By Alicia Maher
Intense buying efforts by the bulls has boosted Solana’s recovery from dips it experienced on January 20 and 22. But it seems that the bullish action is coming to an end as SOL faces a strong resistance soon.
A 45% Rise Within Seven Days
A 45% surge in the last seven days has pushed Solana close to its next crucial resistances between $115.49 and $144.73. This range (the bear break) was established when SOL broke out from a previous demand zone. If SOL re-enters this demand zone, it provides a selling opportunity for most day traders to exit their trades and make huge profits.
The intense selling pressure can occur from the $115 level and might cause a massive decline in SOL price towards the $66 and $78 levels (resulting in a 28% decline). Bear traders can start taking profits from the $79 range as that would represent a decent 28% profit.
Alternatively, short-term holders might start taking profits below the $115 level. A sign of this happening would be a sudden increase in selling pressure. Even though a SOL re-entry into the demand zone predicts a bearish viewpoint, an intense buying pressure by Solana bulls could invalidate the bearish prediction.
SOL price action on the 24-hour chart. Source: TradingView
This intense buying pressure would push SOL price to close over the $145 price level on the candlestick of the 24-hour chart. If the bearish analysis no longer holds, SOL price might undergo a solid bullish move towards the $175 price region.
Introducing Solana Pay
The Solana team has announced via Twitter the introduction of Solana pay to enable merchants to receive payments in a decentralized, safe and open-source manner. According to a complementary blog post shared by Solana labs’ head of payments, Sherez Shere, “the goal of this payment protocol is to eliminate unnecessary charges and the involvement of 3rd parties in the transaction between merchants and their customers.”
Shere claims that Solana Pay will be better than Google Pay to enable simple, seamless and connected payments. It is strange that Shere would make such claims, given that he played a crucial role in the development of Google Pay which was his last role before moving to Solana labs.
Partnering With Circle
Shere further states that Solana pay will enable merchants to engage their customers deeper through a blockchain protocol. Thus, they can offer them customized rewards and offers. Part of the announcement states that the USDC will be the base currency for this payment protocol.
The USDC stablecoin is the obvious choice given that stablecoins (such as USDC and USDT) are pegged on a 1:1 Ratio to the USD and are less subject to the huge volatility in the crypto market. Also, over $4B worth of USDC are currently utilized on Solana – an amount second to that deployed on Ethereum. Solana further announced that SOL and other Solana-based tokens are alternative currencies in this new payment protocol.