​Top altcoins for the week. Which tokens are growing faster than the market and why

Over the past few days, three altcoins have shown positive dynamics. Cardano (ADA), Loopring (LRC), and ApeCoin (APE) have gained significantly. Let’s look into the reasons behind the growth of these coins.

Cardano

Cardano’s price is up 35% over the week. As of March 24, the value of altcoin is at $1,13 on a market cap of $36,1 billion, according to Coinmarketcap. Cardano rose in price after the US exchange Coinbase announced the addition of the ADA staking capability.

Coinbase wants to make Cardano staking easier for the average user, so is willing to take over all technical and operational activities. For this, the exchange will take a portion of the income from the staking and pay the depositor 3,75% per annum. Coinbase has promised to make payments every five to seven days.

Cardano is a blockchain for the development of decentralized applications, which was developed in 2017. In September 2021, the price of the ADA token set an all-time high above $3. In six months, the value of the altcoin fell by 63%.

Loopring

The Loopring token exchange rate has gained 48% in a week. As of March 24, the price of altcoin is at $1,1 on a market cap of $1,3 billion. The altcoin price began to rise after the Gamestop store chain announced the launch of its own NFT marketplace based on the Loopring network.

Gamestop announced the creation of its own trading platform for NFT tokens back in early 2022. Initially, the company planned to use startup Immutable’s Ethereum layer 2 solution. Gamestop has probably decided to abandon this idea and opted for Loopring.

Crypto analyst Kevin Svenson predicted that altcoin Loopring will become the main driver of the new “altcoin season” and ahead of much of the market. Svenson noted that he actively uses this layer-2 protocol because of the low fees on the altcoin network.

Loopring is an Ethereum Layer-2 based protocol using the zk-Rollup solution for scalable exchange and payments. The Loopring ecosystem includes the Loopring Wallet for smart contracts, its own Loopring Coin (LRC) token, and the Loopring Exchange, a decentralized exchange.

ApeCoin

The ApeCoin token gained 58% over the week. On March 24, its price is $13,5 with a capitalization of $2,2 billion. The altcoin was released on March 17 and set a historic high above $17,1 the very next day. NFT holders from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection were able to get new tokens for free, with 15% of the APE issue allocated for the airdrop.

Following the release of the ApeCoin token, Yuga Labs announced the launch of its own Otherside metaverse. The preliminary launch of the project is scheduled for April 2022. The APE token will be a native asset in the virtual worlds of the metaverse. Yuga Labs has also raised $450 million in investments. The company’s valuation has since surpassed $4 billion. Andreessen Horowitz, Animoca Brands, FTX, MoonPay, Sound Ventures, and Thrive Capital have invested in the issuer of the ApeCoin token.

One of the creators of Dogecoin, Billy Markus, reacted negatively to the release of ApeCoin. The developer wrote on Twitter that APE is hurting the ecosystem of non-fungible tokens and added that he believes the NFT community is “hyper toxic and desperate.”

ApeCoin is a token of Yuga Labs, which launched one of the most popular NFT collections, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). In March, the company bought the rights to other well-known collections, CryptoPunks and Meebits.