Stephanie Douse 
Despite the recent instability in the crypto space, RUNE, THORChain’s native cryptocurrency, has seen a significant price increase in the last three weeks.
Despite the broader market correction, the RUNE price has risen 173 percent since February 24, the day Russia began its invasion into Ukraine.
Furthermore, RUNE’s total-value-locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) has increased by 100% in the last month and a half. THORChain, which is built on top of Cosmos, provides cross-chain liquidity by trading native crypto assets in a decentralized system.
It also stood out from other DEXs since its swapping mechanism allowed users to keep custody of their assets. By utilizing RUNE’s inherent liquidity pools, all assets swapped on the THORChain blockchain are routed through RUNE. This mechanism ensures that RUNE is under constant buying pressure.
The Reason for the Increase in RUNE DeFi TVL
Miles Deutscher, a popular crypto analyst, also explains why DeFi TVL has increased by 100 percent. He writes:
The launch of synthetic assets trading has been a major catalyst for this increase. “Synthetic assets are derivatives that track the price of another asset.” The launch of this feature enables cheaper and faster swaps for users. Thor’s Chaosnet enables synthetic assets to be traded with no IL and with single asset exposure.
UThe mechanism will let users be able to hold and trade a representation of an L1 asset faster and at a lesser cost. This helps to increase network usage, which in turn serves to increase DeFi TVL.
Another major development is that the LUNA UST integration wi on the THORchain within the next week. As a result, post the hardfork, LUNA, UST, and RUNE may be easily functional on the THORChain, allowing users to swap from L1 to L1 without requiring wrapped assets, straight through their non-custodial wallets.
Both RUNE and LUNA’s tokenomics will play a critical part in assisting both crypto’s strong price appreciation.