Even in a down market, there can be opportunities that buck the overall trend. And one of the tokens trending upwards of late is Tectonic crypto (TONIC).

Two big events led to TONIC’s recent surge. For starters, it was listed on the Crypto.com app on Jan. 24. And just two days before that, the TONIC airdrop snapshot was completed. The actual airdrop will take place at some point in February. You can stay on top of this via the project’s Discord or Twitter feed.

Since these two announcements, the price of Tectonic crypto has surged upwards around 80%. There’s still nothing quite like an airdrop to get the crypto crowd pumped up. And easier access via a popular exchange sure does help a lot too. But before you jump in and ride this new token “to the moon,” there are some important things to take note of.

What Is Tectonic Crypto?

Tectonic crypto is the native token of the Tectonic protocol. This is a decentralized money market protocol that is designed to allow users to supply liquidity or borrow. The suppliers that provide liquidity to the market earn passive income in the process. And borrowers are, in turn, able to borrow liquidity in an over-collateralized way.

In short, the incentive program, which is powered by TONIC, is meant to provide several use cases while providing the functionality of a proper money market.

Those holding TONIC are the beneficiaries of interest gained though supplying assets to the protocol. And unlike traditional money markets, they don’t have to actively manage their assets.

Furthermore, traders can borrow certain cryptocurrencies. This allows traders to capitalize on possible short-term upswings in the market. Or they can simply farm yields. Additionally, this protocol allows access to other tokens without having to liquidate other assets.

All of this basically means that liquidity providers will have their assets pooled together and controlled by smart contracts… Resulting in resources for the protocol. And it’s worth noting that users can withdrawal their supply at any time.

It’s good to see projects like this popping up in the crypto world. It’s a sign that crypto as a whole is maturing. And as it does so, it’s likely to become increasingly popular for institutional and retail investors.

But There Is Some Competition Here

The Tectonic protocol looks sound. Its whitepaper outlines the important details Tectonic crypto investors might want to know about. If you want more details on the protocol and want to learn how to supply or borrow, you can read all the juicy details there.

However, Tectonic isn’t the first project to get involved in money markets like this. The Goldfinch Protocol token is also making waves in this space. Spell crypto is another such token powering a lending platform. Both of these came hot out of the gate as well. And both eventually came back down quite quickly.

However, the marketing team behind Tectonic crypto has been doing a stellar job of spreading the word. If it’s able to continue raising awareness of the Tectonic protocol and its native token, that could do wonders in terms of separating it from competitors. But barring some kind of miracle, this will always be a sub- $0.01 token. And that’s by design.

The total supply of Tectonic crypto is a whopping 500 trillion. Tokens with a massive supply like this are often a red flag. But because this project is built around farming and lending, the large supply will keep the price down and make it more accessible for people in developing nations. That’s a key point because those are the places these types of microloans can do the most good.

Also, more than 50% of the total supply will be used for community incentives. So this project does have high hopes of rewarding adopters, which is good to see.

The Bottom Line on Tectonic Crypto

At last check, an investment of just over $700 could score you 1 billion Tectonic crypto tokens. So if you’ve ever wanted a billion of something, here’s your chance. And all that needs to happen to double your stake is for TONIC to double in value to $0.0000014322.

Despite the massive supply out there, this doesn’t seem unreasonable. The Tectonic protocol has already lent out more than $312 million. And the total supply of funds available is more than $598 million. Those are impressive figures for this relatively new protocol. If word continues to spread, Tectonic could play an important role in the continued growth of crypto loan programs.

Last year, the volume of crypto loans surged more than 1,900% year-over-year. And by most measures, that number is expected to increase in the years to come. If that does turn out to be the case, the ease of use of the Tectonic protocol is likely to spread. And all of the incentive programs established for liquidity providers could be just enough to give it a leg up on some of the competition. From an altruistic perspective, it sounds like a no-brainer of an investment. But if momentum of this project slows down – or stalls outright – it could disappear just as quickly as it arrived. But we hope that’s not the case.

If you’d like to calculate your potential returns before investing, check out our crypto calculator here.