Top 3 DeFi Tokens to Watch in February 2021 (1INCH, FLM, REN)

Decentralised finance (DeFi) has emerged as a major force in the shaping of the future of finance, as it offers people the opportunity to control their own financial assets without the involvement of banks or government institutions. Just imagine a world where savings, insurance, trading, loans and much more besides are accessible to anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection!

The sector has seen incredible growth recently. Total value locked (TVL) in DeFi increased by almost 2,200% in 2020, from roughly $675 million at the start of the year to nearly $15.5 billion at the end, and the enthusiasm shows no signs of abating, with TVL continuing to rise in 2021 and currently standing at over $30 billion, according to data from DeFi Pulse.

But with hundreds of different DeFi coins all vying for your attention, it can be hard to tell which projects are really worth your money. Luckily, we’ve done the legwork for you. Read on to find summaries of the top 3 DeFi coins to check out this month.

1inch History

1inch is a decentralised exchange (DEX) aggregator founded in 2019 by Sergej Kunz and Anton Bukov during the ETHNewYork hackathon. After launching its own automated market maker (AMM), Mooniswap, towards the end of 2020, the 1INCH governance token was introduced in December and the network started being governed by a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO).

With an ever increasing number of DEXs on the market, finding the best rates at any given time would be quite a laborious task. 1inch makes swapping efficient by automatically comparing factors such as price, liquidity and slippage across multiple DEXs, saving users time and gas fees.

Should I invest in 1inch?

After the Christmas airdrop of 6% of the total supply of 1.5 billion tokens, 1INCH was quickly listed on Binance and traded as high as $2 out of the gates. The price saw an immediate slump over the next few days but has since then been setting higher highs and higher lows on the daily chart and is currently trading at around $5.

An unusually large proportion (about 56%) of the 1INCH supply will be distributed to the team and early investors, but the gradual supply emission schedule is unlikely to hammer circulating supply that much. What makes 1INCH unique is that it provides ‘instant governance’, meaning there are no barriers to entry for voting rights, and the DAO is designed to be user-friendly.

Market movements so far are probably just speculation for the most part, but in time, governance use cases will start to impact on the demand of the token, and 1INCH stakers are in the unique position of being able to vote on protocol issues which directly affect their bottom line. In the long term, this demand could drive the price of the coin higher. Recent announcements of new liquidity farming programmes could also attract new users.

FAQs

Where can I buy 1INCH?

Several exchanges sell the coin, including 1inch, Binance, Uniswap, KuCoin, OKEx, FTX and Huobi Global.

Where can I find out more about 1inch?

There are guides and answers from the team in the Help section of the website and they post updates on their blog.

Flamingo History

Flamingo was founded by Da Hongfei, who also co-founded the Neo network and private blockchain services company OnChain. Flamingo began with the launch of the token wrapper at the end of September 2020 and is currently making improvements to the Perp protocol. Its unique advantage is that it is a single platform that will be governed by its own users which combines all the key financial instruments for Neo in the same place.

Should I invest in Flamingo?

Flamingo’s native token FLM started the year trading at around $0.12, and has been consistently setting higher highs and higher lows on the daily chart. It saw a dramatic surge of over 50% at the start of February before finding its current level above $0.30. A driver of the overnight climb was a volume spike on 1 February, with Binance seeing a fourfold increase in the 24-hour trading volume from 31 January to 1 February for the FLM/USDT pair.

A likely cause of the increased interest in the coin is the recently announced governance proposal which the community is still voting on. The proposal would improve overall usability and asset interoperability by redesigning asset flow for the Flamingo platform. Another reason for the rally could be DeFi users joining the platform to escape the record high gas fees on Ethereum.

So the outlook for FLM continues to appear bullish, at least while Ethereum faces scalability issues. Developments such as the recently revealed upgrades will also contribute to positive sentiment for the platform. Flamingo announced an updated version of their yield farming programme Flamincome last week, which will aim to deliver a higher APY than market benchmarks without compromising users’ cross-chain experience.

FAQs

Where can I buy FLM?

FLM is available from Binance in trading pairs with BTC, BUSD and USDT. It can also be purchased for USDT from OKEx, Hotbit and MXC.COM.

Where can I find out more about Flamingo?

There are user guides for the different financial instruments in the Docs section of their website. You can also find announcements on their blog.

Ren History

The RenVM allows users to convert cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Zcash into an ERC-20 equivalent one-for-one on the Ethereum blockchain; namely RenBTC, RenBCH and RenZEC. This is done in a totally decentralised and censorship-resistant way, without the need for “wrapping”.

Should I invest in Ren?

The REN token has performed strongly so far in 2021 – after starting the new year at $0.32, REN rallied almost 150% to hit an all time high of $0.78 on 20 January. Although the next week saw a retracement of over a third, REN has been trading above the 9-day moving average since the start of February and its price movement is still consistent with the pattern of higher highs and higher lows that has been established on the daily chart since the end of December.

REN has a maximum supply of one billion and Darknode operators need to supply 100,000 REN to participate in the network and earn fees. As well as the incentive for node operators to buy the coin to stake, there is also the effect of the locked up supply on the market. As more people use the RenVM, more fees will be generated and there will be even more incentive to run a Darknode. DeFi Pulse data show that almost $750 million has been locked into RenVM since its launch last year, and more generally, the rush to transfer Bitcoin value onto the Ethereum blockchain is already evident, with the amount of tokenised Bitcoin on Ethereum topping $1.1 billion a few months ago.

Clearly this increasing demand and reduced supply is positive for the price of REN. The Ren development team also announced this week that they are joining Alameda Research to pool experience and expertise. The new partnership will accelerate the decentralisation of RenVM as well as prioritising support for Solana. The team anticipate being able to start bridging assets to and from Solana in Q2 2021.

For investors still unsure about the robustness of the RenVM, there are other Bitcoin-linked ERC-20 tokens on the market such as Wrapped Bitcoin and the Synthetix sBTC, which is trustless and decentralised. However, these are more established in the space and so Ren has a greater potential for growth.

FAQs

Where can I buy REN?

REN is available in both fiat and cryptocurrency trading pairs on dozens of exchanges, with Binance, Coinbase Pro and OKEx trading it in the highest volumes.

Where can I find out more about Ren?

Advice on setting up a Darknode can be found on the Help page of the Ren website, while the latest developments can be found on their blog.