Thorchain's RUNE Token Rallies Double Digits Amid Wave of New Features

Thorchain is up over 18% in the last 24 hours, following the cross-chain DeFi project's roll-out of synthetic assets and the announcement of a launch date for a suite of new features called “Thorfi.” 

The project’s token has also enjoyed a healthy rise amidst this activity. On Monday, RUNE traded at $4.73, according to CoinMarketCap. Today, the price hit highs of $5.85, marking a whopping 24% increase over the past four days. 

Built on Cosmos, Thorchain is a cross-chain crypto platform that lets users swap cryptocurrencies from different networks without the need for a third party, like Coinbase or Binance. The latest updates continue to build on mixing incompatible cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, to create new derivative products. 

The latest price increase can likely be attributed to a variety of new updates Thorchain has rolled out or hyped up. 

For starters, synthetic assets, which let users create derivative versions of other popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, have already seen nearly $7 million in trade volume on the decentralized exchange (DEX) Thorswap. 

Launched on Wednesday, synthetic assets are backed by liquidity pools within the Thorchain ecosystem. Unlike wrapped assets, such as Wrapped Bitcoin, a crypto asset pegged and backed 1:1 to the price of Bitcoin that runs on Ethereum rails, synthetic assets are minted by a 50% mix of RUNE token and 50% of the target asset (in this example, Bitcoin). 

These assets are much more like liquidity pool (LP) tokens which DeFi users get as a sort of receipt whenever they deposit liquidity into a pool on Uniswap or Curve Finance. 

And just like those LP tokens, synthetic asset holders can always redeem the synth token 1:1 for the real thing, be it synthetic Bitcoin for actual Bitcoin or synthetic Ethereum for a synthetic version. 

Thorchain hints at new features

After that, core developer Chad Barraford outlined a new initiative called Thorfinance (or Thorfi for short), which would bring many popular DeFi tools all under the Thorchain umbrella. 

This includes services like lending and borrowing, but also the launch of a native stablecoin called THOR.USD. It’s expected that this stablecoin would leverage a similar mint-burn scheme as seen by the market’s largest decentralized stablecoin, UST. 

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This suite of new features has been slated for June 17. 

Though the summer is still months away, crypto enthusiasts already appear to be rushing to RUNE.