Nexo Token Enjoys Short-Lived Rally Upon Binance Listing

NEXO, the token of the Nexo crypto lending protocol that offers credit cards and loans to retail users, surged over the last 24 hours after one of the world’s largest exchanges, Binance, listed the token.

The token peaked at $3.64, just 13% off its all-time high in February. The token increased by nearly 60% in the space of a few hours after Binance's listing went live earlier Friday. Nexo has since retreated to trade at around $2.33, but is still up 6% over the last 24 hours. The token's market capitalization is $1.3 billion.

Pablo Jódar, financial products manager at Storm Partners, a systems provider for the cryptocurrency space in Europe, said Nexo got a positive tailwind from the recent partnership announcement with Mastercard (MA). The credit card company unveiled a crypto-backed payments card that allows users to spend without having to sell their digital assets, and offers customers 2% cash back on their transactions.

“This partnership puts Nexo a step closer to becoming a crypto bank to help retail clients access the digital space,” Jódar said.

“This was also a positive week for the crypto-lending space, as Goldman Sachs [GS] announced [it] executed the first fiat loan” backed by bitcoin (BTC), Jódar said. "It shows a very strong interest from Wall Street banks to adopt crypto assets as a new type of alternative assets.”

Crypto assets with a market capitalization above $1 billion were mostly trading lower Friday. Ether (ETH) was trading down 1.2%, bitcoin by 1% and Cardano's ADA by 1%.