In a dramatic twist, Filecoin's top rival, Storj, a decentralized storage service provider, is leading the altcoin momentum today. According to data from CoinMarketCap, STORJ is changing hands at a price of $0.5296, up by 51.55% over the past 24 hours. The token's trading volume jumped 2,455% over the past 24 hours to power the growth.
While STORJ does not naturally lead this altcoin momentum, its upsurge today is a testament to its growing appeal among users.
STORJ fundamentals
STORJ is notably one of the early pioneers of decentralized storage services, with its whitepaper introduced in 2014. Despite being relatively smaller in market capitalization than Filecoin, it pioneered the decentralized storage concept.
The STORJ model involves thousands of node operators providing storage space for users, who pay a fraction of the amount they would have for alternative centralized options like the Amazon Web Service (AWS), Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure.
While Storj's popularity since it was launched has been masked by its mainstream competitors, the ongoing price surge is an indication that the protocol and its native token still have a very dedicated community and investor base, most of whom now stand to benefit from the growing prices at this time.
Advocacy for caution
The growth of STORJ is best considered organic, as no obvious news appears to be triggering the pump. Riding on this, investors, particularly those in profit at this time, may need to stay alert, considering the fact that Storj team members might be planning a phased liquidation of their holdings.
Crypto analytics insight provider Lookonchain observed that the Storj team transferred the sum of 2.5 million STORJ tokens worth approximately $1.22 million to the Binance exchange as prices rose. While this sum is a fraction of what the team holds, any potential liquidation can visibly derail the growth of the digital currency and create a setback for investors across the board.