Fantom, Harmony Lead Gains in Major Cryptos as DeFi Narrative Heats Up

The crypto market has surged in the past 24 hours, with bitcoin (BTC) gaining $3,000 on the back of a U.S. Federal Reserve commitment to curb the impact of inflation.

While all major cryptocurrencies saw prices spike higher, current favorites fantom (FTM), harmony (ONE), cosmos (ATOM) and near (NEAR) surged as high as 21%. Traders in crypto circles colloquially refer to a basket of these tokens as FOAN, a set of tokens associated with layer 1 blockchains, primed for decentralized finance (DeFi) activity with their cheap and fast networks.

Layer 1 blockchains are platforms such as Ethereum, Fantom and Solana that can support products and services built atop their networks. DeFi refers to blockchain-based products that rely on smart contracts instead of third parties to provide financial services to users.

Interest in FOAN comes on the back of a nearly 400% rise in solana (SOL), terra (LUNA), and avalanche (AVAX) – colloquially the SoLunAvax trade – in recent months.

FTM rose to $2.8 in European morning hours on Wednesday. The price had sunk to as low as $2.10 over the weekend before breaking through the $2.50 resistance level yesterday. FTM could be primed to reach the $3 mark should sentiment in the broader market stay intact.

Harmony's ONE token has surged more than 14% in the past 24 hours to trade at $0.32 at the time of writing. The price has risen upward of 25,200% in the past two years, data show. It's still short of the $0.37 all-time high it reached in October.

Price-charts suggest ONE is currently at a resistance level and could be set to regain its record if it breaks above $0.33. A rejection from current levels could see a price drop to the $0.27 zone.

ATOM and NEAR have added 10% and 13%, respectively, in the past 24 hours. ATOM broke through a $40 resistance level, while NEAR surpassed its previous record of $17.50 to trade at $18.20 at the time of writing.

The FOAN trade outperformed as other major cryptocurrencies posted more muted gains. Bitcoin rose 2%, while SOL, cardano (ADA), and ether (ETH) saw increases of up to 5%.

Fundamentals for the FOAN bet show promise for traders. DeFi activity on Cosmos and Near have grown in the past months ahead of planned upgrades on both blockchains. More than $154 million worth of assets are staked on Near-based DeFi protocols, with exchange and lending tool Ref Finance locking up over $104 million alone.

Transactional activity on Fantom has also heated up and overtook Avalanche's last week. More than 1 million transactions were processed on the Fantom network last Wednesday, with transactional activity higher than on Avalanche on both Thursday and Friday. This is despite Avalanche locking up more value than Fantom on DeFi applications – $11 billion compared with $6 billion – and hosting 127 DeFi protocols versus Fantom’s 112.

Interest in Fantom received an extra boost in the past week as Daniele Sestagalli and Andre Cronje – developers known for launching protocols on Avalanche, Ethereum and Fantom that lock billions of dollars in value – announced a collaboration on a project that will deploy on Fantom.

Harmony enjoyed much of its hype in the past month with the rise of DeFi Kingdom, an integrated game, exchange and non-fungible token (NFT) project that’s locked over $740 million worth of its native token, JEWEL, and other assets since its launch.