Amidst the green permeating the cryptocurrency market, ANKR is also rejoicing with a nearly 40% upside in the past week.
ANKR is a $362 million market cap cryptocurrency trading at $0.044 at the time of writing. The token has surged 60% in the past month and about 180% YTD, according to CoinGecko.
These gains have helped ANKR join the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap list. However, we are not in a bull market, and ANKR’s positive performance is a small relief from the bears which took control of the market in 2021 and 2022. This can be seen in ANKR’s price performance since hitting the all-time high (ATH) above $0.21.
During these almost two long years, ANKR has fallen more than 79%, much like the rest of the crypto market.
ANKR’s outstanding price performance in the bear market can be attributed to several factors, including its recent high-profile partnerships and continued growth. DeFi activity on Ankr has also been growing, with the total value locked (TVL) in the protocol rising past $160 million, up from about $70 million in Dec. 2022, as per DeFi Llama.
Currently, more than 40,000 developers are building on the protocol, as per Ankr’s official website. The platform is used by well-known crypto projects like Binance, Optimism, Polygon, Aave, SpiritSwap, Avalanche, 1inch, SusiSwap, Zapper, and Project Galaxy.
The wide range of products offered by the project includes RPC (Remote Procedure Call) service, advanced APIs/SDKs, Gaming SDKs, liquid staking, multichain blockchain scanner, and enterprise solutions.
As a liquid staking token, ANKR might also gain strength due to the rise of liquid-staking coins and derivatives. This boost in liquid staking has been spurred by the regulatory actions taken against the exchanges offering traditional staking, such as Kraken, which has closed all of its U.S.-based staking products and paid a $30 million fine to the SEC.
Liquid staking derivatives haven’t been subjected to regulatory actions, recording a surge of trading activity over the last several weeks as investors look to capture yield on their crypto holdings.
The Fastest, Most Reliable Web3 Infrastructure
Founded in 2017 by Chandler Song, Ryan Fang, and Stanley Wu as CEO, COO, and CTO, respectively, Ankr is a blockchain-based platform that aims to develop a decentralized internet.
The platform is designed to give users ownership and control over data and applications by eliminating the need for intermediaries and central authorities. To accomplish this goal, Ankr has combined two movements: Web3 and DeFi.
Ankr is committed to working towards achieving this vision through three paths:
- Placing users and communities at the forefront of its technological evolution.
- Eliminating complications with one-click solutions that allow users to receive rewards in their own coins.
- Empowering developers with easy-to-use tools and interfaces to a multichain environment.
According to the project’s whitepaper, Ankr was initially introduced as a distributed cloud computing network, but over time, it has moved away from cloud computing toward node hosting and blockchain deployment solutions.
Under ANKR’s node hosting solution, users can deploy nodes on several Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains and stake their PoS coins deposit, having little to no prior expertise in this area. This is achieved by ANKR handling all of the technicalities, including setting up a node and maintaining it, while users simply enjoy their staked rewards in return for a monthly fee.
Amidst this center of this vast ecosystem is the ANKR Coin, the native cryptocurrency which serves as the payment option throughout the platform. There are a total of 10 billion ANKR, out of which 8.16 billion tokens are currently circulating the market.
The coin can be used to pay for services such as the deployment of nodes and API services on the platform as well as participating in the governance of the network.
The project leverages the staking process to deliver rewards to users in a variety of ways, such as liquid staking, pooled staking, parachain liquid bonding, and more. On top of that, Ankr offers a simple process to users who wish to stake coins across different blockchains, as well as help verify transactions.
By being the leading infrastructure provider for PoS chains like BNB Smart Chain, Fantom, and Polygon with an industry-leading global node delivery system and RPC aggregator, Ankr is currently serving over 2 trillion transactions a year across Web3.
Joining Hands with Microsoft
Last week, the decentralized blockchain infrastructure provider Ankr partnered with tech giant Microsoft to provide a novel node hosting service on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. This announcement sent ANKR’s price spiking by 69% in a matter of hours.
“The partnership, while an incredible milestone for Ankr, is also a key indicator of how far the decentralized web has come in integrating with the crucial players in every layer of web systems. The end result will be an era of extremely prolific building for blockchain-based applications from new Web3 projects as well as large enterprises entering the space,” said Ankr CEO Song.
According to Ankr, its enterprise node deployment service — that relays transactions, deploys smart contracts, and can read or write blockchain data — will provide low latency blockchain connections so that Web3 developers can focus on scaling up their applications.
To scale its transaction processing even more on its platform, the project is upgrading its load balancers to utilize routing solutions built on top of Azure. This is achieved by effectively routing requests for distant routine calls to the most appropriate node.
With this technological integration between the two companies, users would be able to control the hosting solutions of the nodes, having the option for customized specifications regarding the memory, throughput, and node location.
“Many developers and organizations are exploring how Web3 can help solve real-world business challenges, and our partnership with Ankr will enable them to access blockchain data in a reliable, scalable, and secure way,” said Rashmi Misra, Microsoft’s general manager of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies.
The tech giant seems to be making big bets on Web3, even though it has banned cryptocurrency mining by cloud services. In May 2021, Microsoft shut down its Azure Blockchain Service without providing an official explanation.
Later, in December 2022, the company updated the terms of its universal license for online services, prohibiting crypto mining. At the time, the company cited the need to safeguard its online services from various risks, including cyber fraud, attacks, and unauthorized access to customer resources.
The American multinational corporation actually recently abandoned its metaverse project “Industrial Metaverse Core,” which was initially unveiled in October last year, and has shifted its focus to the AI chatbot ChatGPT.
Collaborating with Tencent Cloud
Microsoft is not the only big partner of Ankr, though, as China-based Tencent also announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Ankr to develop a full suite of blockchain API services.
These services would be supported by a high-performance, decentralized, global shared network of RPC nodes. The solution set will be focused on helping businesses, games, apps, and virtual worlds, needing a link to blockchain data.
At the same time, Ankr will assist enterprises in releasing dedicated blockchain node clusters, which will leverage the capabilities of Tencent Cloud.
And by taking advantage of the two sides’ expertise, mixing Tencent Cloud’s global ecosystem with Ankr’s blockchain solutions, the platform will be able to deliver quick and robust solutions as well as facilitate massive amounts of node traffic.
Moreover, the new service suite enables users to launch nodes on any blockchain network. This will allow users to personalize the networks according to their required bandwidth and memory on Tencent Cloud. Additionally, users can utilize Ankr’s load-balancing technology to optimize performance.
According to CEO Song, this partnership will offer a simpler gateway to blockchain data and a greater focus on performance.
Not only is the partnership expected to yield massive results in the future, but it will also provide a ready-to-use blockchain platform that many companies and Web3-based organizations can benefit from. This will also allow users to easily deploy smart contracts and enhance reliability and security.
Becoming a Critical Part of Web3 Sports
Besides collaborating with Microsoft and Tencent Cloud, Ankr has also been playing a critical role in developing Chiliz’s new blockchain.
Founded in 2018, Chiliz is the world’s leading blockchain technology company in the Web3 sports sector and is behind the fan engagement and rewards app Socios.com. In late 2022, Chiliz announced the launch of Gameused.com, an end-to-end memorabilia authentication service for NFC and NFT authentication and redemption and resale.
Chiliz is now set to open up its ecosystem to a broader audience with its rollout of Chiliz Blockchain, for which it has chosen Ankr for its unique combination of cloud-native and blockchain-native capabilities. These qualities make Ankr the perfect choice for the project, providing reliability, scalability, and environmental friendliness.
With this collaboration, Ankr aims to be part of unlocking the full potential of Web3 for the sports and entertainment industries and “enable more compelling use cases and growth opportunities.”
Built on top of Ankr’s sidechain technology, Chiliz’s new blockchain is fully compatible with EVM, providing innovative access control mechanisms and intellectual property (IP) security. This functionality allows developers to build their own tokens, NFTs, or business logic onto Chiliz’s platform while protecting their IP.
“Ankr’s reliable, secure, and speedy infrastructure has allowed Chiliz to bring to life a cutting-edge ecosystem that we trust will be a game-changer for sports and entertainment brands looking to unlock the multiple opportunities of Web3,” said Thibaut Pelletier, CTO of Chiliz.
With a focus on exciting use cases such as NFTs, P2E Games, and real-life sports events, the Chiliz blockchain has the potential to be a catalyst for the growth of the Web3 sports world, and Ankr plans to be a critical part of this success. With Ankr’s expertise and experience, meanwhile, Chiliz can grow and scale quickly and become a major player in the Web3 sports space.
Final Word
While it is impossible to forecast exactly what the future holds for ANKR, much like the majority of the cryptocurrency market in general, it is clear that the company’s recent partnerships have given it a major boost.
As more developers and organizations continue to build applications on Ankr, the platform will gain adoption. With this, the ANKR token will catch demand and jump in its valuation in the coming days.
Overall, ANKR’s recent price performance and the growth in projects and funds on the platform are indicative of growing interest in Ankr and the potential it holds for the future.
