Orca Price Prediction | Is Orca a Good Investment?

Decentralised exchanges (DEXs) have gained mainstream popularity over the years amid the growing concerns for privacy and mitigating hacking risks.

Launched in 2021, Orca (ORCA), a DEX based on Solana (SOL) blockchain, witnessed a significant price increase and reached an all-time high of $22.30 in November 2021. However, amid the crypto market collapse in mid-June, the ORCA token’s price fell dramatically as investment sentiment shifted to risk-off. 

As of 21 July, the price had recovered from June’s meltdown with the coin trading at $0.95; however, still down nearly 96% from the peak.

The overall DEXs market is highly competitive, and several key players, such as Uniswap (UNI), and dYdX (DYDX), are the market leaders based on the trading volume and the market share.

How will ORCA fare against its rivals in the face of such fierce competition and a prevailing bear market? Here we take a look at the coin’s price analysis and the latest Orca price prediction.

What is Orca (ORCA)?

Orca (ORCA) is a decentralised exchange launched in 2021 that uses an automated market maker (AMM) and a Fair Price Indicator to allow swap crypto tokens.

There are two types of cryptocurrency exchanges: standard order-book and AMM exchanges. In order-book exchanges, the exchange matches users wanting to purchase with those wishing to sell equivalent quantities of tokens. 

In AMM exchanges, users trade with a pool of tokens rather than directly with others. AMM is a protocol-driven computer programme that automates the process of providing liquidity on cryptocurrency trading platforms.

The Fair Price Indicator feature determines if the quoted price for a particular trade is within 1% of the current market rate on CoinGecko, and whether slippage is less than 1%. If one of those checks is triggered, the user gets a rate or slippage warning and is requested to verify or cancel the transaction.

To use Orca, users must first create a Solana wallet, and since Orca is a non-custodial exchange, users’ tokens are swapped straight to and from their wallets. In addition, since Orca is built on the Solana blockchain, users must hold its native currency SOL in their wallets to pay network fees for each transaction.

Furthermore, Orca is a community-driven exchange. Users get a say in the protocol’s governance by staking their ORCA tokens in exchange for incentives in the form of extra coins.

Orca token news and price drivers

Orca has undergone several important milestones lately, which may drive the ORCA token price in future.

Launch of Whirlpool Builders Program

Orca announced the Whirlpool Builders Program in May 2022 with a grant of up to $200,000 in ORCA tokens.

Under this initiative, Orca provided funding for upcoming programmers in Solana to create applications on top of Whirlpools, the company’s concentrated liquidity pools.

This program was introduced to allow a broader group of users to concentrated liquidity and to increase returns for liquidity providers (LPs) for swaps through efficient capital deployment.

Launch of Orcanauts NFT collection

Orca launched the ‘Orcanauts’ non-fungible-tokens (NFTs) collection in November 2021, with 10,000 NFTs. The sales proceeds were distributed in a 3:1 ratio between the charity and the artist.

The Orca team anticipates that this project will be only the first step towards a wider Orcaverse, where the project will explore the interplay between NFTs and decentralised finance (DeFi).

Orca’s Fall Festival

Orca celebrated its first-ever ‘Fall Festival’ in 2021 in September – October 2021, when the network increased its weekly rewards from 300,000 to 600,000 ORCA and established several Double-Dip pools.

These pools are based on Aquafarms, farms where liquidity providers receive both ORCA tokens and trading fees as incentives. Providers can also earn native tokens of partner projects. 

First funding round

In September 2021, Orca closed its first funding round for $18m. Polychain, Placeholder, and Three Arrows were the companies that led the round, and Orca also received investments from Jump Capital, Sino Global Capital, Collab & Currency, DeFiance, Zee Prime, Coinbase Ventures and Solana Capital.

“Orca’s AMM is a critical addition to the Solana ecosystem. We are excited by the strength of the team, performance, and their community focused mission,” said Kyle Davies, Co-founder of Three Arrows.

“Not only is Orca responsive and affordable, but it is finance made fun, with a cheery experience, community, and broader values-based mission. It’s teams like Orca that will bring crypto to the mainstream and redefine how we think of finance in our everyday lives,” said Placeholder partner Chris Burniske.

Wider cryptocurrency sentiment 

The wider sentiment in cryptocurrency markets is also driving the ORCA coin. In 2022, cryptocurrencies are suffering through a bear market amid wider shift to risk-off, recession fears, soaring inflation and tightening monetary policy. 

The depeg of Terra Luna’s former algorithmic stablecoin and the following crash of Luna’s coin (LUNC), has rippled through cryptocurrency markets and strengthened the bear case, with veterans such as BTC and ETH slumping over 50%.

ORCA/USD price analysis

The ORCA token witnessed a significant uptick soon after launch, according to CoinMarketCap data. The coin’s price spiked from $2.15 on 10 August to $12.37 on 17 September, a spike of 475%. However, the rally didn’t sustain, and the price declined to $4.83 on 18 September.

This was followed by a significant surge to $20.15 on 3 October, a 317% jump from the September low. However, bears eventually gained control and the ORCA token bottomed at $9.15 on 12 October.

The broader market climate turned bullish in October, and Ethereum (ETH), the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, reached its all-time high of $4,891 on 16 November 2021.

The price action for the ORCA token remained bullish, reaching an all-time high of $22.30 on 16 November. After the peak, however, the price collapsed to $4.78 on 21 December, a decline of nearly 79%. It closed 2021 at $4.99.

The ORCA token price failed to get any significant momentum at the start of 2022 as the broader market climate was bearish, and its price declined to $2.26 on 28 January.

The price action turned bullish briefly, and the ORCA token reached $4.11 on 1 February. However, extreme uncertainty and wider cryptocurrency sell-off brought the price down to $1.95 on 15 March, a decline of more than 52%.

Between March and June, the ORCA token traded in a highly bearish market, and declined to an all-time low of $0.35 on 19 June. As of 22 July, the coin was trading at $0.9455 with a market capitalisation of $19.7m.

Orca price prediction: Targets for 2022, 2025 and 2030

If the bull market resumes, the trading activity on centralised and decentralised exchanges is likely to increase, which could benefit all the players involved, including Orca.

According to the Orca coin price prediction from CoinCodex based on technical analysis, as of 22 July, the coin price could increase by 128% to reach $2.15 by 27 July 2022.

Meanwhile, algorithm-based forecasters gave mixed long-term Orca crypto price predictions.

According to Wallet Investor’s Orca price prediction for 2022, the coin could be a bad long-term investment. It expected the average price to hit $0.0686 by the end of 2022.

According to DigitalCoin’s Orca price prediction, the average price of the coin in 2022 could be $1.23, rising to $1.42 in 2023 and $1.50 in 2024. Its Orca price prediction for 2025 suggested that the token price could rise to $1.79 in 2025 and $3.84 in 2029, and $4.99 in 2031.

According to Price Prediction’s ORCA price prediction, it could average $1.16 in 2022 and $3.26 in 2025. Price Prediction’s Orca price prediction for 2030 indicated that the coin could reach $20.92.

When looking for ORCA predictions, remember that analysts’ and algorithm-based expectations can be wrong. They are based on technical analysis and historical price action. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

It’s essential to conduct your own research before trading. Remember that your decision to trade depends on your expertise in the market, the spread of your portfolio and how comfortable you feel about losing money. You should never trade or invest money that you cannot afford to lose.

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