ATOM, the token of blockchain Cosmos, rose as much as 8% in the past 24 hours as investors bet on further upside for the high-speed blockchain, making the token among the few gainers on Monday morning.
ATOM rose to $35.22 during early Asian hours from Sunday’s lows of $28. The prices saw resistance at those levels and tumbled to $32 at the time of writing. ATOM prices reached an all-time high of $45 last week but have since fallen 25% alongside a drop in the broader crypto market.
Strong fundamentals factors supporting the price surge are the upcoming airdrops to Cosmos stakers and a bridge implementation between Cosmos and Polkadot. Bridges are tools that connect and transfer data between two blockchains.
Tokens of protocols built on Cosmos that were previously airdropped to stakers, were among the biggest gainers on Monday morning even as the broader crypto market saw nominal losses. Tokens of Juno Network (JUNO), Stargaze (STAR), and Comdex (CMDX) – DeFi-centric tokens built on Cosmos – rose as much as 6% in the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.
DeFi, short for decentralized finance, refers to financial services such as trading, lending, and borrowing that rely on smart contracts instead of third parties.
The airdrops are part of a planned process for Cosmos stakers. Cosmos, as a proof-of-stake blockchain, relies on validators that provide computing sources by locking up ATOM in nodes to maintain the network and process transactions, in return for token rewards.
Projects built on Cosmos provide additional yields to users. Native projects automatically airdrop tokens to Cosmos stakers based on their the total amount staked, resulting in further value accrual for ATOM holders.
Meanwhile, some analysts say the upcoming launch of EVMOS has increased interest for Cosmos among investors. “Cosmos has been the talk of the town lately with the impending EVMOS launch this month also driving attention. EVMOS (previously Ethermint) will allow EVM-compatible applications to integrate into the Cosmos ecosystem,” analysts from crypto research firm Delphi Digital wrote in a note last week.
