The Cosmos ecosystem is set to undergo its Theta upgrade in a few hours. The said reform deals with interchain accounts and would enable the Cosmos Hub to act as a host chain.
Post the upgrade, other blockchains with interchain accounts enabled would be able to execute, create, and control accounts on the Cosmos Hub. They’d also be able to perform Cosmos Hub native transactions.
At an approximate block height of 1008539, the network would undergo its upgrade on 12 April. Notably, Theta was updated on the testnet in March itself.
The Rho upgrade is scheduled right after [in Q2 ’22] and would allow the Cosmos Hub to also be a controller chain.
Binance extends support
Owing to the upgrade, exchanges like Binance have already announced their support. In a recent blog post, it asserted,
“Deposits and withdrawals of ATOM will be suspended approximately starting from 2022-04-12 11:00 (UTC).”
However, it should be noted that the trading of ATOM will not be affected during the network upgrade and Binance will handle all technical requirements involved for all users HODLing ATOM.
The deposits and withdrawals for ATOM, in turn, would be re-opened once the upgraded network is deemed to be stable.
Cosmos’ price-metric front
Cosmos’ native token’s prospects on the price front have been quite underwhelming. Just like most top tokens from the market, ATOM has had a pretty rough week. After noting dips of 6% and 20% on the daily and weekly window respectively, the alt was trading at a value of $25.4 at the time of press.
Further, the market has been devoid of buy-side pressure for quite some time. The RSI revolved below its moving average and flashed an undernourished reading of 38.2 at press time.
ATOM’s cumulative volume has also been oscillating in and around its multi-week lows, indicating that investors’ interest in the token has taken a hit. However, it should be noted that the social sentiment has started making headway and has already started flashing signs of a change in trend.
Data aggregating platform LunarCrush brought to light that Cosmos’ hourly social engagement crossed 14.23 million, making it a new 90-day peak. On the whole, both—the engagement and the dominance—have witnessed inclinations of 321% and 41% respectively.
Can history repeat itself?
Before concluding, it shouldn’t be forgotten that ATOM’s price has reacted positively post its last two upgrades [highlighted on TradingView’s chart above]. Right after the Vega upgrade was completed in December last year, the token was able to pull off a 121% rally. Before that, even the Delta upgrade in July triggered a 251% rally.
Interestingly, the market conditions during both the phases had been quite similar. The Delta upgrade happened a couple of months after May’s flash crash when the broader market was recovering. Similarly, the Vega upgrade took place right after November’s monotonous dry spell.
Even now, the market has been in its downtrend phase, and sooner or later, is expected to recover. Thus, market participants, to a fair extent, can expect ATOM’s price to take off in the weeks to come.