Three reasons why the price of ATOM is close to a record high

The newly released Ethereum cross-chain bridge and the upcoming Theta upgrade are expanding the Cosmos ecosystem and have also become a catalyst for ATOM's recent 75% increase.

Blockchain network interoperability is becoming one of the main issues of the cryptocurrency ecology in 2022. New users are continuing to enter the ever-growing crypto world, and new and established projects are looking for the chain that best meets the needs of their protocols and communities.

Due to its focus on facilitating communication between independent networks, one of the projects that will start bullishly in 2022 is Cosmos (ATOM). This project claims to be the "Internet of Blockchains" and aims to promote the development of an interconnected decentralized economy.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView show that since a low of $25.06 on December 30, the price of ATOM has rebounded by 75%, hitting a daily high of $43.98 on January 4, and its 24-hour trading volume has surged. To 2.54 billion U.S. dollars.

Three reasons why the price of ATOM is close to a record high

Three reasons for the soaring price of ATOM include the introduction of cross-chain bridges, making the protocol compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), and the upcoming Theta upgrade. These factors will rapidly expand the ecosystem of connecting chains and applications.

Cosmos is compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine

The most important development that powers ATOM's rise is the launch of Evmos, an EVM-compatible protocol that will allow assets and projects operating on the Ethereum (ETH) network to migrate to the Cosmos ecosystem.

So far, Ethereum-based projects have not been able to interact with the Cosmos ecosystem. This greatly limits the number of projects and tokens that can interact with DeFi and NFT projects in the Cosmos ecosystem.

Gravity Bridge, launched on December 15th, is another project dedicated to promoting asset bridging between Ethereum and Cosmos. It is currently running as an independent chain. Currently planning to migrate to the Cosmos Hub in early 2022.

Ready to usher in the Theta upgrade

The second wind of Cosmos comes from the upcoming Theta upgrade of the agreement, which is expected to be activated on March 31.

Some of the new features included in the upgrade include the addition of meta transactions, where transactions can be submitted through separate accounts that receive prompts, and the introduction of inter-chain accounts that allow users to manage accounts across multiple blockchains. Another function is liquid pledge, which is a system where users use the pledged asset value of other parts of the Cosmos ecosystem.

The Theta upgrade also includes the NFT module, which implements simple management of NFT identifiers, owners and related data.

Ecological expansion is usually good

The third reason for ATOM's bullish momentum is the ecosystem's expansion to 28 active, interconnected chains, with a total value of more than $68 billion.

Some of the more mature chains that have joined the Cosmos ecosystem include Binance Smart Chain, Terra (LUNA), and Crypto.com (CRO), while the largest projects using Cosmos’ software development kit (SDK) include Osmosis (OSMO), Secret ( SCRT), Oasis Network (ROSE) and Kava (KAVA).

With the establishment of bridge protocols connecting Cosmos and other EVM compatible networks, the number of chains connected to the Cosmos center may increase. This will increase the total value of the ecosystem.

Cointelegraph Markets Pro's VORTECS? data began to test the bullish outlook for ATOM on December 29, before the recent price increase.

Cointelegraph's unique VORTECS® score is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions. Its data points include market sentiment, trading volume, recent price changes and Twitter activity.