While the past year has been marked by the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi), centralized entities like Coinbase and Binance continue to be some of the most important players in the industry as a whole, as they are essential in attracting attention to promising projects and pave the way for wider adoption. 

One protocol that has taken advantage of the "Binance bump" over the past week is IOST, a fully-fledged decentralized blockchain ecosystem that utilizes a unique proof-of-believability consensus protocol.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that the price of IOST has rallied 88% over the past week, going from a low of $0.0484 on April 7 to a multiyear high of $0.0912 on April 14 on a record $2.48 billion in 24-hour trading volume.

IOST/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

A scroll through IOST's Twitter feed shows that the recent momentum for the token was initiated by the April 12 announcement of an airdrop to users of the Citadel One mobile cryptocurrency wallet as a way to incentivize staking.

The airdrop announcement helped sparked a small rally in the price of IOST, but it was the subsequent announcement from Binance about a new "Spring Staking" event that offered a 27.49% annual percentage yield on staked IOST that kicked off the double-digit price growth.

Following the announcement, trading volume for IOST increased 480% on the 24-hour chart and surged to a record-high $2.5 billion, with $890 million in volume being transacted on exchange Binance.

VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for IOST on April 13, prior to the recent price rise.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historic and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. IOST price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As seen in the cart above, the VORTECS™ Score for IOST first entered the green range earlier in the week on April 8 and then again turned green on April 12 and climbed to a high of 71 on April 12, just as the Cointelegraph Markets Pro Newsquake feature was highlighting the staking announcement from Binance as a potential price mover. Less than twelve hours later the price began to increase by 62%.

With a growing community and attractive staking options on both centralized exchanges like Binance and on decentralized finance platforms like Donnie Finance, IOST has the potential to see further upside as the cryptocurrency ecosystem continues to expand.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and you should conduct your own research when making a decision.