Is Near Protocol About to Crash? NEAR Price Drops 4% as Focus Turns to Novel Learn to Earn Protocol
As the market prepares for Bitcoin’s halving, NEAR Protocol’s NEAR token has fallen 7% over the last week to change hands at around $7. The dip comes despite market-wide price appreciation for most leading cryptocurrencies.
NEAR Protocol is a Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain that launched in 2020. It touts its scalability as its unique selling point thanks to its sharding solution, which it calls ‘Nightshade.’ Sharding is a data storage technique that blockchains employ to process transaction cheaper and quicker.
Now, NEAR isn’t the only loser today. Other tokens linked to so-called “Ethereum killer” blockchains are posting marked intraweek losses, including the number one coin in this category, Solana (SOL) and staunch rivals Avalanche (AVAX) and the Internet Computer (ICP).
ICP led the losses after crashing 12% over the week. SOL comes next with a 7-day depreciation of 8% . It currently trades at around $172. Avalanche posted lighter intraweek losses of about 3%.
NEAR’s trading chart gives readers some idea of NEAR holders’ exhilarating and volatile journey over last the three months.
NEAR began February trading around $3. A market-wide rally at the turn of the month then catalyzed a volatile surge, as indicated by well-defined cup-and-handle patterns that plateaued at a staggering $9 in the mid-March before tumbling down to bottoms of around $6—a strong recent psychological support level for the token.
A Relative Strength Index (RSI) of 50 indicates that the seesaw price movements are in check today. Price movements in the last fortnight suggest the token could find support at its present level, although with Bitcoin’s halving dropping in the middle of the month, NEAR Protocol could very well climb another leg higher.
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