SHIB loses momentum: Why a bearish retracement may be next

SHIB’s title of the best-performing cryptocurrency of the last few weeks may be about to witness a change as exhaustion of the bulls has taken over. A bearish price action could be the reality of SHIB over the next couple of days.

• SHIB’s price action shows signs of bullish weakness which may pave the way for the bears.
• Derivatives demand shows a growing preference for Shiba Inu shorts.

Shiba Inu has been one of the best-performing top cryptocurrencies for the last couple of weeks. However, its rally might be about to come to an end based on some of the latest observations.

Read Shiba Inu’s [SHIB] price prediction 2023-24

SHIB pushed as high as $0.0000105 during the weekend. Subsequent bullish attempts have been weaker, and a bit of price slippage has ensured a tough time attempting to push back to the aforementioned level. A potential reason for this is the fact that the price interacted with the 200-day moving average. The latter may have acted as a psychological profit-taking zone.

SHIB exchanged hands at $0.0000094 at press time. The relative price weakness observed in the last three days reflects the cryptocurrency’s slight momentum pullback as seen in the RSI. The latter previously dipped into overbought territory during the weekend, thus strengthening the probability of a sizable pullback.

Although the current situation suggested that the market could be headed for some downside, the level of outflows remains limited. This is as seen in the MFI which slipped slightly before shifting to favor a sideways outcome. In other words, SHIB is avoiding strong sell pressure for now.

Shiba Inu’s bullish sentiment remains strong despite bearish prospects

The above conclusion reflected the current investor sentiment. The weighted sentiment metric extended its upside in the last few days and is now at its highest level in the last four weeks. An outcome that suggests that investors are still optimistic about bullish prospects. However, network growth recently pushed closer to its lowest level in the last four weeks.

The declining network growth may offer a more accurate representation of the declining activity. As such, investors might switch gears as far as sentiment is concerned, provided the market fails to yield some excitement.

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Over on the derivatives side of things, we observed a shift that may highlight the shifting sentiment. The amount of SHIB short positions outweighed long positions in the last four days. In other words, more traders in the derivatives segment expect sell pressure to prevail compared to those expecting an extended rally.

Shiba Inu joins the echelon of top cryptos to be used to settle bills

Perhaps renewed optimism is one of the reasons why SHIB has so far managed to avoid sell pressure. This could be due to the Shibarium hype. Meanwhile, Shiba Inu is reportedly one of the cryptocurrencies that BitPay users in the U.S. will be able to use to pay their bills. The announcement underscores SHIB’s growing utility.