The NEAR price bullish momentum continued on Tuesday as the coin continued to defy trends. The coin is trading at $16.35, which is the highest it has been since January 5th. It has risen by over 24% from its lowest level during the weekend.
NEAR Protocol is a Layer 1 smart contract platform creates a place where developers can build high scalable applications. For years, the protocol stayed in the sidelines without much activity.
This changed in November last year when the developers launched the first phase of the nightshade sharding process. This is a relatively popular process that breaks blocks into smaller units known as shards. Phase 1 of this sharding process will be unveiled this quarter.
Still, fundamentally, NEAR has a long way to go to compete well with the likes of Solana, Binance Smart Chain, and Solana. For one, its presence in the Decentralized Finance (DEFI) industry is limited. According to Defi Llama, there are only two DeFi apps built on NEAR. They have just $125 million in total value locked (TVL). Instead, Ethereum has over 300 apps with more than $150 billion in TVL.
In my last NEAR protocol prediction, I recommended buying the dip. The four-hour chart shows that the NEAR price has been in a strong bullish trend in the past few weeks. It has risen by over 170% from its lowest level in December. Along the way, it has risen above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages (MA). It has also jumped above the key support level at $13.05, where it formed a double-bottom pattern in December and January.
However, a closer look at the chart shows that it is forming a head and shoulders pattern, which is usually a bearish sign. Therefore, there is a possibility that the coin will resume the bearish trend in the near term. This view will be invalidated if the price moves above the head section at $17.66.
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