Momentum for the pinnacle layer-one protocols has been on the rise throughout August as the highly anticipated rollout of the London hard fork on the Ethereum (ETH) network has washed footling to address the network's high transaction fees and delayed confirmations.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the quest to notice a more welcoming smart contract environment has been Cosmos (ATOM), a project focused on interoperability that has fix out to become the "internet of blockchains" thanks to its Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.

Information from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of ATOM rallied 180% from a low of $8.87 on July 20 to a high of $24.77 on Aug. 22 every bit its 24-hour trading volume surged from an boilerplate of $250 million to $one.87 billion.

Cantlet/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Three reasons for the potent showing from Cantlet over the past month include the release of decentralized finance protocols on the network, the launch of a sidechain that enables the exchange of assets between Cosmos and Ethereum and the announcement of plans to bring Bitcoin (BTC) to the Creation ecosystem.

Expanding DeFi capabilities

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has been 1 of the biggest developments to emerge from the blockchain ecosystem over the by couple of years and is prepare to revolutionize the traditional financial sector.

The recent launch of the first performance user interface for DeFi on Cosmos, known equally Emeris, has been one of the biggest movers of Atom toll of tardily because the introduction of cross-concatenation exchange capabilities excited members of the Cosmos community and led to a spike in need for the token.

Through the new interface, users can admission a number of cross-chain DeFi protocols on the Cosmos network and merchandise avails on blockchains similar IRISnet (IRIS), Persistence (XPRT) and the Akash Network (AKT).

Ethereum bridge opens up opportunitie

A 2d reason for the Atom rally is the integration of Sifchain with the IBC, which fabricated the project the outset decentralized exchange to enable trades between the Creation ecosystem and the Ethereum network.

Ethereum currently hosts most of the top smart-contract protocols for DeFi and NFTs and this integration allows users of both ecosystems to easily merchandise assets between the ii networks.

Wrapped Bitcoin comes to Creation

A tertiary reason for the current bullish momentum comes from an Aug. 23 announcement that the Interchain Foundation (IFC), an arrangement that funds development grants in the Creation ecosystem, had granted funding to the Interlay development fund for bringing Bitcoin to the Cosmos network.

Bitcoin is the undeniable leader of the crypto market and it holds a vast majority of the accumulated wealth of the ecosystem, then the ability to operate on Cosmos has the potential to bring new users to the network.

Interlay utilizes a lock-up and vault engineering science that lets users secure their Bitcoin and mint fully collateralized interBTC that tin be used in many DeFi projects and the feature is already available as a Polkadot parachain.

This integration volition allow BTC to be used in the Cosmos DeFi ecosystem and it will bring deep liquidity and an increase in utility to the network.

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