Polkadot displaced Litecoin as the fourth largest futures market this week, with almost $600 million in open interest.
Despite being new on the crypto scene, Polkadot has caught the eyes of investors and the crypto community. The relatively new altcoin, which launched its main net in May of this year, is currently the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, with a market capitalization of over $32 billion. As of the middle of January this year, it was trading at $11, but since then has mooned, hitting $42 on the 20th of February.
Major Signals
- DOT's market capitalization stands at over $32 billion.
- It's $73 million aggregate futures open interest has increased by 690 percent to $575 million in the past two months.
- 63 percent of DOT coins in use are in staking systems.
- It's total spot transaction volume at exchanges has increased by 660 percent to $4.3 billion.
Part of the reason why it's been popular is its unique interoperable structure. Polkadot's creation of parachains has been made appealing by the promise that interoperability between blockchains would be a viable solution to high gas fees on the Ethereum network. The crypto industry, the DeFi community, and several projects have chosen to build on cheaper networks like DOT increasing its popularity as a staking platform.
About 63 percent of DOT coins in use are tied away in staking systems, according to data from Staking Rewards. In the meantime, Polkadot's production appears to be moving faster than that of its competitors. Ws
DOT's $73 million aggregate futures open interest has increased by 690 percent to $575 million in the last two months, making it the fourth-largest derivatives market behind Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Cardano (ADA).
Interestingly, Litecoin (LTC), which had been in the third spot since the inception of futures contracts, has been supplanted by DOT. The latter's on-chain and trading metrics greatly surpass Litecoin's, indicating that this was not a mere technical shift.
DOT's total spot transaction volume at exchanges has increased by 660 percent to $4.3 billion.
Polkadot's on-chain metrics also reveal its significant growth, with daily active addresses increasing from 1,600 to 6,000. The 275 percent increase for a network that only launched its mainnet eight months ago appears remarkable.
Polkadot's on-chain metrics may take some time to catch up to Litecoin's and Cardano's amount of active addresses, but given how new its technology is, this isn't an issue.
In less than a year, the DOT has made considerable leaps in every aspect. We look forward to coming development from the Polkadot team.
