The crypto market started off August on a hopeful note, filled with optimism about Ethereum (ETH -0.59%) and The Merge, which has been one of the most anticipated events of the year for the crypto community. But by the end of the month, crypto prices were heading lower once again as discussion of inflation rates and further monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve dominated the headlines.
Yet even with Bitcoin (BTC 0.07%) and Ethereum trending down for the month, there are a few cryptos still outperforming the broader crypto market. Two of the best-performing cryptos of the past month were Chiliz (CHZ -1.13%) and Cosmos (ATOM -1.46%). While neither of these is a household name, both have very interesting growth prospects.
Chiliz
Chiliz is a crypto token that has taken off recently, thanks primarily to the rapidly expanding number of partnerships that Chiliz has signed with major sports teams around the world. Chiliz is often referred to as a sports fan token because when you buy Chiliz, you are then able to acquire digital tokens on the sports entertainment platform Socios.com, which is built on top of the Chiliz blockchain. It might sound complex, but it's actually seamless due to the way Socios.com has been integrated into websites and apps. Using sports fan tokens is one way teams can engage supporters and build new online communities.
Image source: Getty Images.
Over the past 30 days, Chiliz is up a blistering 39%. Investors shouldn't count on this performance to persist, but Chiliz has apparently tapped into the enthusiasm of sports fans all over the globe and is expanding very rapidly. Moreover, Chiliz is in the midst of markedly improving its blockchain for superior performance. Already, there are signs that developers are lining up to build new applications for a faster, more efficient Chiliz Chain 2.0.
Cosmos
If you believe in the multichain future for the blockchain industry, then Cosmos is an interesting play. Cosmos describes itself as "the Internet of Blockchains," and that is exactly what it is attempting to build. The so-called "Cosmoverse" consists of approximately 50 blockchains, all connected to each other via the proprietary Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol. The plan is to expand that number to more than 200. Using the IBC, it is possible to exchange assets, data, and digital tokens across decentralized blockchains. Moreover, Cosmos has rolled out a software development kit (SDK) that makes it easy to build new blockchains. If you buy into the idea of app-specific blockchains (i.e., blockchains that do one thing well) rather than general-purpose blockchains, then the SDK is an interesting growth catalyst.
Over the past 30 days, Cosmos is up nearly 45%, and it is now trading at more than $15. In mid-August, Cosmos got a huge endorsement from New York–based money manager VanEck, which slapped a $140 price target on ATOM token. Moreover, crypto community members are now buzzing about the upcoming Cosmoverse 2022 event taking place in Medellín, Colombia, at the end of September. The Cosmos team is promising "a very big announcement" at that time, and current speculation is that it will involve a dramatic change to the tokenomics of Cosmos. Since Cosmos is already a popular coin for crypto staking, any change to the way coins are supplied and distributed could have very important consequences for anyone looking to get involved in staking.
Can these coins continue to outperform the market?
So can these two altcoins keep up the momentum for the remainder of 2022? What I like particularly about these two cryptos is that both of them are highly scalable, meaning that they can grow very quickly simply by doing more of what they are already doing.
Take Chiliz, for example. Via its Socios.com platform, it has signed up more than 100 sports teams and leagues around the globe, and it seems to have discovered the formula for rapid scalability. Once you sign up one team in a league, it becomes a lot easier to sign up others. And Cosmos is literally built on the idea of rapid scalability of the "Cosmoverse." The Cosmos SDK ensures that developers can build new blockchains from scratch and then plug them into the Cosmoverse.
It will be interesting to see whether autumn turns into altcoin season. A lot will depend, of course, on whether Ethereum is able to pull off The Merge without a hitch, scheduled to start this week. If it does so, it could provide a little extra jolt of momentum to these two high-flying cryptos. If you're looking for new coins to add to your crypto portfolio, both Cosmos and Chiliz are worth a closer look.
