The price of Elrond (EGLD) has moved up over 600% since the beginning of the year thanks to its move to the decentralized finance (DeFi) space and cross-chain integrations that helped bolster investors’ confidence in the cryptoasset.

Elrond is a blockchain protocol designed to offer fast transaction speeds to users and supports decentralized applications, enterprise use cases and more. Its price surge started in December 2020 when bitcoin broke above its previous all-time high near $20,000 and EGLD was getting listed on more and more platforms.

It kept on going as Elrond Network added interoperability with the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), which is rapidly becoming a DeFi hotspot,  with EGLD itself debuting on the decentralized finance space over the last few months.

The price action was bolstered by the launch of the Maiar wallet, which offers users features that include the ability to make social payments, as Cointelegraph reports, and to stake their coins to earn additional rewards.

Data shows EGLD has moved from little over $24 to over $180 at press time thanks to these advances.

EGLDUSDT Chart via TradingView

The Maiar wallet lets users transact using an interface similar to the one used when sending messages to smartphone contracts. It now has over 100,000 users and has reportedly supported over 2 million transactions.

On top of its DeFi and cross-chain integrations, Elrond has established partnerships with other players in the space including decentralized oracle provider Razor Network (RAZOR), to introduce scalable data steams.

Elrond’s price may also be benefitting from the Coinbase effect, as EGLD has been listed on Coinbase Custody, making it easier for large investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency.

Data from CryptoCompare shows that EGLD’s price performance has helped it outperform BTC over the last 30 days. While the flagship cryptocurrency is up over 31% in said period, EGLD is up 404%

Featured image via Pixabay.