REN: Worth Investing In?

I bought some REN a while back, on a recommendation from Tokenmetrics that it could see a 4-5 increase in value, and I fancied a punt on another alt.

3 months later and its doing OK - its dollar value has more than double since I bought in and it's up around 20% on BTC, so happy days so far. It's currently valued at just under $1 and it's had a good few days, now sitting at MarketCap rank 59.

But I've only now got around to figuring out what it's all about, and this is my very basic layman's understanding of what it does....

What is REN?

REN is another 'finance' token aiming to facilitate blockchain interoperability - basically it aims to make it easier for you to 'wrap' (for example) Bitcoin and then stake it in various Defi projects to make a return.

To provide an example you can, from the Ren.io homepage, use 'RenBridge' to link to the Ethereum network using Metamask and then mint renBTC (or BCH or ZEC) which can then be staked and used to yield farm on various Defi projects.

There is a fee for minting the ren(coins) - at time of writing minting 0.1 renBTC will cost you around $60, 1 BTC around $150.

renBTC is basically a competitor to wBTC, and it's quite popular, with 18 000 renBTC currently minted, meaning renBTC is ranked 66th my marketcap valuation.

The 'minting' and communication with other chains is done via RenVM, a protocol which does all of the connecting work in the background with the end result that there are are fewer hoops for you to jump through if you want to get your BTC 'wrapped' and earning you a return.

Differences between renBTC and wBTC

RenBTC does not rely on liquidity pool mechanics to maintain its peg to the BTC price, it maintains its peg because the same value of BTC is stored on RenVM, and on dark nodes rather than in a centralised custodial fund.

The Ren token is used to secure the network - network operators who run the nodes have to put up a bond of 100 000 REN in order to be able to earn part of the fees that users pay to used RenVM

REN - worth investing in?

Yes...

• At time of writing there are limited options of what you can mint on ren, but if you read their blog the development seems to be pretty rapid.
• It looks impressive having renBTC so high up the market cap rankings
• Everyone wants some DEFI action and this makes it easier to get involved.
• The total supply of REN tokens (1 BN) is practically already in existence.
• It's marginally cheaper than to mint RenBTC than wBTC.
• I'm not sure why exactly, but apparently the conversion of BTC to renBTC is faster than with WBTC.

No...

• It's not that much cheaper to mint RenBTC, small differences.
• There's a lot of competition in the world of cross-chain mechanics - LINK for example, and RUNE could be a major game changer down the line.
• Is there enough of a 'use case' for the REN token itself to drive the price up? I guess that depends on fees and competition to run nodes?!?
• For me personally, it's just another finance token so it's not that exciting.

REN: Final Thoughts

I do get the feeling that there's a lot of integrity behind REN - the team really seem dedicated to making Defi easy, and that's where the buzz is in early 2021, and for a relatively young project, 18 000 renBTC is a sizeable sum and adds to the REN hype.

I like the fact that it's a faster and more accessible way of getting your BTC (etc.) into Defi.

I think for me the REN I've got is a hold, but I've put a limit sell in for when it does a two times my BTC buy in price as I just think there's too much competition in this rapidly evolving space.

Posted Using LeoFinance ^Beta