Layer 1 Tokens Rally as Investors Ignore GDP Growth – The Defiant

Aptos and Canto take advantage of the stellar week

Tokens for smart contract platforms defied the mild swoon in crypto markets on Thursday and Friday.

MATIC, the native token of the Polygon blockchain, a popular scaling solution for Ethereum, surged 8% in the past 24 hours, early morning UK time. Fantom’s FTM is up 6%, according to The Defiant Terminal.

Meanwhile, Ether fell almost 2% and Bitcoin was flat a day after the US job a 2.9% annualized increase in GDP, a sign that the economy remains resilient and could prevent a recession that many investors expect. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended the day up more than 1% on the news.

FTM price + MATIC price + ETH price + BTC priceSource: The Defiant Terminal

Aptos increases by 120%

APT, the native token of the recently launched Aptos blockchain, is this week’s big winner, having more than doubled in the past week.

Despite the changing prices, many are skeptical that APT fully diluted value (FDV), the total market capitalization of a digital asset if all tokens are unlocked, is unrealistic.

Quinten François, a popular investor on Twitter, Noted that the FDV of Aptos is twice that of Polygon. “No matter how promising Aptos is, it doesn’t justify such a valuation,” he wrote.

Canto Doubles

Canto, another emerging smart contract platform, saw its token continue to rally with a 100% gain on the week after gaining public approval from venture capital fund Variant.

Pierino Ursone, head of options at Deribit, a derivatives platform that handles the majority of Bitcoin and Ether options, sees the market entering a calmer phase.

“As per usual”

“We can definitely see the ripple effects of FTX, but now it just seems to be taken for granted, and we’re back to kind of ‘business as usual,'” he told The Defiant.

Ursone also noted that Bitcoin, which underperformed the S&P 500 in the wake of FTX crisis, has now returned to levels in line with the index. Indeed, BTC has significantly outperformed the S&P 500 in 2023, having jumped 36% from the index’s 6% gain.

Ursone added that although the correlation between Bitcoin and the S&P 500 has returned, he does not believe it will persist in the long term.

LDO, OP down 10%

The biggest loser of the day gives back some recent gains – LDO, the governance token for Lido, a liquid staking (LSD) derivative protocol, fell 10% after being hot red for some time.

Optimism, a Layer 2 network that hit an all-time high on Jan. 25, also lost ground with a 10% decline, according to The Defiant Terminal.

OP Award + LDO AwardSource: The Defiant Terminal