NEAR Protocol Price Forecast: Buy the Dip?

Summary:
• The NEAR protocol price has held steady in the past few days even as most cryptocurrencies has crashed. What next?

The NEAR protocol price has held steady in the past few days even as most cryptocurrencies has crashed. The protocol is trading at $15, which is a few points below the all-time high of $17.60. It has jumped by more than 890% from its lowest level in July. That has brought its total market capitalization to more than $9 billion, making it the 22nd biggest cryptocurrency in the world. 

NEAR Protocol is a leading blockchain project that has become a leading platform among developers. The platform uses the sharding technology, which makes it faster than Ethereum and other Ethereum-killers like Avalanche and Solana. 

This year, the protocol will be in the spotlight considering that developers will continue with the transition to sharding. Phase 1 will be launched in the first quarter. This phase will introduce the role of chunk-only producers, who will validate just one shard. 

The ecosystem will also continue expanding, considering that the developers announced a $800 million funding program. Still, it has a long way to go considering that DeFi projects in the ecosystem have a total value locked (TVL) of less than $200 million. In contrast, Ethereum has a TVL of more than $150 billion.

NEAR Protocol price prediction

The daily chart shows that the NEAR price has been in a strong bullish trend in the past few months. Despite the recent slump, the coin is slightly above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages while the MACD is above the neutral level. It is also above the key support level at $13.16. It has also formed what looks like an ascending channel pattern.

Therefore, I suspect that a relief rally will happen in the near term as bulls target the upper side of the ascending channel at about $17.75. A drop below the support at $14 will invalidate the bullish view.