Maker (MKR) sheds 6%, price risks dip below $1k: Here’s why

by Benson Toti July 24, 2023 7 min read

(Originally posted on : CoinJournal: Latest Bitcoin, Ethereum & Crypto News )

Maker (MKR) price is down 6% in the past 24 hours, currently trading near $1,035.
MKR price surged to $1,285 on Coinbase last Friday after MakerDAO activated the token buyback scheme.
Data shows MKR price has declined after daily deposits to Coinbase by venture firm a16z.

MakerDAO’s governance token Maker (MKR) has declined by 6% in the past 24 hours to hover ner $1,040 during early morning trading on Monday July 24.

The price decline comes after the DeFi token surged to near $1,285 on Friday July 21, its highest level since June 2022. MKR’s gains had followed MakerDAO’s unveiling of its token buyback program that could see it remove $7 million worth of MKR from the market over the next one month.

According to data from CoinGecko, MKR price has now also shed weekly gains to just 8%. DeFiLlama also shows TVL has also dropped by 6% over the past week to around $5.24 billion as of writing.

Why is MKR price down today?

As can be seen on the chart below, MakerDAO’s activation of the MKR buyback scheme via its Smart Burn Engine last Wednesday coincided with consecutive green candles for the governance token, with over 40% upside in three days.

Maker MKR price chart showing declines over past two days. Source: TradingView

The brief spike to near $1,285 on Coinbase last week had bulls eyeing the resistance at $1,400. However, according to on-chain data by Spot On Chain, MKR price has declined over the week after huge deposits by venture giant a16z.

Per the data, the large holder has deposited 9,223 MKR worth $9.73 million in the past week and 1,380 MKR worth about $1.54 million in the past 24 hours.

Spot On Chain notes that the price of MKR has declined after each of these daily deposits. Notably, a16z has over 16,500 MKR after recent sales, suggesting further pressure for the token should it dump more.

🚨 a16z (@a16z) deposited 1,380 $MKR to #Coinbase at $1,115 ($1.54M) 11hrs ago.

a16z has been depositing $MKR to #Coinbase daily for the past week (total: 9,223 $MKR at $1,055 on avg, ~$9.73M)

and $MKR price seemed to drop post-deposits.

a16z still holds 16,536 $MKR ($17.62M). https://t.co/e7D1yNDmML pic.twitter.com/1ALpzvWWcP

— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) July 24, 2023

With price having touched lows of $1,035 in early trading, its likely a fresh breakdown could pull MKR to support below $1k.

The key buffer zones in this case are likely to be at $984 and then $865. On the upside, bulls can look to strengthen above $1,100 before targeting the one-year highs touched on Friday.