Polkadot (DOT), Maker (MKR) and 0x (ZRX) Price Analysis
A prominent crypto market analyst Josh Olszewicz ran technical analysis on the price action of three altcoins: Polkadot (DOT), Maker (MKR) and 0x (ZRX).
Polkadot (DOT) Technical Analysis
Polkadot is an open-source sharding multichain protocol that facilitates the cross-chain transfer of any data or asset types, not just tokens, thereby making a wide range of blockchains interoperable with each other.
This interoperability seeks to establish a fully decentralized and private web, controlled by its users, and simplify the creation of new applications, institutions and services.
The Polkadot protocol connects public and private chains, permissionless networks, oracles and future technologies, allowing these independent blockchains to trustlessly share information and transactions through the Polkadot relay chain.
Polkadot’s native DOT token serves three clear purposes: providing network governance and operations, and creating parachains (parallel chains) by bonding.
Polkadot has four core components:
Relay Chain: Polkadot’s “heart,” helping to create consensus, interoperability and shared security across the network of different chains;
Parachains: independent chains that can have their own tokens and be optimized for specific use cases;
Parathread: similar to parachains but with flexible connectivity based on an economical pay-as-you-go model;
Bridges: allows parachains and parathreads to connect and communicate with external blockchains like Ethereum.
Maker (MKR) Technical Analysis
Maker (MKR) is the governance token of the MakerDAO and Maker Protocol — respectively a decentralized organization and a software platform, both based on the Ethereum blockchain — that allows users to issue and manage the DAI stablecoin.
Initially conceived in 2015 and fully launched in December 2017, Maker is a project whose task is to operate DAI, a community-managed decentralized cryptocurrency with a stable value soft-pegged to the US dollar.
MKR tokens act as a kind of voting share for the organization that manages DAI; while they do not pay dividends to their holders, they do give the holders voting rights over the development of Maker Protocol and are expected to appreciate in value in accordance with the success of DAI itself.
The Maker ecosystem is one of the earliest projects on the decentralized finance (DeFi) scene: the industry that seeks to build decentralized financial products on top of smart-contract-enabled blockchains, such as Ethereum.
0x (ZRX) Technical Analysis
0x is an infrastructure protocol that allows users to easily trade ERC20 tokens and other assets on the Ethereum blockchain without relying on centralized intermediaries like traditional cryptocurrency exchanges.
0x achieves this decentralized exchange functionality using a collection of open-source, publicly auditable smart contracts that work together to produce a flexible, low-friction trading protocol that developers can easily weave into their products.
The protocol is powered by an ERC20 utility token known as ZRX. Nodes that (also known as relayers) host an off-chain order book and offer user-facing applications that present this information and allow users to make, fill and cancel transactions are paid in ZRX tokens (as trading fees). ZRX can also be used to participate in platform governance, helping holders suggest and vote on changes to the protocol.
In 2019, 0x announced an overhaul of the ZRX token, adding extra functionality, allowing ZRX holders to delegate their stake to a market maker to earn passive rewards while retaining their voting capacity.
