, 2020
Summing it Up
Trading Bitcoin and alt-coins during periods of global economic uncertainty might be one way of losing trading capital. Alternatively, and with staking, investors can store the value of their trading capital in coins or tokens that will generate a handsome amount in annualized returns.
(Feature image courtesy of Micah Williams on Unsplash.)
Disclaimer: This article is not meant to give financial advice. Any additional opinion herein is purely the author’s and does not represent the opinion of Ethereum World News or any of its other writers. Please carry out your own research before investing in any of the numerous cryptocurrencies available. Thank you.
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