The HBAR price has experienced a significant downturn this week, reaching its lowest level since October 10, trading at $0.1145. This marks a staggering 65% decline from its highest value earlier this year. The ongoing crash comes amid a broader decline in the cryptocurrency market, where major players are also seeing substantial losses. Bitcoin, for instance, has fallen from a high of $126,200 in October to its current price of $87,000. Overall, the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has shrunk from a peak of $1.2 trillion to approximately $2.9 trillion.
Despite the downturn in the market, Hedera is facing specific challenges that have hampered its performance. One of the main setbacks has been the underwhelming launch of the Canary HBAR ETF. Since its debut in October, this ETF has not reported any inflows for five consecutive days, accumulating just $82 million in inflows to date. In comparison, XRP ETFs have seen inflows surpassing the significant milestone of $1 billion.
The lackluster performance of the HBAR ETF echoes trends seen with other smaller cryptocurrencies, including Litecoin and Dogecoin. Adding to Hedera’s troubles is a noticeable lack of ecosystem activity, prompting fears that it is becoming a “ghost chain,” which refers to a blockchain network lacking substantial activity.
Critics point out that Hedera has failed to attract decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols in recent months, with fewer than five decentralized applications (dApps) currently operational and a total value locked (TVL) of just $122 million. This figure is markedly lower than that of newer networks like Monad and Plasma. Furthermore, Hedera’s role in the stablecoin space remains limited, with only $92 million in assets. Despite its technological advantages and corporate partnerships, it lacks a foothold in the rapidly growing Real World Asset (RWA) sector.
From a technical standpoint, the HBAR price chart reveals a severe decline over the past few months, falling from a July peak of $0.3050 to its current value of $0.1140. The token has recently breached a key support level at $0.1248, which had previously served as a critical point in April and June. It currently trades below all moving averages and a descending trendline, indicating a bearish trajectory. Analysts suggest that the next key target for HBAR could be the psychological barrier of $0.10, and if it drops below this level, further losses could follow, potentially leading to a new support point around $0.085.
