Fantom and NEAR Follow Ethereum in Layer 1 Bounce

The two Layer 1 networks have jumped in market value today as the crypto market starts to show signs of life. 

Fantom and NEAR Rally 

Fantom and NEAR are benefiting from the cryptocurrency market’s recent revival. 

The two Layer 1 networks have surged today following a wave of renewed interest in the digital assets space. According to data from CoinGecko, Fantom’s FTM token is trading at $0.32 after a 13.5% rise, while NEAR has hit $4.37 after gaining 9% in market value. The jump follows a Monday surge that saw the global cryptocurrency market reclaim $1 trillion and a weekend of bullish price action led by Ethereum. The top Layer 1 blockchain started to gain pace late last week after Ethereum Foundation member Tim Beiko hinted at a September 19 launch date for the network’s “Merge” to Proof-of-Stake, then posted a 12% rally Saturday. ETH has continued to rise ahead of BTC, currently trading at $1,530. According to CoinGecko data, it’s up 39.3% in the past week. 

When ETH surges, liquidity tends to flow to other Layer 1 networks shortly after as traders look for the next potential asset to see an uptick, which may explain why FTM and NEAR are outperforming today. Both Fantom and NEAR are Proof-of-Stake blockchains that offer similar use cases to Ethereum, leveraging the smart contract technology that makes DeFi and other token-based activities possible. They saw a huge rise in adoption in 2021 as several so-called “alternative Layer 1” networks boomed, helped by the high costs of processing transactions on Ethereum (during the market peak last year, putting capital to work in DeFi or minting NFTs on Ethereum would typically set users back hundreds of dollars, while a similar activity on another Layer 1 network would come in at a fraction of the cost). However, both FTM and NEAR were hard hit as the crypto market tanked late last year and into 2022. 

Even after today’s rally, both Fantom and NEAR have some way to go to return to their peaks. FTM is 90.7% down from its October 2021 all-time high, while NEAR is 78.6% short of its January 2022 top.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned NEAR, ETH, and several other cryptocurrencies.