During the bull market run of 2020 and 2021, several tokens came onto the market that quickly saw great success. This new influx of crypto projects, alongside bored investors stuck at home during the pandemic led to some dramatic gains, particularly with projects like PancakeSwap (CAKE) and Polkadot (DOT).
If you missed out on being an early investor in PancakeSwap and Polkadot, don’t panic. You might still have a second chance with a new token from Metacade (MCADE). So let’s dive in and see why investors are talking about it.
What is PancakeSwap (CAKE)?
PancakeSwap is a decentralised exchange (commonly known as a dex) that uses the BNB Chain. Decentralised exchanges were created as an alternative to traditional centralised exchanges, which left their users’ accounts susceptible to hacking. PancakeSwap emerged as an alternative to Ethereum-based dexes, which were often slow due to the high number of projects operating on the Ethereum blockchain.
PancakeSwap allows users to add their tokens to liquidity pools, which are then used to facilitate trades between other investors. In return, they receive a fee for locking up their tokens. These fees are paid by the user making the trade, with a minuscule take being added to the PancakeSwap treasury.
How Much Has CAKE Risen?
PancakeSwap quickly rose to rival leading dex Uniswap, as demand for its CAKE token massively increased. At its launch on the 28th of September 2020, CAKE reached a high of $1.40. Fast forward to the 30th of April, when CAKE peaked at a whopping $47.68 – a 3305% increase, or approximately 33x an investment made at its launch.
However, following the bear market of 2021 and 2022, CAKE has retracted back to $4.55 at the time of writing, losing roughly -90% of its value in only around a year and a half.
What is Polkadot (DOT)?
Polkadot is a little bit more complex than PancakeSwap, but basically it’s one of the leading Ethereum competitors on the market today. Ethereum was created to allow developers to build projects on its blockchain, but struggles when it comes to interoperability (the ability to enable two different blockchains to interact with each other). Polkadot sought to create a platform that allowed users to easily build fast public and private blockchains that could communicate with each other without the need to sacrifice security or scalability.
How Much Has DOT Risen?
Thanks in part to its highly decorated development team and effective innovation in blockchain interoperability, its native DOT token climbed the cryptocurrency leaderboard rapidly. In fact, it still hovers around the top ten today.
On its first day of trading on the 18th of September, DOT opened at $2.13. As the hype for the token became widespread, it quickly began to soar. Peaking ten months later on the 4th of November at the price of $56.22, it earnt its earliest investors approximately 2540%, or around 25 times their initial investment.
Of course, what comes up can sometimes come down and, just like CAKE, DOT has suffered this year and is currently down to $6.35, falling nearly -89% in the process.
What is Metacade (MCADE)?
Metacade aims to become the number one destination for Web3, Play2Earn, and metaverse gaming content. Similar to PancakeSwap and Polkadot, Metacade aims to revolutionise the metaverse landscape as we know – but in this case, by creating an arcade-gaming space for anyone to log on and play, earn, and connect with like-minded enthusiasts.
Part of what makes the platform so special is the community-centric vision the Metacade team holds. For years, the gaming industry has been moving ever-closer toward centralisation, micro-transactions, and profit maximisation. If you’re a gamer, you’ll know what we’re talking about. Metacade plans to put the power back into the hands of the players to let them decide the future of gaming.
They’re doing this by allowing users to vote on their favourite games: not just existing titles, but fresh ideas in development. Enter Metagrants, a system where players will be able to vote on which projects they most want to see, with developers receiving funding and support from the Metacade community. This will eventually lead to a virtual arcade filled to the brim with only successful titles, as decided by Metacade’s community.
Metacade plans to take the training wheels off further down the line, and allow the community to become completely self-sustaining through a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO). Revenue sources – like developers paying for direct testing feedback from Metacade’s users, job listings, and tournament entries, will help contribute to the treasury. The treasury will then be used to pay users for contributing to the community, winning tournaments, and funding the latest Play2Earn titles.
Will MCADE Rise as Much as CAKE and DOT?
Both PancakeSwap and Polkadot were disruptors in their field, yet faced stiff competition from projects that already had an established market share, like Uniswap and Ethereum. Metacade doesn’t yet face this issue. It’s creating what traditional business analysts would call a “blue ocean”: a new market that’s not yet filled by multiple competitors.
If Metacade can quickly dominate the fledgling Web3 gaming community market, then it could quickly surpass the gains CAKE and DOT returned to investors. Providing everything goes according to plan, then 50x, even 100x gains could even be realised. It all depends on how MCADE performs as the project progresses, but it’s certainly worth a closer look.
You can buy PancakeSwap and Polkadot at eToro here.
You can participate in the Metacade pre-sale here.
