Following Trump’s announcement of a strategic crypto reserve, the crypto markets saw major bullish momentum. One of the tokens that benefited was UNUS SED LEO. Its latest momentum propelled it to the 13th spot among all crypto assets.
On Monday, March 3, the utility token of Ifinex, UNUS SED LEO (meaning one, but a lion in Latin), reached an all-time high of $10.01. The token is tied to the ecosystem of the Bitfinex crypto exchange, which Ifinex owns.
The immediate reason for LEO’s price increase was President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of a US crypto strategic reserve, which boosted the market overall. However, UNUS SED LEO was growing steadily even before that, relying on its robust burn mechanics.
Bitfinex Boost UNUS SED LEO
Like Binance’s BNB token, UNUS SED LEO derives much of its price increase from exchange buybacks. Specifically, Ifinex uses 27% of its consolidated gross revenues each month to buy back the tokens. Moreover, the exchange is committed to using 80% of the funds recovered from the Bitfinex hack for the burn. The company promises to continue to buy the tokens until none are in circulation.
For this reason, the token has been growing steadily over the past year, with a major price increase in March, when it reached $9.27. That was a good month for the exchange, which used its profits to buy back the tokens.
Due to its deflationary mechanism, the token directly correlated with Bitfinex’s revenues. The Bitfinex exchange does well. Ifniex can buy back many tokens, boosting demand and the price. So far, the exchange has burned 79 million tokens out of a total supply of 924 million.
This also means that the token correlates to the overall crypto market performance, directly impacting Bitfinex’s revenues. When trading volumes are up, so are Bitfinex’s profits, which leads to more token buybacks.
Centralized crypto exchanges remain the dominant hubs for crypto trading. As long as this continues, CEX tokens like LEO will play a major role in the crypto markets.
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