Today, Avalanche and Polkadot have risen to prominence
Today is Sunday, which means that crypto trading, like the rest of the world, is observing the Sabbath. However, this has not prevented altcoins Avalanche and Polkadot from rocketing to the top of the cryptocurrency market capitalization leaderboard.
Avalanche was the twentieth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization yesterday, according to data aggregator Nomics. Today, it has advanced six positions to fourteenth, setting a new all-time high price of $61.44, or 23.89 percent higher than yesterday’s price.
Ava Labs describes Avalanche, which launched in September of last year, as “blazingly fast, cost-effective, and eco-friendly.”
As with Ethereum, Avalanche is a platform for smart contracts, which means that developers can use it to construct a variety of decentralised exchanges and non-custodial lending applications on the blockchain.
Ava Labs asserts Avalanche can process 4,500 transactions per second, substantially more than Bitcoin’s 7 and Ethereum’s 14.
Avalanche is also more environmentally friendly than Bitcoin and other proof-of-work consensus systems, which validate transactions through substantial energy use.
Anyone staking at least 2,000 AVAX ($122,880) can process transactions and mine AVAX under Avalanche’s proof-of-stake model.
Polkadot also gained ground, climbing from tenth to ninth place in the list of the world’s largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
Polkadot rose 8.48 percent overnight to a new all-time high of $33.52.Polkadot, like Avalanche, is a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency that enables blockchain interoperability.
Unlike Avalanche, Polkadot does not support smart contracts natively on its primary relay chain, but does support them on so-called parachains.
Bitcoin and Ethereum, the market leaders, are lagging behind today. The world’s most popular cryptocurrency is currently trading at $46,215 per coin, a mere 1% increase over yesterday’s price.
Meanwhile, Ethereum, the original smart contract blockchain’s native currency, is currently trading at $3,437, up a promising 3.21 percent from yesterday’s close.
