Following the completion of its month-long stint on Binance Launchpool, Hard protocol has gone to record growth metrics that are indicative of its emerging status in the DeFi market. The most notable of these achievements is the recent price rally of HARD token.
On the 3rd of November, Binance began a month-long staking program featuring Hard protocol as part of its ongoing Launchpool initiative to promote new projects. This partnership offered the Binance community reward earning opportunities in the form of HARD tokens when they stake BUSD, BNB, or KAVA. As expected, this campaign exposed Hard protocol to a slew of new users and, in turn, propped the volume of yield farming activities executed on the platform. At the time of writing, the total asset locked in Hard protocol has risen to $40.5 million, which is remarkable considering that it launched barely 2 months ago.
While the Hard protocol as an ecosystem blossomed throughout this staking campaign, the Launchpool cycle had a somewhat curious impact on the price of HARD. The value of the protocol’s governance token underperformed while the campaign lasted.
The peculiar case of the non-performance of HARD attracted the attention of pundits in November. One such analysis concluded that the current valuation of the digital asset is yet to reflect the innovative and dynamic design of Hard Protocol. The analysis explored the value of competing money markets, including Aave and Compound, and argued that the absence of restrictive systems in the infrastructural makeup of Hard Protocol promises massive growth potential. This argument stems from the ability of the protocol to enable cross-chain yield farming opportunities for holders of digital assets previously marginalized in the ongoing DeFi narrative. More importantly, these networks, including Ripple, Bitcoin, and Binance Chain, boast some of the largest crypto communities in the world. As such, the growth potential is limitless, especially if it manages to capture a significant share of the $300 billion worth Bitcoin network.
CEO Of Kava Lab’s Take on The Value of Hard
In line with this projection, Brian Kerr, CEO of Kava, stated in a recent interview that the value of Hard Protocol would eventually reflect in the price of HARD because as the governance token, it is integral to the evolution of the ecosystem as a whole. He explained:
“Today, HARD is a governance token granting holders a say in the ongoing maintenance and evolution of the application. This is a right to have say over key parameters like collateral ratios, what assets get money markets, and reward distributions. While the HARD token is a governance token today without any cashflows, we imagine the natural evolution of users will be to increase the fundamental value of HARD as the application grows in usage by attributing some fee back to HARD holders either directly or indirectly via a burning mechanism.”
Furthermore, he attributed the underperformance of HARD to the influx in the token supply as a result of the now completed staking campaign. Kerr noted that the price of HARD would rally as soon as the program ends since the circulating supply of HARD will normalize, thanks to the protocol’s advanced bitcoin having-like system.
Brian Kerr went on to make projections of his own that depict the opportunities available to HARD token holders. The CEO posited that token holders could capitalize on the decentralized governance model of Hard Protocol to create extra earning opportunities:
“As a governance token HARD has all the value of the application. HARD voters can vote to add new assets, to collect fees, and ultimately direct those fees back to themselves as a dividend if they wanted it. If HARD can get $1B in borrowing and direct a 1% fee to users, it’s worth $10,000,000 USD. I think with the current landscape of DeFi this is a very reachable number. In fact, HARD can do orders of magnitude better since it can support much more than BTC which alone is a $280 Billion asset.”
True to Kerr’s prediction for the short-term performance of HARD, the value of the token had since recorded an uptrend that saw the price surge above the $1 mark for the first time in over one month. Notably, this price rally, as predicted by Kerr, kicked off on the 3rd of December, the same day the Launchpool cycle came to an end. Subsequently, the value of HARD is up by over 64% in the last 7 days. Hence, it is safe to assume that Brian Kerr’s long-term projections for the price performance of HARD are also plausible given that the token is still very much undervalued when you take into account the potential market size of Hard Protocol.
Another factor that could propel the price of HARD is the high tendency of investors to hold on to their Bitcoin stash amid growing expectations for an imminent bull run. According to Kerr, Hard Protocol is perfectly positioned as the only viable means for Bitcoin investors to earn extra yields in the form of HARD tokens while they continue to hodl. The cross-chain functionality of the protocol eliminates all restrictions and provides direct and safe access to the highly coveted DeFi yield farming opportunities. If this proves to be the case, then there is no reason why HARD cannot match and surpass the performance of the likes of AAVE and COMP.
However, note that there is no way to correctly analyze the potential of HARD without factoring the role of Kava. Just as the Ethereum community played a major role in the successes of Aave and Compound, KAVA holders have a similar connection with Hard Protocol. If more KAVA is staked on the Hard protocol, then expect the value of HARD to rise.
Kava Remains a Hidden Gem
Speaking of Kava, the low market visibility of the platform and its governance token make it yet another example of undervalued projects with innovative features. The sheer level of ingenuity that powers Kava puts it side by side with some of the most compelling ecosystems in the crypto space. It is a blockchain network very much like Ethereum with even more advanced architecture that provides users with cross-chain functionality. Its permissioned infrastructure powered by the governance token allows banks and corporations to integrate with DeFi seamlessly while evading recurring issues associated with the permissionless Ethereum network.
While this is a given, many continue incorrectly to view Kava as a direct competitor of Maker. This unwanted comparison and the fact that Kava, as a result of its non-Ethereum makeup, is not listed on DeFi Pulse indicate that the project is still a hidden gem. Nonetheless, there are reasons to believe that this will not be the case for very long as plans for more protocols and dapps to launch on Kava is underway. More importantly, the implementation of the borrowing side of Hard protocol at the end of December promises to position Kava as the go-to network for Bitcoin investors looking to boost their earning power. For now, holding KAVA, due to its undervalued status, seems like a wise investment choice.
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