Yesterday was one of those days where the crypto markets were overwhelmingly bearish, led by Bitcoin whose crypto market dominance forces altcoins to move in the same direction. The only top 50 coin in the green at least for a few hours were stablecoins and one altcoin called Unus Sed Leo.

What is Unus Sed Leo?

Unus Sed Leo or LEO is a cryptocurrency that was launched in May 2019 by the iFinex, the parent company that owns the Bitfinex crypto exchange. The digital currency was launched as a utility token that can be used to lower exchange, lending, and trading fees on iFinex platforms. A total of 1 billion LEO tokens were minted initially, out of which 660 million of them were Ethereum-based and the remaining 340 million LEO tokens were EOS-based.

The launch on two different exchanges makes it ideal for the cross-chain transfer of tokens because the price remains the same. The coin is ideal for empowering Bitfinex’s community. For example, holders benefit when the exchange conducts buybacks and token burns which reduce the supply, thus making it more valuable. On the other hand, it can be used to reduce fees on the Bitfinex platform. It can also be used for soft staking on the exchange where one can hold the cryptocurrency on the exchange so that they can earn a share of the profits generated from exchange fees.

LEO tokenomics and price performance

LEO was one of the top 15 cryptocurrencies in terms of market cap during its launch, but the consequent rollout of other cryptocurrencies has seen it drop ranks and it is currently position 29 on the Coinmarketcap. It currently has a circulating supply of almost 954 million coins and its market cap currently stands slightly above $2.9 billion.

LEO is currently trading at $3.05 after registering a 3.58% gain in the last 24 hours at the time of this press. Its current price is also up by 5.00% in the last 7 days. This means it is one of the few cryptocurrencies that managed to overcome the bearish pressure in the last few days. Its current performance is a notable improvement from the January 2021 lows of around $1.35.

Source: CoinMarketCap

LEO’s impressive performance is likely linked to an influx of buying power since earlier this month. This is supported by the recent market cap increase. For example, its market cap went up by more than $5 million within the last 24 hours according to a crypto analyst who goes by the user name @analyst5_bot on Twitter.

The event that might be fueling the purchase of LEO and thus fueling its bullish price performance is most likely the upcoming presale that was initially supposed to take place on Unicrypt Network on July 5. However, the project leads announced through a tweet that they plan to push back the launch to an undisclosed date.

Presales are usually conducted right before an ICO to boost the price of an asset. This would explain why LEO gathered enough bullish momentum to overcome market-wide selling pressure in the last few days. The fact that the actual presale date has been pushed back and the new date was not announced provides additional room for a higher potential price tag.

More importantly, the presale highlights plans to expand the scope of the LEO cryptocurrency. An increase in LEO projects is good for the cryptocurrency’s future because more demand translates to improved price performance. The expanded utility might also encourage the launch of LEO on major exchanges such as Binance in the future, a move that would make it even more visible to the retail market.