It’s been a tough month for cryptocurrencies. The market has been dragging through the mud as inflation, increased regulation and the LUNA crash caused fear, uncertainty and doubt amongst investors. Most cryptocurrencies have barely managed to stay afloat, and some have fallen well below half of their November 2021 all-time highs.

But amid the arduous crypto rout, one particular token has leapfrogged to new highs while the rest of the altcoins struggle to even establish a footing. The XCN token of the Chain Protocol has surged 120.7 percent over the last month. It has shot up from $0.082 at the start of May to $0.181 at the time of writing.

Before we delve into the reasons for the spike, let’s look a closer look at the Chain protocol.

What is the Chain Protocol?

The Chain Protocol is a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) provider built on the Ethereum blockchain. It is designed to “manage issuance, ownership and control of digital assets.” The Chain protocol helps financial organisations set up their services and processes from the ground up. This is of great use to financial organisations that need a private blockchain to manage assets and transactions.

Chain’s offerings are divided into two parts:

1. Chain Core – Financial organisations can leverage this service to set up their own blockchain and use it to manage all the assets they are handling. The Chain blockchain is also interoperable with other conventional networks, thus making it easy to transfer assets.

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2. Sequence – This is a ledger-as-a-service offering. This ledger lets organisations track all their assets and use XCN tokens to transact. The assets are also tokenised and managed to make the job easier.

Why did the XCN rally?

While the benefits of the Chain Protocol are evident, the reasons behind its token rally are not exactly clear. CoinTelegraph speculates a few reasons behind this price rise.

Firstly, in March 2022, a smart contract on the Chain Protocol carried out a rebranding of the native token from CHN to XCN. Soon after this was implemented, the XCN token got listed on various exchanges across the world. This led to quite a surge in the trading volumes on these exchanges.

Secondly, the XCN token is cross-chain compatible and was integrated into the Binance Chain on May 11, 2022. This unlocked the token-swapping potential for XCN on PancakeSwap.

PancakeSwap is a protocol where users could lend their XCN tokens to the network and get rewarded for their contribution towards liquidity. This further propelled trading volumes for the XCN token and pushed its price from $0.080 to $0.087 on the same day (an 8.7 percent rise).

Chain also has provided blockchain solutions to a number of high-profile financial firms, including the likes of Visa, Nasdaq and Citibank, among others. However, while none of these associations explains the token price rally, they speak a lot about its credibility as a project.

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Another plus point to Chain’s credibility is its list of investors. Since it was founded in 2014, Chain has received more than $40 million in funding from some of the most renowned investors, including Khosla Ventures and RRE Ventures. Its strategic partners also include some of the biggest names in the financial world, such as Capital One, Fiserv, and Orange.

Further, in Jan 2022, Deepak Thapliyal, the CEO of Chain made headlines for purchasing a Bored Ape Yacht club NFT for a record $6.8 million. It was the most expensive BAYC NFT ever sold and the 12th largest NFT sale in general.

Currently, the XCN token is trading at $0.181 with a market capitalisation of $3.076 billion. Presently 16.95 billion XCN tokens are in circulation, which is about 25 percent of the 68.89 billion that will eventually exist.