- NEAR/USD pair logs 22% intraday rally.
- New accounts on NEAR Protocol near the 1 million mark.
- Phase 0 of the Sharding Roadmap launched.
- Close above $9.56 could lead to a sustained rally.
JAIPUR (CoinChapter.com) – NEAR Protocol’s native asset rallied 22% amid the blockchain nearing 1 million new accounts and the launch of Phase 0 of the Sharding roadmap. Although bears turned around the NEAR/USD pair’s bullish scenario, buyers remained in control in the previous trading session and pushed prices up from $7.37 to $9.42.
Related: NEAR token grows 14% on ecosystem expansion prospects; is it a good buy?
NEAR Protocol Riding High On Adoption
The latest statistics on blockchain usage revealed that live accounts on NEAR Protocol approached the 1 million mark.
Exponential growth in new account numbers became a deciding factor for placing buying bids en-masse. However, other pointers such as the total number of transactions also indicated signs of widespread platform adoption.
Related: NEAR Protocol logs 40% overnight in a nonsense rally. What’s next?
As per NEAR’s official blockchain activity tracker, the total transaction count approached 32 million on Thursday.
Along with the above numbers, the total number of new smart contracts deployed on the NEAR mainnet almost touched 15,000, and the weekly number of active accounts topped at 186,303. But another major fundamental development that contributed to NEAR’s bullishness concerns the platform’s sharding roadmap.
Phase 0 Of The Sharding Roadmap Launched
The NEAR Protocol’s sharding roadmap kicked off with the launch of Phase 0.
Dubbed “Simple Nightshade,” the upgrade “will shard the state, but not processing.” As a result, NEAR’s current state stands to split into a total of four shards, with all validators tracking all the shards.
Sharding is a process in which a blockchain gets divided into multiple smaller parts to ease processing transactions—the same results in a rapid increase in the blockchain’s throughput or transaction processing capability. NEAR’s development team confirmed the same for Phase 0.
“In this step, we have built a mechanism to split a shard into multiple parts through live upgrades, which will serve as the foundation for dynamic resharding in the future. Meanwhile, because every shard is still validated by all validators, the safety guarantees remain the same. We plan to launch phase 0 in November 2021.”
Phase 1 will follow Phase 0 with a January 2022 launch.
NEAR/USD Technical Setup
The NEAR/USD pair retraced from the local highs around $9.44 on the back of China, vowing a draconian crackdown on all forms of cryptocurrency activities. China’s latest opposing stance towards crypto-assets and ecosystem came after the complete Bitcoin mining ban earlier in the year, which pushed miners out of the country.
Related: Are Chinese miners behind the latest Bitcoin price crash?
While the pair looked primed to tap the upper trendline of the Descending Channel setup, China’s crypto crackdown news reversed all gains. NEAR trades at $7.9 at the time of writing, with a relative strength index (RSI) dipping below 50. Bullish pressure would soon lift NEAR/USD spot rates. But fresh liquidity will only greet NEAR markets after sellers are done booking profits.
If the bearish pressure continues, NEAR could end up retesting $6.11. However, in the event of a bullish resurgence, buyers need to manage a close above $11.5 to let the NEAR/USD pair log further gains in a sustained rally.
