Aster DEX was down by over 5% even as community sentiment was bullish at over 75%, per data garnered from more than 60K participants on CoinMarketCap.
The altcoin had reclaimed the $1 price level at press time, but was trading in a sideways market.
The hype around the decentralized exchange had faded, aligning with the broader crypto market.
Interestingly, historical pattern alignment seemed to be in play, despite the fundamentally challenging factors in the chain.
Is ASTER’s 30% rally coming in December?
The 4-hour chart was in a range over a week after the correction that resulted from the rally that took the price to $1.40. The choppy price action was an indication of the ongoing accumulation of the altcoin.
This follows the altcoin’s On Balance Volume (OBV) replicating similar movement as in the first week of November.
Aster [ASTER] was eyeing the $1.50 zone this time around, just like when OBV moved sideways and broke out on the 14th of November.
However, price needed to breach the descending trendline the same way it broke the sideways movement earlier on.
Source: TradingView
Notably, there were prints of bullish action as seen in the MACD, which was faintly green.
The signal lines were still below, and bars were small, indicating that buyers were just making their way but were yet to gain full control of price.
While there was a chance of this 30%+ gain, the declining on-chain activity and potential sell pressure from the unlock could make such an outcome difficult.
Weak activity but better than Hyperliquid
The daily trading volume was up by 10% as per CoinMarketCap data, with this outperformance extending against Hyperliquid [HYPE]. ASTER had a volume of $5.467 billion against HYPE’s $4.605 billion.
Source: X
This was a show of strength against its peer, even though it launched way after HYPE.
But despite this, other chain metrics were down. The DEX and perp volumes were declining, below their September to early November records.
Additionally, the fees experienced significant impact, plummeting to approximately $1.18 million throughout the day. The Total Value Locked (TVL) fell by almost 50%, down from $2.48 billion to $1.32 billion.
Source: DefiLlama
All these factors were bearish in nature but could change abruptly when markets shift. These could derail this potential 30% rally, but those were not the only hurdles.
Upcoming sell pressure
The crypto markets could experience yet another sell pressure from massive token unlocks in December. ASTER and Sui Network [SUI] were leading with the largest unlocks of more than $86 million.
About 3.89% of ASTER market cap would be unlocked, and the amount was equivalent to 78.41 million tokens. Still, more than 55% were locked, with 7% yet to be assigned a period for unlocking.
Source: Tokenomist
This unlock could potentially hinder the anticipated rally due to increased supply-driven sell pressure.
Final Thoughts
- The technical outlook of ASTER price action suggests a potential 30% rally.
- Chain activity and the upcoming unlock were bearish, hindering this potential.
