- The CEO of Dash has recently made an announcement that the development team has a significant “buffer” to survive during the cryptocurrency market wipeout.
- The DASH/USD market has some strong and important support at the $59 handle.
- Support moving forward: $70, $60.86, $59.04, $50, $44.51, $37.71, $27.35.
- Resistance moving forward: $80, $84.18, $90, $100, $103.13, $117.19, $130.28, $150.
Latest Dash News
With projects such as STEEM cutting up to 70% of its staff and ETCDEV announcing it can no longer continue to work during the latest market capitulation, it is no wonder that many investors are worried about the viability of their respective projects to continue with development.
However, in a recent blog post entitled “Dash Core Group Is Sustainable”, Ryan Taylor, CEO of Dash, has gone to great lengths to settle Dash holders’ concerns by outlining why Dash is able to continue along its development path despite the market turbulence.
Taylor began by stating, in his opinion, that the recent BTC price drop was caused by a new “wave” of skepticism after the Bitcoin Cash fork and subsequent hash wars. However, he then continued to state that the Dash Core Group (DCG) is not at risk of shutting down anytime soon nor are they planning on cutting staff.
This is due to the fact that DCG has a significant “buffer” against price movements and are not affected by the recent price drops in the short term.
The DGC converts nearly all funds to USD on receipt which has helped the team to remain solvent during these turbulent market conditions. To take matters further, many employees have also reduced or eliminated compensation whilst agreeing to continue to work on the project.
Despite the market uncertainty, Taylor concludes that the Dash network continues to grow. Wallet downloads are climbing significantly once again, largely due to adoption in Venezuela, the Dash PrivateSend function is at an all-time high as well as merchant acceptance.
As reported by Forbes, KFC is set to also accept Dash payments at their branches in Venezuela next week, proving that the adoption rates are continuing to increase.
Let us proceed to take a look at the DASH/USD market and highlight any particular areas of support and resistance to watch out for moving forward.
Dash Price Analysis
Over the past 24 hours of trading, Dash has seen a small 2.64% increase in price, at the time of writing, bringing the cryptocurrency to a trading value of $71.66.
The market has seen a steep 21% price decline over the past 7 trading days and an even more significant 55% price plummet throughout the past 30 trading days.
Dash is now ranked in 16th position and presently holds a market cap value of around $608 million. The 55-month old project is now trading at a value that is 95% lower than the all-time high price.
Analyzing price action from the short-term perspective above, we can clearly observe the devastating 52% price drop seen from high to low during November 2018. The price decline has continued during December as the market has tumbled a further 42% from high to low.
Trend: Bearish Below $59
We can see that DASH/USD has recently reached a combined area of support provided by 2 downside 1.414 Fibonacci Extension levels (drawn in blue and purple) priced at $60 and $59. This area of support has managed to halt the previous downtrend momentarily as price action had rebounded from this area.
However, the market is still failing to break above the 7-day EMA (blue moving average) and the RSI has remained underneath the 50 handle which indicates that, providing price action breaks below $59, the downtrend still has much room to go.
How Far Below $59 Can DASH/USD Go?
If the market successfully penetrates below the combined support at $59, we can expect immediate support beneath to then be located at the round number psychological support at $50.
If the sellers break below the $50 handle, further support beneath can be located at the short-term downside 1.272 and 1.414 Fibonacci Extension levels (drawn in red), priced at $44.51 and $37.71 respectively.
If the bears continue to pressure price action even lower, then we can expect more significant support beneath to be located at the combined support at the downside 1.618 Fibonacci Extension level (drawn in blue and in red), priced at the $27 handle.
What If DASH/USD Remains Above $59?
If the buyers can defend the $59 handle during their battle with the the sellers, we can expect price action to re-attempt to make some form of recovery.
In this case, the buyers would need to battle with resistance at the previous long-term downside 1.272 FIbonacci Extension level (drawn in blue) priced at $84.18, followed by the $100 resistance level before we could consider that DASH/USD would extend further higher.
Further resistance above the $100 handle would then be expected at the short-term bearish .382 and .5 Fibonacci Retracement levels (drawn in red), priced at $103.13 and $117.19 respectively.
Conclusion
The market bloodbath seen during November 2018 has caused many speculators to lose faith in holding onto their investments.
However, the recent announcement from Ryan Taylor should aid in helping to calm the nerves of many DASH holders as they now can be confident that the project will not be disappearing anytime soon.
With that being said, the market still is not showing much signs that it would like to reverse. If Bitcoin does continue to make further lower lows, we could easily expect DASH/USD to follow suit.
The $59 handle will be a crucial support level for the bulls to defend if we do not wish to see the downtrend for DASH/USD to continue.
