What Value Does Elrond (EGLD) have?
Mr. Market likes the Elrond (EGLD) cryptocurrency. In fact, Mr. Market paid a $186.22 Coin Price for Elrond on 14 February 2022.
Furthermore, CoinMarketCap estimates Elrond was the 38th largest cryptocurrency on 14 February 2022. CoinMarketCap Gave Elrond a Market Capitalization of $3.861 billion, a Fully Diluted Market Cap of $5.85 billion, and a 24-Hour Market Volume of $224.878 million. They based those numbers on a Circulating Supply of 20.725 million EGLD, a Maximum Supply of 31.416 million EGLD, and a Total Supply of 23.016 million EGLD.
I think those numbers who there is genuine interest in Elrond. So what is Elrond and is it worth $186.22?
What is Elrond?
They call Elrond (EGLD) an “internet-scale blockchain.” In other words, Elrond is one of many attempts to build a scalable high-capacity blockchain.
To explain, most blockchains are low-capacity and hard to scale because of all the encryption and security. In essence, the blockchain’s carrying-capacity is so small it can only process a few transactions per second (TPS). For example, Blockchain.com estimates Bitcoin was processing only 3.467 TPS on 12 February 2022.
In contrast, Towards Data Science estimates Visa’s (NYSE: V) payments platform could process 1,700 TPS or over 150 million transactions a day. Thus, Visa can serve hundreds of customers at once and a Bitcoin (BTC) platform can only serve three customers. Obviously, the Bitcoin platform could not serve a mass market.
A State-Sharded Blockchain
The Elrond developers claim their blockchain can process up to 15,000 transactions a second. Elrond’s developers also claim to have the first blockchain architecture with state sharding.
Sharding is data partitioning that stores data across from a single database across many servers. State sharding means that the entire state of a blockchain network can be sharded.
A sharded blockchain operates on many servers. In a state-sharded blockchain, all the blockchain decentralized applications (DApps) and structure operate across all the shards of the network.
In theory, a state-sharded blockchain can be completely decentralized. Theoretically, a state-sharded blockchain can never go down because operates on many servers and computers. Hence, Elrond apps could always be available. Elrond achieves this goal by using what they call adaptive state sharding.
Elrond also offers Secure Proof of Stake, which eliminates proof of work waste of computational resources. Elrond deploys a consensus protocol to maintain what they call a high security level. They achieve high-security levels by reshuffling Elrond across many nodes.
Genesis Staking
They claim the Elrond Genesis staking allows the platform to reward Elrond eGold (ELGD) holders with a 21.45% yearly return. The Elrond eGold incentivizes ELGD staking by locking EGLD into a smart contract that contributes to the economic security of Elrond.
They claim the Elrond blockchain can support the most popular programming languages and create flexible tools. Elrond has three classes of users: Investors, Ambassadors, and Makers.
The Elrond Investors finance Elrond by purchasing Elrond eGold (EGLD). The Elrond Ambassadors grow the Elrond ecosystem by promoting Elrodn, testing dApps, and writing educational content. Ambassadors organize meetups for dApps and run meetups.
Elrond acquires Utrust
Interestingly, they do not say what the Makers will do. Instead, they just say the Makers exist.
Elrond is making some impressive investments in anticipation of Web3. For example, Elrond has acquired Utrust. Utrust claims to be the first cryptocurrency payments platform that offers instant transaction processing and instant crypto-to-cash settlements.
Utrust claims to offer seamless online payments with digital currencies. In other words, Utrust claims it can help ecommerce businesses accept digital currencies.
Interestingly, Utrust claims to support businesses in over 180 countries. Additionally, Utrust claims to support the 30 fiat currencies that comprise over 90% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).
What Value Does Utrust Add to Elrond?
I think Utrust could acquire enormous value as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) come online. To explain, a CBDC is a cryptocurrency, a central bank such as the US Federal Reserve or the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).
The PBOC is experimenting with a CBDC or digital yuan while the Federal Reserve is researching the possibility of a US CBDC. I think there could be an enormous demand for Utrust’s services if banks or businesses widely adopt CBDCs.
In addition, Utrust offers the Hold. The Hold is a wallet that can make it easy to store and exchange digital currencies. In addition, the Hold app allows people to stake the Utrust Token (UTK).
CoinMarketCap gave Utrust (UTK) a Coin Price of 24.32₵, a Market Capitalization of $111.862 million, a Fully Diluted Market Cap of $121.590 million, and a 24-Hour Market Cap of $6.062 million on 4 February 2022. They based those numbers on a Circulating Supply of 460 million UTK, a Maximum Supply of 500 million UTK, and a Total Supply of 500 million UTK. CoinMarketCap named Uturst as the 363rd largest cryptocurrency on 14 February 2022.
I think Elrond is making some smart investments. Thus, I consider Elrond a fintech company that could evolve into an investment bank.
Is Elrond a smart investment?
If you are seeking a DeFi investment or a cryptocurrency capable of impressive growth. I think Elrond (EGLD) is worth a look.
In particular, Elrond has management capable of making smart investments and driving growth with useful attributes such as scalablity If the Elrdon team’s claims are true, I think this crypto could grow faster.
Elrond has a high and unstable price. For example, Coinbase gave Elrond an all-time high of $542.58. In comparison, Coinbase gave Elrond a $186.02 Coin Price, a Market Cap of $3.9 billion and a 24-Hour Market Volume of $224.9 million on 14 February 2022. They based those numbers on a Circulating Supply of 20.7 million EGLD.
I think Elrond could be a smart speculative play in DeFi.