Thorchain price prediction: What is thorchain (RUNE)?

It aims to help people transfer cryptos between blockchains, but what is thorchain (RUNE)?

Let’s take a look and see what we can find out, and also examine some of the thorchain price predictions that were being made as of 2 December 2022. 

Thorchain explained

One of the most important ideas in the world of cryptocurrency is that of decentralised finance, or DeFi for short. This is, basically, the idea that people should be able to access financial services without having to get involved with centralised banks and institutions.

An oft-cited statistic relating to DeFi comes from report by the World Bank issued in 2017, which found that there were 1.7 billion people across the world who did not have a bank account, but that roughly 66% of those people did own a mobile phone. Supporters of decentralised finance hope to make contact with these people, which will, it is hoped, promote financial inclusion across the world. 

Something else that links DeFi to crypto is that, when Bitcoin was first set up in the late 2000s, the world had just experienced a massive recession. With there being an increased distrust of banking institutions, the idea that you could have money that did not need banks had a fair bit of contemporary appeal.

That said, while the bitcoin (BTC) crypto may have been set up using the principles that drive decentralised finance, that does not mean that it is, technically, a DeFi coin. Nevertheless, the idea that helped create BTC was expanded upon, and now the DeFi sector is one of the most important parts of the cryptoverse.

Something that links the world of decentralised finance with other crypto coins and tokens is the decentralised exchange, or DEX. While traditional crypto exchanges are relatively easy to use, people have, in many cases, to go through Know Your Customer (KYC) checks before they can trade, and they can only work with whichever coins and tokens a centralised authority decides can be bought, sold, or traded. 

DEXes, at least in theory, allow people to exchange whatever cryptos they have for whichever cryptos they want. There are a lot of DEXes out there, but many of them are somewhat hamstrung by the difficulty of using crypto tokens outside of their native blockchains.

This is where the THORChain protocol comes in. To use the technical term, THORChain is a decentralised liquidity exchange. This means that users can utilise the system to create liquidity pools. These are collections of cryptocurrency which are locked into smart contracts, computer programs which automatically execute when certain conditions are met. Liquidity pools enable a commodity to be bought and sold at a price that reflects its what it is worth at the time. These pools are used to cross coins and tokens over different blockchains. 

Every blockchain-based network needs to have its own native cryptocurrency, and THORChain has the thorchain token, also known by its ticker handle of RUNE. This is used to reward the people who operate the computers, or nodes, on the network, fill the liquidity pools and allow holders to vote on changes to THORChain.

Incidentally, because RUNE itself operates on the Binance (BNB) blockchain, it is a token, rather than a coin. There is currently an ongoing process to transfer RUNE to THORChain, which would make it a coin. Until that process is complete, however, we will refer to it as a token, because while we can talk about a RUNE token regardless of whichever blockchain it is on, phrases like “thorchain coin price prediction” may not be entirely correct.

Thorchain price history

Let’s now quickly cast our eyes over some of the RUNE price history. While past performance should never be taken as an indicator of future results, knowing what the crypto has done in the past can help give us some much needed context when it comes to either making or interpreting a thorchain price prediction. 

RUNE first came onto the open market in 2019 and on 25 June that year it was worth $0.01577. There was some movement up and down but, by the end of the following year, it was worth $1.17.

Early 2021 was a very good time for cryptocurrency and thorchain was able to follow suit, reaching an all-time high of $21.26 on 19 May 2021. Unfortunately, later that same day, the market crashed and RUNE spent the summer in the doldrums, although there was something of a recovery later that year as it reached heights of $17.26 on 2 November before falling back down again to close the year at $6.80.

If 2021 was, overall, a good time for crypto, 2022 has proven to be a bad one, and RUNE has had to follow the market as a whole over time. Although it surged throughout March to reach a high of $13.15 on 31 March, things fell apart. On 18 June 2022, following a series of market crashes, it reached a low of $1.45.

There was something of a recovery after this and, on 11 August 2022 it was worth $3.14. It was then time to go down again, and a slump became a crash as the collapse of the FTX (FTT) exchange saw it drop to $1.01 on 9 November. After that, there was some recovery and, as of 2 December 2022, it was worth about $1.34.

At that time, there were 330,688,061.33 RUNE in circulation out of a total supply of 498,910,727. This gave the crypto a market cap of around $442m, making it the 73rd-largest crypto by that metric.

Thorchain price prediction round-up

With that all said and done, let’s take a look at some of the thorchain price predictions that were being made as of 2 December 2022. It is important to point out at this stage that price forecasts, especially when it comes to something as potentially volatile as cryptocurrency, often turn out to be wrong. Also, you should bear in mind that many long-term crypto price predictions are made using an algorithm, which means that they can change at any time.

First, CoinCodex had a short-term thorchain crypto price prediction that said the token could rise to a little under $1.43 by 7 December before falling back down significantly to trade at $0.702 on 1 January 2023. The site’s technical analysis for RUNE was bearish, but only just, with 15 indicators giving downbeat signals against 14 sending out bullish ones. 

Next, DigitalCoinPrice made a RUNE price prediction that said the token could be worth $1.55 this year, $3.21 next year and $4.82 the year after that. By 2025, the site claimed that the crypto could trade at $5.96, reaching a potential $7.02 in 2027 and $9.86 in 2028.

By the end of the decade, the thorchain forecast was for the token to have broken through the $10 barrier to stand at $13.70. The site went on to make a thorchain price prediction for 2030 that saw it trade at $19.10, with it possibly reaching around $25.88 in 2031. 

Meanwhile, CaptainAltCoin had a thorchain token price prediction that indicated the crypto was in for a fall over the short term, with it predicted to potentially stand at $0.7746 in February 2023 before recovering to $1.93 by December. The site then made a thorchain price prediction for 2025 which saw it potentially reach $15.94, before potentially crashing to just $2.96 by December 2027.

There was, however, better news ahead for investors, as the site claimed that RUNE could be worth $39.85 in 2030 before it stuck its neck out to make a thorchain price prediction for 2040 of $79.69. 

Finally, Wallet Investor was far more bearish when it came to making a thorchain price prediction for 2023. The site said that the token was in for a very difficult 12 months and that its price could well collapse to a mere $0.0741 by early December 2023. 

When considering a RUNE token price prediction, it’s important to keep in mind that cryptocurrency markets remain extremely volatile, making it difficult to accurately predict what a coin or token’s price will be in a few hours, and even harder to give long-term estimates. As such, analysts and algorithm-based forecasters can and do get their predictions wrong.

If you are considering investing in cryptocurrency coins and tokens, we recommend that you always do your own research. Look at the latest market trends, news, technical and fundamental analysis, and expert opinion before making any investment decision. Keep in mind that past performance is no guarantee of future returns, and never trade with money that you cannot afford to lose.

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