Cryptocurrencies are up nearly across the board this afternoon, with Ethereum competitors Solana, Fantom, Secret, Near Protocol and Harmony all surging to new highs.

Secret had been the biggest winner in the top 100, surging 38.3 per cent to $8.76, and earlier hitting an all-time high of $8.79.

The privacy-preserving blockchain began the month as the No. 197 crypto at less than US$3; it’s currently No. 89.

NEAR Protocol had gained 16.3 per cent to US$12.01, and overnight hit an all-time high of US$12.62, after announcing a massive $800 million ecosystem fund focused on DeFi.

“The sleeping giant awakes,” the project wrote.

The grants program dwarfs that of other projects like Avalanche, Polygon, Harmony, Fantom and Celo.

An Ethereum-compatible smart contract platform, NEAR has jumped from the No. 43 to the No. 35 spot on the coin rankings, having risen 52.9 per cent in the past seven days.

Harmony was up 11.5 per cent to 33.8c, while Fantom had hit an all-time high of US$3.20.

Finally, Solana had hit an all-time high of US$219.05 overnight, although by this afternoon it was trading at US$208, still up 2.7 per cent from yesterday.


The ultra-fast blockchain project is just 14 per cent away from overtaking Cardano as the No. 4 crypto.

Fat protocol thesis

Crypto enthusiasts sometimes debate “fat protocol thesis” – the idea that as crypto goes more and more mainstream, the biggest winners will be the underlying blockchains, rather than projects built on top of them.

That’s the opposite of the internet, where platforms like Google, Amazon and Facebook of course have been the biggest beneficiaries of the web boom, rather than the underlying infrastructure.

During DeFi summer last year, when assets like MakerDAO, Compound and Aave surged, the thesis seemed in doubt. But now it’s being revisited thanks to the boom in layer 1 protocols.

That said, Curve DAO was also having a great day today, climbing 22.7 per cent for the second-best gains in the top 100. Compound had climbed 9.6 per cent.

Bitcoin was up 1.0 per cent to US$62,582, while Ethereum had climbed 1.5 per cent to $US4,205.

Most of the top 20 were having a relatively quiet day, with Avalanche and Algorand the only assets to gain more than five per cent.

Just a handful of the top 100 coins were in the red, with Decred and Kusama the biggest losers, both falling around three per cent.

The total crypto market was up 1.4 per cent to US$2.61 trillion.