First Hyperledger-based cryptocurrency explodes 486% overnight on Bittrex BTC listing

A little-known altcoin known as Metacoin (MTC) surged to 486% gains in just 24 hours on Jan. 18, after Bittrex announced it would be listing the coin against Bitcoin (BTC).

Metacoin is built on the Hyperledger network, an umbrella project of open-source technologies focused around building permissioned blockchain ecosystems for large cross-industry enterprises. Metacoin became the first cryptocurrency of Hyperledger’s to achieve mainnet status when it went live in 2018.

Hyperledger was founded by the Linux Foundation, and is overseen by a host of “premium members”, comprising leading technology and finance companies, such as IBM, J.P. Morgan, Fujitsu, Hitachi, and more.

On Jan. 15, the Bittrex Global cryptocurrency exchange announced that it had opened its Metacoin wallet for deposits of MTC, and that trading against Bitcoin would soon follow.

Little over 48 hours after the announcement was made, the value of each MTC coin had more than quintupled. From a starting price of $0.026540 on Sunday night, the dollar value of the coin increased more than fivefold, climbing to a brief peak of $0.155600 by Monday afternoon - a 486% increase.

Metacoin trade volume hit an all-time high of $482,000 on the day, all emanating from a single BTC trading pair on the Liquid exchange. This just exceeds the $444,000 volume recorded in August 2020, during the coin’s first two weeks on the open market.

Notably, despite the surge following hot on the heels of the announcement by Bittrex Global, no trading data for Metacoin yet exists on the site, and the BTC/MTC pair was still signalled as being “offline”.

Taking Hyperledger’s cross-industry modular toolkit as a starting point, Metacoin acts as a multi-function blockchain platform where tokens for businesses and commerce can be issued on-chain. The platform also plays host to a number of DApps, including ColdBank, a crypto custody service which utilizes IBM’s LinuxONE technology, as well as blockchain gaming apps.