EOS, FLOW and Optimism Belong on Your Crypto Watchlist in August—Here’s Why

Key Takeaways

• EOS will undergo a hard for on July 31, improving transaction and finality times.
• FLOW’s upgrade Cadence 1.0 will improve the developer experience by adding EVM compatibility.
• Optimism (OP) will reward contributors to the improvement of governance and the Optimism Stack.

Despite a rocky start, July turned out to be a bullish month for the cryptocurrency market, with a significant rebound taking place from July 5 onwards.

Several cryptocurrencies could see potential growth as the market looks to carry this momentum into August. EOS, FLOW, and Optimism stand out among them due to their promising technical outlook and/or positive developments, making them three cryptos to watch closely in August.

EOS Hard Fork Improves Finality

In February, the EOS Network Foundation announced the Spring 1.0 upgrade , which successfully launched on July 10. Node operators have until July 31 to upgrade before the hard fork takes effect.

The EOS network utilizes the EOSIO consensus model , which combines a delegated Proof-of-Stake (dPoS) consensus mechanism with Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (aBFT) to achieve algorithmic finality. This ensures that once a transaction is added to the blockchain, it is considered final.

Block validation and finalization typically take around 4 minutes and 12 seconds.

Here’s a breakdown of the process: a producer has six seconds to produce twelve blocks, each of which takes approximately 0.5 seconds to generate. The blocks are then broadcast to other producers for validation. To achieve finality at least 21 out of 30 producers must confirm the blocks within two scheduled rounds, each lasting two minutes and six seconds (with six seconds allocated to each producer).

The supermajority confirmation process finalizes the block, making its transactions irreversible. Improvements via a hard fork could reduce this time by enhancing block production, broadcasting efficiency, and the confirmation process.

The technical outlook for EOS is bleak, so an attention-catching upgrade is needed. While EOS launched in 2017 and had its initial bull run then, it reached its all-time high in May 2018 and has never recovered. It created a lower high in the previous bull run and has not taken off in the current one. In fact, EOS fell to an all-time low price of $0.44 in July.

However, there is a potentially bullish development relating to the $0.55 horizontal area. After falling to an all-time low, EOS created a bullish weekly candlestick (white icon) and reclaimed the area. It is now validating it as support.

If successful, this would also create a double bottom, which is considered a bullish pattern. Bullish divergences in the MACD and RSI (green) go along with the pattern, increasing the likelihood that the pattern will materialize. If EOS holds above the $0.55 area, it can increase toward the closest resistance at $0.80.

FLOW Introduces Network Upgrade

On July 17, the FLOW crypto team introduced the Crescendo Network upgrade , which will go live on the testnet on August 14. The upgrade aims to improve scalability, decentralization, and developer experience. This will likely be done through the introduction of Cadence 1.0.

Cadence 1.0 will improve the execution  of smart contracts and allow permissionless deployment. Additionally, it will introduce a more user-friendly language that is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), making it possible for developers to use the same tools and language that they use on Ethereum.

It is worth noting that the Flow Testnet will go down for roughly six hours during the upgrade.

The FLOW price showed bullish signs, breaking out from a long-term descending resistance trend line in November 2023. However, a downturn starting in March 2024 caused the price to fall below the yearly open of $0.98.

Nevertheless, FLOW created a higher low in July, which could be the first step in starting an ascending support trend line.

The future FLOW price outlook depends on whether the price breaks out above the $1.50 resistance area or breaks down from the trend line instead. The former would lead to a bullish trend, while the latter would likely cause the price to decline to a new all-time low.

Optimism Concludes Cryptos to Watch in August

In March, Optimism announced Retro Funding, a program that will allocate 850 million in OP to incentivize work across the ecosystem. So far, the program has rewarded on-chain builders in May.

In August, Optimism will allocate funds to builders on the OP stack and those who contributed to its governance infrastructure. It is the only month in which two categories of developers will receive funding. Then, the program will end in October, with rewards given to contributors to development processes.

As for its price chart, Optimism has increased alongside an ascending support trend line since June 22. While the price of OP briefly fell below it in July (black circle), it created a bullish engulfing candlestick in the weekly time frame and reclaimed the ascending support trend line. Such deviations and reclaims are considered bullish developments.

The OP price confirmed its bullish outlook by breaking out from a descending resistance trend line (dashed) next week.

If OP successfully validates the trend line as support, it can increase toward the next resistance at $2.90. On the other hand, breaking down from the long-term support trend line can trigger a decline toward the all-time low of $0.38.

Both the MACD and RSI give mixed readings since they have started short-term increases but trade below their bullish thresholds. As a result, both a bounce and breakdown are possible.

EOS and FLOW Introduce Upgrades, Optimism Distributes Funding

EOS, FLOW, and Optimism all have interesting developments lined up for August. Still, the outlook for EOS is more positive since, besides its upgrade, the price chart shows bullish signs. However, the FLOW and OP price action present mixed signals, allowing for both a bullish and a bearish August.

About the Author

Valdrin Tahiri

Valdrin discovered cryptocurrencies while getting his MSc in Financial Markets from the Barcelona School of Economics in 2017. He has been an avid investor and trader since. Valdrin has written for several cryptocurrency media companies such as BeInCrypto and CoinGape.

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