Nexo is up 480% in 2020!

In the past three months, Nexo's native asset Nexo tokens on its blockchain-based lending platform have increased by more than 480%. NEXO's price has been closely tracking BTC since BTC was trading at $10,000, but compared to the 1,000% rise seen from a few DeFi tokens, it's a bit tame.

The project was first revealed by European fintech group Credissimo at the end of 2017 and claims to offer "the world's first real-time encrypted support loan".

Founded by Cresissimo employees Antoni Trenchev, Georgi Shulev and Kosta Kantchev, the platform was originally intended to provide crypto investors with a way to borrow from the value of their crypto assets, rather than sell them and generate a taxable event.

Initially, Nexo had planned public presales and major token sales, but those were canceled due to excessive demand for private sales from investors.

NEXO follows a trajectory similar to most projects launched in late 2017 and early 2018, as the bitcoin hype cycle unfolds. The value of the token increased from about $0.10 when it first appeared on the exchange to more than $0.40 in May 2018, before Nexo's price dropped as low as $0.045 in September 2018, when the reality of cryptocurrency winter sets emerged.

Innovation seems to be driving Nexo's price action

In late October, as Bitcoin was poised to break through the $10,000 to $12,000 range, Nexo launched Nexonomics to help drive adoption of its tokens and platforms. The idea is to gradually introduce upgrades and new features to the platform by the end of 2020 to help promote token learning and promote the usability of tokens.

The team also introduced the "Earn NEXO" program, which allows users to choose to pay all earned interest in NEXO, earning an additional 2% of APY.

Since Nexonomics was launched, NEXO's price has risen more than 480 per cent, and its market capitalisation has risen from $68m to $383m in three months.

Nexo's trading volumes have also increased significantly over that period, from an average of about $5 million a day to more than $30 million today.

Nexo and DeFi tokens are expected to drive the bitcoin wave higher

As the cryptocurrency market enters the final weeks of 2020 and Bitcoin hits consecutive new all-time highs, Nexo looks well-positioned to sustain its recent gains and could move higher if there is renewed interest in DeFi.