Avalanche’s AVAX Surges as Bitcoin Rally Stalls

The crypto market's rally stalled on Wednesday after crypto company ads running during the Super Bowl championship football game in the U.S. spurred gains earlier in the week. Avalanche’s AVAX led gains among the biggest tokens, adding 12% in the past day.

The market has cooled since early Tuesday, when AVAX jumped as much as 13.5%, followed by Solana’s SOL token with 11% gains. That move added nearly 6% to the total crypto market capitalization, taking it above $2 trillion. Now it has hit resistance levels, with most of the biggest cryptocurrencies by market value little changed.

In the past 24 hours, ether (ETH) advanced 3%, Cardano’s ADA rose 2.1% and SOL, XRP and Binance Smart Chain’s BNB added 1.5%. The moves followed rallies in broader Asian markets amid tensions between Russia and Ukraine. South Korea’s Kospi index rose 1.99%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index 1.49% while the Euro Stoxx 50 index was little changed.

AVAX's touched $94 in early Asian hours. However, it faces resistance at the $95 level – which it failed to break in January – with relative strength index (RSI) readings suggesting a correction could soon occur. RSI is a price-chart indicator that calculates the magnitude of price changes and helps traders identify a change in trend.

Bitcoin surged past $44,000 on Tuesday night and held above that level in the European morning. However, the move occurred during low volume, indicating weak buying strength and the asset faces resistance at the $44,300 to $45,500 levels.

Outside of the majors, metaverse tokens continued to surge on Wednesday. In the past 24 hours, Decentraland’s MANA was up 10.5%, The Sandbox’s SAND 6% and Axie Infinity’s AXS 11%. The tokens are used for blockchain-based games in separate virtual worlds broadly referred to as a “metaverse.”

Gala Games’ GALA metaverse token gained 2.8% in the past 24 hours after a 20% run on Tuesday. That move came after Gala Games said it would deploy $5 billion within the next year to bolster its in-game offerings by buying intellectual property rights and building a theme park, as reported.

Traders said the general outlook for cryptos remained bullish amid improving sentiment for asset classes globally.

"After a strong rebound following January's 7.5% CPI print, cryptocurrencies have pulled back in line with traditional markets,” said Will Hamilton, head of trading at Trovio Capital Management, in an email to CoinDesk, referring to U.S. inflation figures.

"Whilst the market consolidates it is important to note a persistent decrease in the available supply of bitcoin and ether on exchanges,” Hamilton added, noting there was an increase in stablecoin supply held by exchanges that suggested investors were ready to pounce on opportunities for buying in the coming months.