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SOL price trending toward yearly low as Solana TVL drops $870M in three days

June 16, 2022 Coin Telegraph

SOL price trending toward yearly low as Solana TVL drops 0M in three days

Altcoin

DeFi contagion fears and bearish technicals mean additional downside pressure on Solana price.

Solana (SOL) tumbled on June 16 amid a broader retreat across the top cryptocurrencies, led by the Federal Reserve's 0.75% interest rate hike a day before.

Solana price rebound fizzles

Notably, SOL/USD plunged nearly 17% to $30 a token, wiping almost all the gains from the day before. The SOL price volatility liquidated almost $10 million worth of contracts in the past 24 hours across multiple crypto exchanges, data from Coinglass shows.

*SOL liquidation record since May 17. Source: Coinglass*

The latest declines come as an extension to SOL's broader correction, where it dropped by more than 90% after peaking out near $267 in November 2021. SOL also fell to its lowest level since July 2021 near $25.

In addition, a higher interest rate environment and the collapse of high-profile crypto projects like Terra have strengthened SOL's downside prospects.

SOL paints "ascending triangle"

Solana's pullback move on June 16 began after testing a horizontal trendline resistance near $34 that constitutes what appears to be an "ascending triangle" pattern.

Ascending triangles are continuation patterns, i.e., they tend to send the price in the direction of their previous trend. As a rule, breaking out of a triangle pattern in a bearish market, for example, sends the price down by as much as the structure's maximum height.

If SOL breaks below its ascending triangle's lower trendline then the bearish profit target will come below $22.50, as shown in the chart below.

*SOL/USD four-hour price chart featuring "ascending triangle" pattern. Source: TradingView*

Solana's downside target is about 25% below today's price and could be achieved by June. Nonetheless, if SOL bounces after testing the triangle's lower trendline as support, it would eye the $34-36 range as its interim upside target.

Massive SOL exit

Over 27 million Solana tokens have exited its smart contract ecosystem since June 13.

The total value locked (TVL) inside Solana smart contracts dropped to 74.65 million SOL (~$2.25 billion) on June 16, down 27% in the last three days, according to data tracked by DeFi Llama. That amounts to nearly $840 million of withdrawals from the ninth-largest blockchain ecosystem by market cap.

*Solana TVL performance since April 2021. Source: DeFi Llama*

Solend, a lending platform functioning atop the Solana ledger, witnessed a 26.5% decline in its TVL in the last three days and was holding 9.66 million SOL (~$290 million) as of June 16. Nevertheless, it remains the leading platform by TVL within the Solana ecosystem.

The outflows indicate that depositors do not want to keep their SOL locked in DeFi protocols, a sentiment common across the sector after Terra, an "algorithmic stablecoin" project, collapsed last month.

Contagion, another yield ponzi going down.

Seriously get your coins off anything like Celsius and BlockFi before they aren't your coins anymore.

LFG, 3AC, Celcius etc all spread risk to each other and you pay the price for it https://t.co/cemFCvAeAz
— Pentoshi Powell Jr (@Pentosh1) June 16, 2022

Therefore, Solana's path of least resistance remains skewed to the downside in the near term, particularly with no improvement in terms of macro and fundamentals.

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

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Ethereum sell-off fears rise as crypto hedge fund moves $60M ETH to an exchange

May 30, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Ethereum sell-off fears rise as crypto hedge fund moves M ETH to an exchange

Coin Telegraph

Ether risks turning overbought on shorter timeframes, amounting to sell-offs also as it retests a critical resistance level.

Ethereum's native token Ether (ETH) rose by more than 5% to reach its intraday high above $1,930 on May 30. Nonetheless, the ETH/USD pair risks facing another sell-off round due to concerns about a massive ETH inflow into an exchange.

58.7K Ether transferred to FTX in May

On May 30, the Ether address allegedly associated with Three Arrow Capital — a Singapore-based crypto hedge fund, sent 32,000 ETH worth $60 million to the FTX crypto exchange within a span of an hour, on-chain data shows.

The bulk transfer, which follows the fund's 26,700 ETH deposit to the same exchange earlier in May, raised suspicions that it would dump the Ether stash. That is primarily because, in theory, investors transfer crypto to their exchange wallets only when they want to sell them for other assets.

dump eeth? https://t.co/7xdI80P8rZ
— Tim Copeland (@Timccopeland) May 30, 2022

Nonetheless, the number of Ether held by exchanges continued to drop in May, according to on-chain data tracked by Glassnode.

The ETH balance across all the crypto exchanges dropped from 20.45 million to 20.38 million month-to-date (MTD), underscoring that investors are holding their investments for the long term.

*Ethereum balance on exchanges. Source: Glassnode*

ETH rebound weakens

Three Arrow's massive Ether transfer to FTX coincides with ETH testing a critical support-turned-resistance level near $1,920 for a breakout, as shown below.

*ETH/USD four-hour price chart. Source: TradingView*

Simultaneously, Ether's relative strength index is near its "overbought" threshold of 70, which as a rule of technical analysis tends to precede a sell-off. In other words, ETH could consolidate around $1,920 in the coming days before pulling back to its rising trendline support near $1,850.

Conversely, a decisive move above the $1,920-level, accompanied by a rise in trading volumes, could trigger a long-term upside setup shared by "Wolf," a pseudonymous market analyst, as shown below.

*ETH/USD weekly price chart. Source: Wolf/TradingView*

The setup showcases the levels around $1,820 as support in a so-called accumulation range, with $4,000 serving as resistance on the other end. Wolf noted that the price could rally toward $4,000 "a few months from the Merge," a highly-awaited upgrade that would make Ethereum a proof-of-stake protocol.

Ethereum preparing a ‘bear trap’ ahead of The Merge — ETH price to $4K next?

May 20, 2022 Coin Telegraph

<div>Ethereum preparing a 'bear trap' ahead of The Merge — ETH price to K next?</div>

Coin Telegraph

An ascending triangle setup promises major price rebound in the Ethereum price in 2022.

Ethereum's native token, Ether (ETH), continues to face downside risks in a higher interest rate environment. But one analyst believes that the token's next selloff move could turn into a bear trap as the market factors in the possible release of the Merge coming August.

ETH to $4K?

Ether's price could reach $4,000 by 2022's end, according to a technical setup shared on May 20 by Wolf, an independent market analyst.

The analyst envisioned ETH moving inside a multi-month ascending triangle pattern, which comprises a horizontal trendline resistance and rising trendline support.

Notably, ETH's latest retest of the structure's lower trendline could initiate a big rebound toward its upper trendline, which sits around the $4,000-level, as shown below.

*ETH/USD three-day price chart featuring ascending triangle setups. Source: Wolf/TradingView*

Wolf took his bullish cues from a similar triangle setup from 2016, whose formation preceded a major bull run from $1 to $27. Similarly, another ascending triangle occurrence in 2017 coincided with a bullish follow-up, wherein ETH/USD rose 270% to over $1,500.

The Merge vs. low liquidity "death spiral"

Wolf's fractal-based analysis came as Preston Van Loon, one of the Ethereum core developers, confirmed that the blockchain project's much-anticipated upgrade to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism would occur sometime in August.

Wolf noted that Ethereum setting up a "bear trap," which would make sense prior to the upgrade, complimenting his technical setup, as discussed above.

Bear trap few months from the #merge makes sense. $ETH
— Wolf (@IamCryptoWolf) May 20, 2022

The pending upgrade was one of the key catalysts behind Ether's price rally in 2021, as many investors believed it would improve the long-standing scalability problem in the Ethereum blockchain while cutting transaction and gas costs. Nonetheless, Ethereum Foundation kept delaying the launch.

"Undoubtedly, this lack of progress has played a major role in Ethereum's recent price decline," Bitfreedom Research, a tech-stock and crypto research entity, noted while predicting ETH's price to decline toward $950-$1,900 by October 2022.

The firm cited higher interest rates as the core reason behind its bearish outlook for Ethereum, noting:

"The crypto market moves extraordinarily fast, which means crypto companies need LOTS of cash to power rapid growth. With no cash available, this can lead Ethereum's ERC20-token economy to move in a death spiral."

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Ethereum in danger of 25% crash as ETH price forms classic bearish technical pattern

May 15, 2022 Coin Telegraph

ada

ETH's price risks declining further despite rebounding over 20% in the last three days.

Ethereum's native token Ether (ETH) looks ready to undergo a breakdown move in May as it forms a convincing "bear pennant" structure.

ETH price to $1,500?

ETH's price has been consolidating since May 11 inside a range defined by two converging trendlines. Its sideways move coincides with a drop in trading volumes, underscoring the possibility that ETH/USD is painting a bear pennant.

Bear pennants are bearish continuation patterns, meaning they resolve after the price breaks below the structure's lower trendline and then falls by as much as the height of the previous move downside (called the flagpole).

*ETH/USD two-hour price chart. Source: TradingView*

As a result of this technical rule, Ether risks closing below its pennant structure, followed by additional moves to the downside.

The height of ETH's flagpole is around $650. Therefore, if the price undergoes breakdown at the pennant's apex point near $2,030 then the structure's bearish target will be below $1,500, down over 25% from today's price.

Sell-off, pullback

Interestingly, the bear pennant's profit target falls into the area that preceded a 250% price rally in the February-November 2021 session. Also, the target is around Ether's 200-week exponential moving average (200-day EMA; the blue wave), currently near $1,600.

Ideally, the demand zone could prompt Ether traders to accumulate the tokens in anticipation of a sharp upside retracement.

Suppose it happens, then ETH's price interim profit target would likely be the multi-month downward sloping trendline that has served as resistance in a "falling channel" pattern, as shown in the chart below.

*ETH/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView*

ETH has already been rebounding after testing the demand zone (and the falling channel's lower trendline) as support. This could push ETH/USD to reach the channel's upper trendline near $3,000, about 50% above today's price, by June.

Extended breakdown scenario

The worst-case scenario could be ETH breaking below the demand zone, led by macro risks and their impact on the crypto market so far in 2022.

Notably, Ether has declined by over 50% quarter-to-date as investors reduce their exposure to the riskier assets, including Bitcoin (BTC) and tech stocks, in a higher interest rate environment.

As Cointelegraph has reported, anticipations of additional stock market selloffs could weigh on cryptos, thus hurting Ether, Bitcoin, Cardano (ADA), and others in tandem.

*Ethereum's correlation coefficient with tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 is at 0.90. Source: TradingView*

BOOX Research, a financial blogger at SeekingAlpha, remains long-term bullish on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the broader crypto market but believes a recovery might take several years. Excerpts from its note:

"While some of the corrections from the top may have simply shaken out the 'hot money,' there is still a risk that a deteriorating macro environment opens the door for even deeper losses."

3 reasons why Cardano can sink further despite ADA price bouncing 58%

May 13, 2022 Coin Telegraph

ada

A mix of fundamental and technical indicators suggests more pain for Cardano bulls ahead.

Cardano (ADA) pared a big portion of the weekly losses incurred during this week's crypto market rout.

ADA's price reached an intraday high of $0.60 on May 13, a day after rebounding from its week-to-date low of $0.38 — a 58% rally.

The huge upside retracement appeared in the wake of similar price action in the crypto market with top cryptos Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) rebounding by 23% and 25.75% since yesterday's lows.

*The top ten crypto assets' recovery in the past 24 hours. Source: Messari*

But the sharp ADA recovery does not promise an extended upward continuation, at least according to the three factors discussed below.

Stock market crash far from over

First, the price action in the Cardano and similar crypto-assets has been in lockstep with U.S. equities, especially tech stocks.

Notably, the correlation coefficient between ADA and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was 0.93 on May 13, meaning that any major moves in stocks would likely steer Cardano in the same direction.

*The correlation between Cardano and Nasdaq Composite. Source: TradingView*

Moreover, the chances of Nasdaq undergoing a sharp recovery are currently slim, as analysts highlight the overstretched valuations of the Big Tech stocks and their probability of crashing further in a higher interest-rate environment.

"The [ax] is hanging, rather, over high-growth tech companies," opines Richard Waters, the Financial Times' West Coast editor, adding:

"This is where valuations became most stretched, and where the market is having the most trouble finding its nadir."

Simply put, Cardano's persistent positive correlation with Nasdaq could result in more sharp declines in the ADA market, at least for the time being.

ADA's "fifth wave missing"

Secondly, another hint of a potential Cardano price decline comes from a technical structure highlighted by Capo of Crypto, an independent market analyst.

The pseudonymous analyst notes that ADA could fall to the $0.30–$0.35 range next, given its possibility to paint the fifth and final wave of a bearish Elliott Wave setup, as shown in the chart below.

*ADA/USD two-day price chart featuring bearish Elliott Wave setup. Source: Capo of Crypto/TradingView*

The target range coincides with the support area from January 2021 that preceded a 850% bull run.

Descending channel breakdown

Thirdly, Cardano has been breaking below its multi-month descending channel in another sign of weakness.

ADA has been trending lower inside a range defined by two falling, parallel trendlines, underscoring traders' current strategy of buying near the lower trendline and selling toward the upper trendline.

But on May 12, ADA/USD broke down below the lower trendline near $0.568, showing that traders ignored the buying opportunity.

Instead, buyers showed up near the $0.378-level to accumulate ADA, leading to the price rebound, as discussed above. However, the trading volume backing the recovery move was lower than during the selloffs, indicating a weakening rebound trend.

*ADA/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView*

Simultaneously, the upside retracement move showed signs of further weakness after testing the descending channel's bottom as resistance — a way of confirming the breakdown. If the bulls fail to flip the price ceiling to support, then ADA's likelihood of continuing its prevailing downtrend will be much higher.

Conversely, a decisive move above the channel's lower trendline could have ADA then test its upper trendline near $1.

market