Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) decision to pause interest rate hikes has led to significant losses for many cryptocurrency investors. The largest altcoin, Ethereum (ETH), dissipated the positive market sentiment following macro data showing continuing deflation in the US with a loss reaching 6% within 24 hours. It is currently changing hands at $1,634 as of this writing.
About $8 Billion Evaporated from Ethereum’s TVL in a Year
Ethereum, the proven pioneer of the DeFi world over time, is facing a turbulent journey in terms of Total Locked Value (TVL). Even though it has shown resilience against harsh market movements, Ethereum‘s position is facing a tough battle due to rising stars such as Optimism (OP), TRON (TRX), Solana (SOL), and Polygon (MATIC).
As a result of this tough battle, Ethereum’s dominance in the DeFi sector has been increasingly debated since June 2022. Layer-2 solutions like Polygon have seen a significant increase in TVL due to their ability to provide much faster and cheaper transactions. This inevitably affected Ethereum’s position and led to a reassessment of its superiority in the DeFi environment. The latest data from data provider DefiLlama reveals that Ethereum’s network TVL has decreased by $7.84 billion since June 15, 2022.
If the decline continues, the TVL will fall even further from the current $24.36 billion and thus will have significantly decreased compared to the all-time high of approximately $108 billion in November 2021.
On the other hand, the liquid staking platform Lido forms the highest TVL in the Ethereum ecosystem with $12.65 billion. MakerDAO is second with a TVL of $5.47 billion, below 50% of Lido, followed by Aave, Curve Finance, and Uniswap.
The harsh crypto winter, which has long been felt and is increasingly impacting, continues to be the biggest challenge for investors in DeFi. As the market falters, they are forced to withdraw the assets they invested in DeFi to diversify their portfolios. Unfortunately, this situation increases the money outflow for DeFi protocols like Ethereum.
Seems Like the Downtrend Shaking Ethereum’s Price Cannot be Stopped
ETH’s daily price chart shows that sellers, or in other words, bears are aggressively trying to bring the price below the rising trendline. The largest altcoin has been under selling pressure since the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, exerting pressure on two major cryptocurrency exchanges and altcoins.
If the ETH price continues to move below the rising trend line or falls below $1,600, it will be difficult for the bulls to stop the bears and prevent the price from reaching $1,450. The On Balance Volume (OBV) indicator, which measures the volume of inflow and outflow in the market, shows that the sellers are firmly holding the reins.
All moving averages including the applied 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA), 100-day EMA, and 50-day EMA are holding above the Ethereum price. If losses carry into the weekend, a death cross pattern could emerge as the 50-day EMA (red) falls below the 100-day EMA (blue).
Investors considering buying the dip may expect a recovery confirmed by short-term support at $1,630, strengthened by the rising trend line. If the bulls fail to show strength from current levels, the last line of defense before the price falls to $1,450 will be $1,600.
On the upside, a rise above $2,000 requires breaking and passing the $1,800 resistance.
