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The Avalanche cryptocurrency has surged in the past several days, taking it briefly into the top 10 by market value and surpassing Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, after a deal related to improvement of U.S. disaster-relief funding.
The Avalanche token, AVAX, reached a record $144.96 on Sunday before paring some gains, according to pricing from CoinGecko, and now sits at number 11 in market-value ranking at about $29 billion — between memecoins Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. It surged after creator Ava Labs last week announced a partnership with Deloitte to build more efficient disaster relief platforms.
“It’s another example of faster, cheaper Ethereum competitors doing well,” said Jonathan Cheesman, head of institutional and over-the-counter sales at crypto-derivatives exchange FTX, in an email Sunday, also citing the Deloitte deal. “There’s a huge wealth effect and a lot opportunistic and mobile capital.”
The Close As You Go platform leverages the Avalanche blockchain to improve security, speed and accuracy of Federal Emergency Management Agency funding, according to a post from Ava Labs, and will help state and local government officials simplify and streamline disaster reimbursement applications.
Avalanche has doubled in the past 30 days and is up over 3,000% over a year. At the same time, cryptocurrencies can be notoriously volatile, and even those that reach the top tier of market value can have major ups and downs. For instance, Cardano’s ADA token is off more than 40% from its early-September record, and Polkadot’s DOT is down 25% from a high several weeks ago.
The Avalanche Foundation said in September it had raised $230 million from a private sale of the tokens, with participants including Polychain and Three Arrows Capital — who also supported the $200 million-plus Blizzard fund announced several weeks ago to foster development on Avalanche.
“It is about utility, for both crypto-native and crossover traditional tech,” said John Wu, president of Ava Labs, in a message Sunday.
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