Weekly recap: ZK hype increases, UNI and CAKE bleed after “copycat” fork, XRP whales turn bullish

ZK hype increases among traders, MINA protocol begins cohort for development of ZK-powered applications.
PancakeSwap forked Uniswap V3 to rollout version 3 of its DEX on the BNB and Ethereum chains, CAKE and UNI nosedived.
XRP whales turned bullish on the asset ahead of SEC v. Ripple lawsuit outcome.

The zero-knowledge (ZK) narrative hype has increased among participants with the crypto community awaiting zkSync airdrop confirmation and recent updates by MINA. The hype surrounding meme coins lost relevance, wiping out Shiba Inu (SHIB), Dogecoin (DOGE), Floki Inu (FLOKI) and Dogelon Mars (ELON).

Also read: MATIC and MINA protocol ride the zk hype ahead of major Ethereum upgrade

ZK narrative hype and top coins capitalizing on it

ZK narrative gained relevance in the crypto community with the speculation and hype surrounding zkSync. Analysts on crypto Twitter believe zkSync is likely to announce an airdrop in 2023, building anticipation around ZK projects and protocols.

MATIC and MINA protocol capitalized on the hype and rolled out their solutions and roadmap for boosting scalability.

MINA protocol started accepting applications to zkIgnite, a new cohort of developers for working on ZK-powered solutions on the blockchain.

zkIgnite builders are ready to turn their innovative ideas into real-world applications and businesses on Mina.

Today, we are thrilled to announce the Cohort 1 Grantees ⚡️

https://t.co/YSd77mKM1e
— Mina Protocol (@MinaProtocol) April 5, 2023

zkSync continues to dominate the ZK ecosystem in terms of market share and activity. The protocol accounts for nearly 60% daily active users in the ZK ecosystem, based on data from Dune analytics.

We’ve seen a tremendous spike in activity, the most any scaling solution has ever undergone in such a short period of time; it’s been two weeks since our launch and we've risen to the 4th highest TVL and 3rd highest usage of all L2s.https://t.co/v9fkPbkOCR
— zkSync ∎ (@zksync) April 7, 2023

Are DeFi traders unhappy with PancakeSwap’s fork of Uniswap V3?

CAKE and UNI prices nosedived, wiping out their gains from past week. PancakeSwap, one of the most popular DEXes in the crypto ecosystem forked Uniswap’s V3 for its Version 3 launch.

The launch turned out to be a non-event for PancakeSwap V3 and its token CAKE, however UNI price rallied, yielding nearly 5% gains before the recent correction. Forks result in “Copy cat” DEXes, a phenomenon previously observed in 2021-22 in OHM forks.

Find out more here: PancakeSwap forks Uniswap V3: Are copycats like OHM Forks making a comeback?

Analysts on crypto Twitter have criticized Uniswap’s governance token UNI, citing that its only utility is governance voting, similar to ARB. This makes UNI less lucrative for DeFi traders.

The only "usecase" for UNI is governance voting, idk how to feel about that. Similar with ARB.

Would rather hold something like GMX which directly accrues value if the protocol adoption increases since protocol revenues are 1 on 1 related to protocol usage.
— ALTBTC (@JJcycles) April 7, 2023

XRP whales scooped up the token ahead of SEC v. Ripple outcome

XRP whales holding between 10,000 to 100,000 and 1 million to 10 million XRP scooped up the altcoin consistently since the last week of March.

XRP accumulation by whales

The chart from crypto intelligence tracker Santiment supports a bullish thesis for XRP as accumulation by whales is typically a bullish sign for assets. The XRP holder community is expecting an outcome in the lawsuit in 2023.

Find out more here: XRP holders jittery over SEC v. Ripple lawsuit outcome: Will XRP price recover?

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