Can Cosmos survive being dubbed an unregistered security? | Credit: Shutterstock
Key Takeaways
Cosmos’ ATOM coin has been through turbulent times recently. When the United States Securities and Exchange Commission sued the Binance crypto exchange in June for, among other things, trading in unregistered securities, ATOM was high up on the list. This news gave the coin, which had been slowly recovering from a disastrous 2022, a kick downwards, with investors moving out of altcoins and, in some cases, out of the crypto market altogether.
However, the coin was able to show some resilience, mounting a recovery and peaking above $10 on two separate occasions in July.
The price moves came as the Stride (STRD) staking protocol announced that it was to move to the Cosmos platform.
But what is Cosmos (ATOM)? How does Cosmos work? Let’s see and find out what we can, and also examine some of the Cosmos price predictions that were being made on 16 June 2023, too.
Despite being caught up in the legal drama surrounding the SEC’s targeting of crypto exchanges and alt coins, the Cosmos platform has still managed to continue to be active over the last few weeks.
On 19 July, Stride moved to a Cosmos-based security system.
In a blog post , it explained: “The main motivation for adopting ICS is that it will give Stride the same economic security as Cosmos Hub, namely $2.3 billion. This will be a roughly 100x increase from Stride’s current economic security.”
And on 25 July, it was proposed that Cosmos allow transaction fees to be paid in any crypto, as long as the crypto was swapped for Cosmos’ ATOM coin on the Osmosis (OSMO) network.
The world of crypto is intertwined with that of blockchain technology. While pretty much every crypto is based, directly or indirectly, on a blockchain, they are not without their issues. For instance, it can be hard to transfer assets between different blockchains. This is where Cosmos comes in.
Cosmos is a de facto blockchain network, with lots of smaller chains which can link up with each other to process information and carry out transactions. People can use their own blockchains to create their own programs and applications.
Cosmos, which was first created in 2016 by computer programmers Jae Kwon, Zarko Milosevic and Ethan Buchmanis powered by the Cosmos coin, which goes by the ticker handle ATOM. Cosmos had an initial coin offering (ICO ), raising $17.3 million and it came onto the open market in 2019.
Cosmos features two kinds of chain, hubs and zones. Zones are the regular chains, which process information, and hubs link the zones together. The main hub is the Cosmos hub itself, which has every zone linked to it.
There are three segments to the network. Consensus helps the computers, or nodes, which run the platform agree on activity, networking sees the nodes communicate with each other and application processes transactions and updates the network.
Cosmos uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which means that people can stake, or set aside, ATOM in order to add blocks to the blockchain and earn rewards. ATOM holders can vote on decisions affecting the network.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the Cosmos price history . While past performance should never be taken as an indicator of future results, knowing what ATOM has done in the past can help give us some very useful context when it comes to making and interpreting a Cosmos price prediction.
When ATOM first came onto the open market in March 2019, it was worth about $7.40. That was, for the time being, a high point, as it soon slumped down to spend much of the next two year hovering between $3 and $5, with an all-time low coming on 13 March 2020, as markets across the world were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and Cosmos sank to $1.13.
There was a turnaround in early 2021, though, as the crypto market flourished and ATOM followed suit, reaching a periodic high of $32.14 on 12 May before the summer saw the crypto market in the doldrums. By the autumn, though, things were back on track, with Cosmos reaching an all-time high of $44.70 on 20 September. There was another slip back after this, but the coin was able to close the year at $32.47,.
2022 started well, as ATOM hit a high of $44.45 on 17 January, boosted by a partnership with the ill-fated Terra blockchain. Terra’s collapse in May sent the market into turmoil and by the middle of June it was down to $5.59.
There was something of a recovery, with the news that the dYdX exchange was to start operating on Cosmos, and the coin rallied to top $16 on 18 September. After that, there was more bad news, with the bankruptcy of the FTX exchange led to it dropping to close the year at $9.34, an annual loss of more than 70%.
The start of 2023 was a more positive time for Cosmos. ATOM was able to take advantage of a buoyant market to trade at $15.36 on 3 February, but it then slid down. The slide became a drop after the SEC said it considered ATOM to be an unregistered security and, in early June, it dropped back below $10, with a low coming on 10 June after Crypto.com suspended its American institutional arm. On that day, ATOM was worth $7.50.
There was some recovery after this and Cosmos traded past $10 on 3 July. Although there was a drop after this, 13 July’s news that a judge found that Ripple’s XRP coin was not a security if it was being traded on exchanges saw ATOM reach a high of $10.27. Following that, though, things fell down again and, on 24 July 2023, Cosmos was worth about $9.20.
At that time, there were 346.6 million ATOM in circulation. This gave the coin a market cap of about $3.2 billion, making it the 25th-largest crypto by that metric.
ATOM has suffered a considerable loss in early June. The coin, which had been trading at $10.81 prior to the SEC’s announcement on 5 June, dropped 30% over the course of five days. Although the Ripple ruling saw it recover by more than 35% from the previous months low, it has dropped more than 10% since then.
Perhaps more worryingly, it is still down by nearly 15% from the $10.87 it was worth before the SEC launched its court cases on 5 June.
With that all said and done, let’s look at some of the Cosmos price predictions that were being made as of 16 June 2023. It is crucial that you realize that price predictions, especially when they concern something as volatile as cryptocurrency, have a well-deserved reputation for being wrong. Also, it’s worth remembering that many longer-term crypto price predictions are made using an algorithm, which means they can change at any time.
First, CoinCodex had a short-term Cosmos price prediction for 2023 which said that things would get worse before they got better, with the coin forecast to fall to $8.98 by 28 July before recovering to $9.44 by 22 August. Despite this, though, the site’s technical analysis was somewhat bearish, with 20 indicators sending downbeat signals compared to 11 making bullish ones.
When it came to other sites offering their ATOM price prediction for this year. CaptainAltCoin also forecast the coin to drop in the near-future, saying it would sink to $6.64 in September before recovering to close the year at $8.47. Bitnation , meanwhile, predicted that the coin would be worth about $13.88, while DigitalCoinPrice was even more optimistic, arguing for it to reach $19.56.
As far as a Cosmos price prediction for 2025 went, DigitalCoinPrice said that it could trade at $32.95 in two years time, while Bitnation had it a little higher than that at $32.39. CaptainAltCoin, meanwhile, said it would be worth $24.11.
In terms of a more long-term Cosmos price prediction for 2030, Bitnation argued that ATOM could reach $78.67, while CaptainAltCoin said it could trade at $60.28. DigitalCoinPrice was even more optimistic, saying that it would stand at $94.24 at the start of the next decade.
Cosmos has consistently been in the top 30 cryptos over the last few years, with crypto investors putting their money into the coin. However, its success has put it in the sights of the SEC, with the regulator accusing it of being an unregistered security. What happens now is, unfortunately, anyone’s guess. As well as having to fight off the authorities, Cosmos will have to reiterate its usefulness to the crypto community as a whole. A lot will also depend on how the market behaves in the future. As always, you will have to make sure you do your own research.
No one really knows right now. While a lot of price predictions are upbeat in their Cosmos crypto price predictions, price forecasts are very often wrong. You should also remember that prices can, and do, go down as well as up.
Before you invest in Cosmos, you should make sure that you do your own research, not only on ATOM, but on other competitor cryptos, such as Algorand (ALGO) and Chainlink (LINK). At the end of the day, though, you will have to make this decision for yourself. Before you do so, you will need to make sure that you remember never to invest more money than you can afford to lose.
On 24 July 2023, there were 346.6 million ATOM in circulation.
It could do, but it may not happen for some time. DigitalCoinPrice says the token will reach three figures by 2031, while CaptainAltCoin does not think that will happen until about 2040.
Keep in mind that ATOM’s highest ever price, $44.70, is considerably less than $100, and it reached that level all the way back in September 2021.
The Cosmos (ATOM) coin is used to help power the Cosmos blockchain network. ATOM’s holders can stake it in return for rewards and it can be bought, sold, and traded on exchanges.
Please note that the contents of this article are not financial or investing advice. The information provided in this article is the author’s opinion only and should not be considered as offering trading or investing recommendations. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information. The cryptocurrency market suffers from high volatility and occasional arbitrary movements. Any investor, trader, or regular crypto users should research multiple viewpoints and be familiar with all local regulations before committing to an investment.