Akash Network (AKT) Adds 150% in One Week, Analyst Indicates Reasons

As cryptocurrency markets are stagnating in anticipation of a potential bullish rally, the demand for reliable cloud architecture is rising. Akash Network (AKT) seems to be among the first beneficiaries of the new hype.

Cloud marketplace Akash Network sees its AKT token adding over $200 million in market cap in week

AKT, a core asset of decentralized “supercloud” services provider Akash Network, suddenly rallied from $0.57 to over $1.4 in just a week, between Aug. 7 and Aug. 13, 2023. As such, the mid-cap altcoin logged more than a 145.6% price increase amid the apathetic performance of markets in general.

If you’ve been paying attention, almost nobody has mentioned Akash’s 2X+ price jump over the past two weeks — a memetic growth in market cap (+$125M).

But it’s not a meme. @akashnet_ is a supercloud enabling users to buy and sell compute resources on a decentralized network.
🧵

— micah (@CabronElBufon) August 15, 2023

Messari’s researcher Micah Casella (who is a holder of AKT himself) sees a number of reasons that might be behind this explosive growth. First and foremost, Akash Network offers a more sustainable mechanism of cloud computations: it aggregates better solutions from a couple of providers and offers the best price in an auction.

Developers can use this instrument to access capacities required for running websites/frontends, middleware interactions (APIs, RPCs), validator or mining nodes, deploying apps and so on.

This approach has a number of benefits compared to the one offered by Web2 giants like AWS, Casella opines:

Why might an app prefer using Akash v. AWS? A few reasons may include CR (censorship resistance), privacy, and building within the decentralized ethos.

As covered by U.Today previously, U.S. fintech mogul Circle recently acquired Web3 vendor Cybavo as a part of its massive infrastructure roadmap.

Single asset, various roles

Currently, all payments on Akash Network are processed in AKT, while USD Coin (USDC) support is on the menu. Besides being a payment method, AKT cryptocurrency has multi-layer utility on the platform.

As of August 2023, AKT can be used for staking, delegating with 8% in APY, providing incentivization and participating in governance referendums on Akash Network’s upgrades.

Also, the platform is going to add support for GPUs in the next phases of its roadmap, which can result in a new inflow of customers to the platform, the analyst says.

In May 2023, Ripple invested over $40 million in a crypto infrastructure fund, as U.Today reported.