Stagnation or decline in the prices of leading cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum may lead to the rise of other assets behind the scenes. Just like there is vibrant underwater life beneath the surface of a calm pond, there are always exciting developments happening somewhere in the crypto market.

When we look at the recent period, the decline in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) prices shows that the cryptocurrency market has generally stagnated. Price movements since last Friday have reduced the total market value by 3.4% to 2.22 trillion dollars. This situation can be interpreted as cryptocurrencies losing some of their appeal for investors in the short term.

However, this general picture should not cause us to overlook how rich and diverse the cryptocurrency market actually is. Despite being overshadowed by Bitcoin’s stagnation, there is one crypto asset that has experienced an incredible rise in recent days: the KAS token.

The KAS token, which belongs to the Kası blockchain, has recorded a massive increase of 26% in the last week. The token, ranked 27th in market capitalization, is currently up over 18 cents and is rapidly approaching the record high of $0.196 reached earlier this month. This rise places KAS among the top 100 best-performing digital assets in terms of market cap.

Behind this sudden rise in the KAS token lies an important decision made by the Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital (MARA). The company announced that it decided to start KAS mining in order to diversify its revenue stream.

Marathon Digital announced that it has mined a total of 93 million KAS tokens since September. This move has the potential to change the rules of the game in the cryptocurrency market.

So, what makes the KAS token so special? KAS uses the “proof-of-work” protocol used in traditional Bitcoin mining. However, there is an innovation in this protocol used by KAS. This protocol, called GHOSTDAG (Greedy Heaviest Observed Sub-Tree Directed Acyclic Graph), is designed to increase performance and scalability.

Unlike traditional methods, the GHOSTDAG protocol prioritizes not only the longest chain but also additional blocks referenced by other blocks in the network. In this way, the KAS blockchain becomes more secure, flexible and fast.

In traditional blockchains, the longest chain is usually prioritized to ensure ultimate consistency, which slows down the transaction speed of the network.

We can say that the recent rise in the KAS token is not only an increase in price, but also increased interest from investors. According to Coinglass data, the weekly gain in KAS was accompanied by a 58% increase in open interest in futures, reaching $65 million. This indicates that there is new money inflow to the bullish side and confirms the price rally.