What Is Driving Up Avalanche Even As Other Cryptos Bleed?

The rampaging bears have wiped off the billions from the market cap of most cryptocurrencies the past week. But even as Bitcoin fell below $60,000 briefly, one of the biggest gainers in the market was the Avalanche token (AVAX), which made a new all-time high amid the bearish conditions.

Tuesday’s daily candle shows that AVAX reached a day's high at $101.82. As of 12:15 a.m. ET, data from CoinGecko shows the trading volume of the token at $1,813,629,631, making it one of the most actively traded cryptocurrencies. The market capitalization for the coin also rose by 7.95% to 21.4 billion.

The token has risen approximately 50% so far this month. This bullish stance of Avalanche investors, even as other cryptocurrencies dropped, can be attributed to two significant factors. The first is the launch of a $200 million fund titled Blizzard, which aims to improve upon the DeFi capabilities of the platform.

The Blizzard fund is “dedicated to accelerating development, growth, and innovation across the ecosystem of builders and users of the Avalanche public blockchain and beyond,” said Avalance said it its announcement.

The platform will focus on four key areas of development, including DeFi, NFTs, enterprise applications and culture applications. The Blizzard fund will provide opportunities to DeFi firms to integrate their protocols on the Avalanche platform. The projects “will include equity investments, token purchases, and various forms of technology, business development, and ecosystem integration support,” it Avalanche said.

While growth in DeFi and NFT gave a boost to AVAX prices, Grayscale added fuel to the fire by announcing that it is considering adding Avalanche as a product in the Grayscale family. This helped the prices of the protocol to shoot up as it joins the list with other protocols like 1Inch, Terra, and Polygon.

If added to the Grayscale family, the influx of institutional investors on the platform will be humongous. Crypto investors immediately turned bullish after the announcement by Grayscale as interest and sentiment are two major components in driving the prices of a token.

A rising interest toward AVAX was seen as Deloitte, an industry-leading audit, consulting, tax, and advisory services provider, partnered with AVA Labs “to create a blockchain-based disaster recovery platform” called Close As You Go.