Blockchain interoperability is fast becoming one of the buzzwords tossed around when discussing decentralized funding and the coins most likely to accumulate during an altcoin bull run.
DeFi’s rapid growth, ever-increasing total value and rising ETH gas charges underscore the sector’s need for a Layer 2 option that also supports the ability to transfer values across different networks.
REN’s open protocol is specifically designed to meet this need by providing interoperability and liquidity between the top blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Zcash.
In the past three weeks, the price of REN has increased more than 200%, rising from $ 0.251 on December 27th to a new all-time high of $ 0.778 on January 20th, driven by a record volume of $ 369 million in 24 hours -Volume.
REN / USDT 4 hour chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the recent price hike at REN are the announcement of a collaboration with Google, the continuous increase in the total value locked on the platform and the possibility of generating passive income in multiple cryptocurrencies by operating a dark node.
Google Software Pivot raises the mood and fixes RENvm scaling issues
On January 19th, the REN team tweeted:
Ren researched and built on @Asylodev, an open and flexible framework from @Google. @GCPCloud Confidental Computing relaxes the economic constraints of RenVM and enables an unlimited scale solution. #RenVM. ”
Not long after the tweet, the REN price began to climb to a new all-time high. As mentioned in the tweet, Asylo is an open and flexible framework from Google that can be used to build portable applications that run on Secure Enclave hardware.
The secure enclave hardware enables users to run general purpose applications in a secure environment where neither the data nor the application itself can be compromised by anyone, including the user. This makes for a safer experience for everyone involved and protects against malicious code and backdoor attacks.
Asylo also makes it possible to port an application from one hardware type to the next. This means that developers can support multiple implementations with relative ease, including Intel implementations, AMD implementations, and other future implementations. The variety of choices is an important feature to ensure decentralization in the network.
The locked total hit a new high
Community engagement and added value are key factors in the long-term success of a blockchain project.
Since the Ren Virtual Machine Mainnet (RenVM) was released in May 2020, engagement on the platform has steadily increased as Bitcoin holders now had another option to get their BTC onto Ethereum and the growing DeFi space.
As shown in the table below, the total value locked on the Ren platform hit a new all-time high of $ 653.6 million on January 20th, and a total of 14,670 BTC are locked on the platform to create renBTC.
Total locked in RenVM. Source: DeFi Pulse
The list of assets supported by RenVM continues to grow with BTC, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Zcash (ZEC), Filecoin (FIL), Terra (LUNA), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Digibyte (DGB) currently available for transactions in the Ethereum are and Binance Blockchains.
Work is currently underway to enable interaction in the Polkadot (DOT), Solana (SOL) and Cosmos (ATOM) networks, which would further improve interoperability.
Darknodes, passive income and a decreasing supply
The third driving force behind REN’s recent price hike concerns the Ren token use case and how it can help users generate passive income. RenVM is a network of virtual machines that make up a virtual machine, also known as dark nodes.
Holders of REN tokens who want to operate a dark node must block 100,000 REN so that they can process transactions on the network and earn a fee in the form of the processed token. Thus, a Darknode operator has the opportunity to earn passive income in the form of several different crypto currencies from one location.
Ren Darknode statistics. Source: Renproject
As can be seen in the graphic above, 17.13% of the total REN supply is currently tied to the platform and supports the operation of dark nodes.
During the most recently completed cycle, the entire network earned fees of $ 839,128 in the form of BTC, ZEC, FIL, and BCH. The total network fees charged since the RenVM was launched is $ 2.975 million.
The continued addition of new tokens and interoperability with new blockchains will likely lead to increased use of the network and an increase in the amount of fees earned. At the current price of $ 0.6157, running a Darknode will cost you $ 61,570.
Total RenVM users over time. Source: Dune Analytics
With increasing activity in the network, the amount of fees generated also increases, which makes it even more lucrative for token holders to operate a dark node. This can lead to a further increase in the price of REN, as each new Darknode leads to a direct decrease in the circulating supply.
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