The Four Dark Horse Coins of the Cosmos Ecosystem
There are four coins in the cosmos ecosystem I call the "Four Dark Horse Coins" of the cosmos ecosystem; ATOM, OSMO, JUNO and LUNA. You might find this strange given that all four coins are on the top 100 as of writing this. However, the Cosmos ecosystem is largely ignored by most people in crypto. Some of the most popular cryptocurrencies are using Cosmos in the background; BNB(one of the top ten coins by market capitalization), OKB, RUNE ect. However not all coins are IBC(Inter blockchain communications protocol) compatible, that is to say it cannot directly interact with other blockchains. For this list, I decided it on the following factors:
- It Must be IBC compatible
- Communities are being built around them
- We can expect the value of this cryptocurrency to over take the market capitalization of ATOM
- It has a lot of Air drop opportunities
ATOM (Cosmos)
I mentioned more about ATOM in my previous article, "Don't Go to the Moon, Go to the Cosmos with the Atom Cryptocurrency". In the Cosmos Ecosystem, we should be measuring the value of an IBC crypto against the performance of ATOM. Similar to how Bitcoin is the gateway cryptocurrency into investing in this market, ATOM is the beginner coin people get before getting into the cosmos ecosystem.
A lot of airdrops are coming out for people who stake ATOM tokens. In cryptocurrency, most Airdrops are overrated. However, the great thing about the cosmos ecosystem is that the Airdrops come to you for simply waiting. You're basically using your passive income generator to beef up your portfolio with more positions and more crypto. Because nearly everyone who uses the cosmos ecosystem has ATOM, it makes it one of the most popular coins to airdrop for. It should be noted some Airdrops are available for all ATOM stakers but some require a minimum amount to stake. Here are the following recommended amounts you should stake; 1.5 ATOM, 5 ATOM, 10 ATOM, 100 ATOM. This is based on the information on CosmosAirDrops. I would recommend acquiring at least 20 to 30 ATOM tokens. The only reason why 100 ATOM staked requirement is there is for the PSTAKE airdrop.
OSMO (Osmosis)
If ATOM is the gateway cryptocurrency into the cosmos ecosystem, then OSMO is the key to unlocking the entire Cosmos ecosystem. OSMO is the DEX(decentralize exchange) for getting into other IBC cryptocurrencies. Besides being used to swap tokens, you can also become a liquidity provider to earn passive income in the OSMO tokens. You also have the option to stake your OSMO for passive income as well. Stakers are also given a choice to vote on governance proposals. The team at OSMO also came up with an innovative feature for liquidity providers, Superfluid Staking. This allows you to use the liquidity in the liquidity pools for additional yield. As of writing this, you can only do this in the OSMO/ATOM pool. However, there are talks about including superfluid staking in other pools. In addition, those with high participation in the governance of Osmosis received a free airdrop of a cryptocurrency called ION, a scarce asset for the OSMO system whose utility will be subject to governance proposals.
People who originally staked ATOM back in February of 2021 received free OSMO for being a OSMO staker. Anyone who decided to stake their ATOM are getting an additional bonus of airdrops through their OSMO stake. So you claim airdrops against your ATOM stakes as well as your OSMO stakes. Here are some minimum recommended number of OSMO you should stake based on CosmosAirDrops; 1 OSMO, 5 OSMO, 20 OSMO, 30 OSMO, 50 OSMO, 100 OSMO, 750 OSMO. It is a pretty wide range to cover, but 30 OSMO should cover the most airdrops. I would recommend trying to get at least 50 OSMO if you can afford it.
JUNO (Juno)
I remember in my article, "Don't Go to the Moon, Go to the Cosmos with the Atom Cryptocurrency", when I said ATOM tokens were not required for transactions. This is because ATOM is a layer-0 cryptocurrency, a term to describe cryptocurrencies that permit interoperability between different blockchains. Juno happens to be a subset of the cosmos ecosystem and it is what is known as a layer-1 cryptocurrency, this is the layer where transactions happen. You can think of Juno as basically ETH which allows you to engage with smart contracts, DAOs, and allow dapps to be run on. According to its website, there are about 50+ dapps, over 2,000 DAOs and a plethora of tools being built around this ecosystem. However, most of the projects are still in development. I'll list some interesting projects below;
- JunoSwap-The Native DEX of JUNO. As of writing this, it is currently in beta.
- DAODAO-This project is unique to the JUNO ecosystem. This could very well be the killer app of the Juno ecosystem. This dapp will allow you to create tokens and DAOs without having to learn how to code at all. This project should be a sufficient reason to pay attention to the JUNO ecosystem. If you had ever had an idea for a cryptocurrency project, this might be a good dapp to check out.
- DAO UP!-Think of this as kickstarter for DAOs on Juno. A fantastic complement to DAODAO. This will allow ordinary folks to become venture capitalists.
- UniverseDAO-A crosschain launchpad platform backed by a decentralized reserve currency protocol.
- JunoTools-Free money galore. It is a dapp to allow projects to manage their airdrops.
- Neta-Think of it as BTC for JUNO, an extremely scarce fungible asset. Only 33,000 have ever been created.
Just like OSMO, had you staked your ATOM back in February of 2021, you would have gotten an airdrop of 1 ATOM for 1 JUNO. At launch, each Juno was worth about $10 around October and is sitting above $30. Basically an easy 3x on a simple airdrop. Based on the numbers from CosmosAirdrops, here are some of the minimum numbers I have seen for Juno Airdrops; 5 Juno, 10 Juno, 20 Juno and 25 Juno. Had you staked 25 Juno at the time of the snapshot, you would have received some NETA. I would recommend staking 25 to 30 Juno.
As of writing this, Juno is holding above $30 per a Juno with a market capitalization of 1.5 billion dollars. When you consider how easy it is to deploy DAOs and Tokens on the Juno ecosystem, it makes it very easy for the entire ecosystem to explode. When you observe market cap rankings, the top ranked cryptocurrencies ranked by market cap tend to be scarce assets, stablecoins, memecoins and smart contract platforms. Given that Juno is ranked 75 on the market cap ranks and if it were to move within the top 25, you can expect a conservative price appreciation of $122 to a much more bullish price appreciation of $560 per a coin. This is somewhere between a 4x on your money to a 18x on your money.
LUNA (Terra)
If you had to stake two different coins out of this list, it would be both ATOM and LUNA. While ATOM will cover most of the up and coming projects on the Cosmos ecosystem, LUNA already has a rich ecosystem being built around it. Although the keplr wallet is compatible with the Terra ecosystem, you should be using a wallet called Terra Station as most Luna airdrop websites have stated staking Luna on Terra Station will earn those airdrops. If you want to learn more about Terra airdrops, you should check out the website learnterra.io. The Luna token has been doing fantastic and holds a place in the top 10 market cap rankings with a market capitalization of 34 billion dollars.
At this point in time, you can expect the price performance of LUNA to be correlated with the rest of the cryptocurrency market. However, its market capitalization has already overtaken ATOM and is most likely to outperform ATOM. It already has a large community built around the Luna ecosystem, with 3.74 million terra station wallets and 80.34 billion dollars of transactions have occurred since its inception.
What else should I expect
These four coins; ATOM, OSMO, JUNO and LUNA have some bright futures for them. I do believe there are some other cryptocurrencies in the cosmos ecosystem that might have some potential but it is largely speculative. I will be covering them in my next article.
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