THORChain Soars on Synthetics, THORFi, Terra Interest

THORChain’s RUNE token has doubled in price over the past two weeks amid rising interest in its new synthetic assets feature, Terra plans, and THORFi rollout. While the fundamentals favor the bulls, prices could retrace before advancing further. 

THORChain Launches Synthetic Assets

THORChain is soaring, but RUNE has now met resistance after surging by nearly 132% over the past two weeks. 

The cross-chain network’s native token is trading at $7.67 today after another upward jolt. While most cryptocurrencies in the market have been trading sideways for some time, RUNE has been trending upwards. THORChain launched synthetic assets on Mar. 10 and volume for the new feature has already crossed $200 million. Synthetic assets are derivatives that track the price of another asset. In DeFi, synthetics—or “Synths,” as THORChain refers to them—are popularly used to mint tokens for assets like gold, Tesla, and Bitcoin. 

THORChain core developer Chad Barraford explained how the new feature would increase transaction speeds and lower fees for users. In a Mar. 9 tweet storm, he wrote that the feature “has half the swap fees, making swaps cheaper, cheap gas fees, and faster for traders.” 

Meanwhile, the THORChain team is currently preparing to roll out a suite of new features as part of its THORFi upgrade. THORChain has hinted that the upgrade will enable lending and saving, though full details are scarce. The team reportedly shared a document detailing THORFi’s key features with select members of the community, but the team had not responded to Crypto Briefing‘s request to view the document at press time.

THORChain is also preparing to add support for Terra’s LUNA token imminently. The team has indicated that adding support for Terra is one of the upcoming developments on its roadmap. THORChain and Terra share a close relationship; they were both built on the Cosmos SDK.

As the THORChain team expands the network’s utility, RUNE has benefitted. The asset has gained nearly five points in market value since Feb. 28, outperforming most cryptocurrencies in the market. 

From a technical perspective, RUNE appears to have encountered a significant hurdle in its uptrend. The 200-day moving average on the daily chart is acting as resistance, preventing prices from advancing further. However, a decisive daily candlestick close above this barrier could help RUNE surge toward $9 or even $12.   

Given the weakness in the crypto and global markets, there is a reasonable chance that investors will take profits if RUNE rises. A spike in selling pressure could push RUNE to the 100-day moving average at around $5.80, and breaching the critical support level could result in another downswing to $4.60. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned BTC and ETH.