Please note that some of the prices are in CAD.
There was a lot of excitement earlier this week when ATOM, the currency on Cosmos Network, surpassed a key psychological resistance level and continued to climb higher. However, on Wednesday night as ATOM struggled to break USD 2 and BTC markets rallied, the cryptocurrency plunged back towards USD 1.5 before finally stabilizing around USD 2 or so. While markets may be volatile in these early days of ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), ATOM’s price is still up from its initial listing price of .054 USD.
About Cosmos, ATOM, and their page: ATOM is a new type of currency on blockchain biassed on similar technology to Bitcoin. It utilizes Proof of Work consensus methods to secure the network and features a block rewards program that distributes ATOMs to nodes in return for processing transactions (the same way Bitcoin does). However, unlike Bitcoin, there is no fixed limit on how many ATOMs can be created or mined but rather a tiered structure of caps based on difficulty levels. We hope this helps explain what they are.
Cosmos Price Prediction
We had posted an article last week suggesting that ATOM was gearing up to take on Bitcoin and they did just that on August 11th with ATOM reaching a new all-time high. Here is the chart of this event:
There are two main challenges facing ATOM at this point: difficulty levels in mining and unanticipated volatility from BTC markets. On the first issue, this difficulty will be fixed as time goes on and more miners adopt the currency, although initial estimates suggest it will be several months before prices will stabilize to match what we have seen with Bitcoin mining. On the second issue, it is hard to say if markets will be just as volatile as they were on Wednesday night. Maybe ATOM is not as influenced by BTC prices but that remains to be seen. In terms of future price predictions, no one has a crystal ball and it would be foolish to claim we could see ATOM at USD 100 in six months or anything like that (although those things happen). However, I can see ATOM reaching $5-10 USD in 6 months providing their blockchain platform delivers what it promises.
A Stellar Future: The Challenge of a New Universe
The challenge of ATOM is being able to capitalize on the current excitement surrounding it, not only in terms of price but also in terms of merchant adoption. Just because ATOM was able to surpass a key psychological level of USD 2 does not mean it will be able to maintain this momentum indefinitely. The key phrase for ATOM going forward is ‘slow and steady.’ It is a marathon, not a sprint. The steadily increasing price that maintains or increases value rather than experiencing steep ups and downs could also lead to trust in these markets as well as initial adoption by merchants who see stability as a good thing. If you are new to cryptocurrencies, I hope this article helps you better understand what they are and how they may impact your future.
Is Cosmos’s ATOM token a worthy investment?
We may not look at ATOM as a great investment now but it is important to realize that there may be some good reasons for this. Kicking off with the positives, there is an estimated $3 billion to $5 billion market which will play an important role in any decentralization movement. In terms of the price of ATOM, it already has a market cap of USD 0.5 million at this time but still has a long way to go before hitting anything like Bitcoin’s current valuation. The other good point is that ATOM is simply a currency based on a technology similar to Bitcoin but with added features such as Proof-of-Stake and higher caps than Bitcoin, not to mention they plan on releasing more coins over time.
