Fantom (FTM)’s Price Surges As Volatility In The Crypto Sector Continues

by Josphat Kariuki

Fantom (FTM), whose price surged to $1.22 today, has proven resilient in the face of recent market turbulence. As of press time, FTM is trading at $1.12, having experienced a 24-hour price change of +8.05% despite experiencing bearish sentiment earlier in the week. This rise is part of a larger recovery in the cryptocurrency market. 


                                                                                                      Source: CoinMarketCap

Technical analysis shows that the price action of FTM is consolidating within an ascending channel, suggesting that a breakout is about to occur. The price of the token is currently circling around this pattern's upper bound, indicating possible upward momentum. Additionally, FTM trades above the 200-day and 50-day Simple Moving Averages (SMA), which supports the bullish outlook.

There may be more upside as the Relative Strength Index (RSI) remains above the 50-midline level. Furthermore, there is a bullish crossover in the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), where the MACD line crosses the signal line, indicating a bullish trend. The green bars on the histogram that stretch over the neutral line provide more evidence for positive momentum.

The $0.98 resistance level has been broken by FTM bulls, with a target of $1.3. There could be a drawback, though, as the RSI approaches an oversold area. Should there be a breakdown below the lower boundary of the channel, bears might seize the initiative and cause a retracement towards the support area at $0.7244. 

Fantom (FTM) has seen an amazing increase in value of over 150% since the beginning of March, going from $0.47 to its current price of $1.12. Crypto analyst Ali Martinez emphasized that a multi-year breakout on the chart is responsible for this surge. Martinez updated his price target for Fantom to $1.44 in a recent update.

In a tweet dated March 16, 2024, Ali Martinez expresses optimism for Fantom, predicting a rise to $1.44. Market trends and technical analysis provide the foundation for this optimism. 

Fantom's value is still much lower than its all-time high of $3.46, set in 2021, even with the current surge. Furthermore, compared to their original investment, about 43% of investors are holding their positions at a loss. This suggests that a lot of investors are holding off on selling until the token's value continues to rise. 

Fantom (FTM) expects a big spike as its Sonic upgrade gets closer to going live on the mainnet. This view is further strengthened by the accumulation in the broader market, which points to a possible bull breakout.

Improvements with Fantom’s Sonic upgrade

The spring release of Fantom's Sonic update is expected to completely transform the platform. Testnets that went live in October of last year have increased interest in the upgrade's potential. Sonic wants to enhance the Fantom Virtual Machine by lowering costs and increasing throughput, and by introducing a new language for smart contracts. 

With a 90% reduction in storage costs, the platform aims to achieve 2,000 transactions per second (TPS) on the mainnet. Fantom hopes that its EVM-compatible FVM will help it become more visible in the DeFi and web3 gaming sectors. 

According to a recent post, the Sonic upgrade's closed testnet hit several noteworthy benchmarks, including 10,000 TPS with ERC-20 transfers alone and 2,000 TPS with realistic traffic. The ERC-20 token transfers' time to finality was recorded at 1.6 seconds, confirming the upgrade's potential even further.

Over the previous day, Fantom's price spiked, rising to a current price point of $1,12, surpassing one of the leading meme coins - PEPE. FTM/USD has increased by more than 40% during the last two weeks and more than 170% during the last 30 days. FTM surpassed $1 last week, setting a new two-year high, which was yet again surpassed on March 22. The Sonic upgrade may spur network expansion even though total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols has decreased since 2022, in line with the overall market outlook.