The downfall of Terra LUNA last week caused the entire cryptocurrency market to nose dive. Many investors lost over 50% of their portfolio. So far, 2022 has not been kind to the crypto world. Nevertheless, there are several crypto projects still performing well in the downturn. This is due in large part to being backed by sound assets, the value of their underlying projects and the leaders behind them. 

SushiSwap

SushiSwap (SUSHI) is a decentralized exchange known as an automated market maker (AMM) that uses smart contracts to handle crypto trading pairs. Created by someone known only as Chef Nomi, the platform began as a fork off of Uniswap before it was acquired by the CEO of FTX. SushiSwap is targeted toward DeFi traders who use liquid capital to trade two given cryptos. As of writing, it has seen a steady increase in value, trading at its open price of $1.299 USD.

Cardano

Cardano (ADA) is a blockchain network with the broad goal of overhauling inefficient systems across many industries. Cardano has been around for over ten years, making it a rare breed in the cryptoverse. Created by Charles Hoskins and Jerry Wood after they both defected from the Ethereum Foundation, the pair launched the project in 2015 and its token, ADA in 2017. It aims to take advantage of Ethereum’s scaling deficiencies and overtake them as the dominant Web3 platform. ADA has been climbing back to its recent high of $0.69 last week, holding steady at $0.55 USD as of this writing.

Avalanche

Avalanche is the fastest smart contracts platform out there; any smart contract launched on the platform can initiate and finalize faster than any other blockchain network. With over 450 projects deployed and a growing community of more than 1.5 million members, Avalanche has a solid footing in the cryptoverse. The AVAX token is hard-capped and used to pay utility fees and staking. Since last Wednesday’s LUNA-led market collapse, AVAX has been trending upward toward its seven day high of $45.00 USD.

Tron

Built by the Tron Foundation, TRON is a decentralized operating system for smart contracts and dApps (decentralized apps). Originally deployed on Ethereum in 2017, Tron later migrated to their own independent network. The system allows creators to produce their own content and create coins, making Tron a large ecosystem with many options for different innovative projects. Over the last week the TRON (TRX) coin has risen from $0.63 to $0.68.  

Dai

The Dai token is issued and managed by MakerDAO, in cooperation with the Marker Protocol. Soft-pegged to the U.S. dollar, Dai works like a mutual fund by taking in deposits from investors and holding them in a vault that is collateralized by a collection of other cryptocurrencies. Dai is soft-pegged to the U.S. dollar and users can generate new DAI tokens and earn interest by depositing crypto assets into one of their own Dai vault. During last week’s crash, DAI was seen as a hedge by investors who pushed its price from $0.99 to $1.01 as LUNA was collapsing. It has held a $1 valuation since then. 

While all of these cryptos have been hit hard with last week’s inflation report and the fall out from Terra’s UST and LUNA, these are some that investors continue to hold. The pattern that emerges from these coins and tokens is that the broader the footprint of the project, the more solid the asset will remain in a market downturn. Broad ecosystems have a wide array of options within a specific niche, such as smart contract support. This may portend a new fundamental for investors as the crypto market matures.