What is ANKR? The Web3-Powering Crypto

Wondering what Ankr is? Ankr has risen among the ranks to become one of the most sought-after protocols due to its extensive features, which are highly valuable in developing the Web3 ecosystem.

Forecast to be worth around $45 billion by 2030, at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 41.50%, the crypto firm is expected to join blockchain-powered companies such as Polkadot, Helium Systems Inc., Ocean Protocol Foundation Limited, Decentraland, Binance, and Alchemy Insights Incorporated in ensuring that the prediction by Vantage Market Research comes to fruition at the said period. 

With a boom in the blockchain economy on the horizon, you will be coming across the protocol more and more. You may find yourself asking, 'What is Ankr?'

As a result, this article takes an in-depth look into the project, the kind of partners that have chosen to ally with them, its native asset, its price performance so far in 2023, and the type of cryptocurrency exchanges that support the digital currency as a tradable asset.

By the end, we hope you have an answer to the question, 'What is Ankr?'.

What is Ankr? 

It was created by the University of California, Berkeley, graduates Ryan Fang and Chandler Song in 2017.

As a blockchain-based cross-chain infrastructure protocol that is smart contracts-compatible, it allows the development of decentralized applications (DApps) and staking services. It also houses several protocols connected to expanding the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector.

Having recognized the centralization of power and the extensive reliance on intermediaries in many internet sectors, Ankr gives control and ownership of data to network participants and users.

This is why it joined an industry with thousands of applications but decided to build a new internet that relies on the possibilities of distributed ledger technology (DLT). 

Many projects, such as Internet Computer, have disclosed that they want to decentralize everything on the internet, but have little to show for the past two years since launch.

Ankr supports staking nodes, Web3, and, more importantly, achieves decentralization by employing DLT-powered computing power to gather data resources.

These resources are then deployed to developers and stakers at low-cost data centres. Through this process, stakers can stake their balances while developers can create and deploy DApps.

What is ANKR, the cryptocurrency behind the project? 

Like all projects in the data technology section of the blockchain-powered economy, Ankr is supported by a cryptocurrency. It goes by the ticker symbol ANKR.

It has a total and maximum of 10 billion tokens. Out of this, 97% (represented by 9.7 billion crypto assets) are in circulation, leaving just 3% to be injected into the market for scarcity to take hold of this crypto asset powering one of the most patronized networks in the space today.

For crypto traders and investors interested in the numbers, ANKR is up more than 140% this year, rose by more than 120% in the first quarter of 2023, and reached a yearly peak price of $0.05474 in February (which is still four times below its all-time high price of $0.2252 attained on 28 March 2021). 

The virtual coin has value despite not being a currency backed by a centralized financial institution. This is because it has all the attributes of what constitutes currency money, like utility, transferability, durability, scarcity, non-counterfeitability, and, most important of all, divisibility.

Due to its potential in a market where more than 2,000 cryptocurrencies compete for traders and investors, more than 40 centralized and decentralized exchanges support the token for trading.

Some platforms where ANKR can be accessed include, but are not limited to, Binance, Huobi Global, Coinbase Pro, Kraken, BitMart, Crypto.com, and Uniswap (Vault 1, 2, and 3).

Mainstream crypto companies among its partners

As of 16:00 UTC on 18 April, ANKR completes more than eight billion application programming interface (API) requests daily, from over 40,000 unique developers across 30-plus jurisdictions. Additionally, it supports over 38 networks in the blockchain economy. This is the primary reason why it is trusted by the following firms.

Polygon uses Ankr’s infrastructure to boost its ecosystem. As an integral part of Web3 development, Polygon plays a vital role in crypto through its native asset MATIC and the digital collectibles sector, where CryptoSlam ranks it among the biggest blockchains by all-time NFT sales volume. Before Disney shut down its Metaverse division in March, Polygon responded negatively through its digital currency MATIC because it was chosen by the company along with five other firms to be a part of its accelerator program, aimed at the development of artificial intelligence (AI), NFT, and augmented reality (AR) experiences.

Gaining the support of Polygon certifies Ankr as one of the most credible protocols in a space where cybercriminals design projects to dupe people out of hard-earned money. 

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, has its hand in all segments of the crypto economy. Binance Chain is actively involved in DeFi and NFTs, and this alliance helps Chanpeng Zhao's innovation remain competitive in a saturated market.

Certik is a smart contract, blockchain, and Web3 security firm. This company provides a tool that ranks projects based on risks related primarily to security. Due to rug pulls, pump-and-dump schemes, and other ways projects such as SafeMoon duped traders, many people analyze the health of projects by Certik aside from total value locked (TVL) and other crypto metrics. Ankr's Overall Security Score is 75.80, in the top 30%. This was arrived at after the security firm gave the project a code security score of 91.45, operational resilience score of 78.00, governance strength score of 92.37, and market stability and community trust scores of 96.54 and 98.00, respectively.

The above statistics show a project that ticks all the right boxes for all stakeholders (developers, liquidity providers, and traders) searching for a go-to chain to meet their blockchain-related needs.

Avalanche is also among the projects that trust Ankr. With Avalanche, governments, enterprises, and institutions can build many products under assets issuance and trading, document tracking, digital identity, debt financing, and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Aside from these, developers can build DApps, and NFT lovers can mint their own digital art using its blockchain. Tapping into Ryan Fang and Chandler Song’s innovation shows the extent to which Ava Labs believe in the Ankr project. 

Other projects that trust this blockchain-based cross-chain infrastructure protocol include Optimism, Aave, SpiritSwap, 1inch, Project Galaxy, Zapper, and SushiSwap. 

Does ANKR have a future?

Yes, ANKR has a future. The project has a fully diluted market capitalization of around $372 million and continues to see above-average daily trading volume for a low-cap digital asset (which has less than $2 billion in market value).

Since the year's opening day, the token has seen a daily trading volume of around $9 million. With blockchain technology playing an instrumental role in the transition from Web2 to Web3 and Ankr's position as a cross-chain platform, an analyst has made positive forecasts about the future of the token.

David Cox at CryptoNewsZ believes the token will continue to benefit from the extensive usage of Ankr and soar to $0.095 by the end of 2023. He further estimates the token to reach the best possible prices of $0.26 in 2027 and $0.445 in 2030, respectively.

Whether or not this article answered the question, 'What is Ankr?', you should remember that the crypto market is highly unpredictable. Always weigh risks against rewards.