Polkadot Surges 60% as Polkadot 2.0 Upgrade Achieves Key Milestone

Polkadot (DOT) has experienced a significant surge in its price, reaching its highest point since March 2, as the overall sentiment in the cryptocurrency market improved. This rally was further fueled by the developers achieving a key milestone in the Polkadot 2.0 upgrade, specifically the launch of elastic scaling on Kusama (KSM), Polkadot's canary network.

On Saturday, the Polkadot token jumped to a high of $5.10, marking a 60% increase from its lowest point this year. This surge occurred in a high-volume environment, with the intraday volume reaching significant levels. The rally in Polkadot's price mirrored the broader performance of the cryptocurrency market, with Bitcoin (BTC) price jumping to $104,000 and Ethereum (ETH) targeting the key resistance point at $2,500. The crypto fear and greed index moved into the greed zone, indicating a bullish sentiment among investors.

The launch of elastic scaling on Kusama is a crucial development for Polkadot. This feature is the final stage of the ongoing Polkadot 2.0 upgrade, which has been in progress since last year. Elastic scaling is designed to improve Polkadot’s throughput and reduce latency, enabling it to meet any demand. When implemented on Polkadot, this upgrade will make it one of the fastest blockchains, with block times of less than 2 seconds.

Elastic scaling will complement other recent upgrades, including asynchronous backing and agile coretime. Asynchronous backing introduced parallel transaction validation, which increases transaction throughput by allowing 4x more data per storage block. Agile coretime replaced the parachain auction model with a more dynamic, on-demand core allocation system, making Polkadot more accessible to developers by reducing costs.

In addition to these technical upgrades, the ongoing changes at the Securities and Exchange Commission are expected to benefit the Polkadot price. Under the leadership of Paul Atkins, the agency is anticipated to be more open to approving spot crypto ETFs, including DOT funds by Grayscale and 21Shares. This regulatory shift could further boost investor confidence and drive up the price of Polkadot.

Technical analysis of the DOT price shows strong support at $3.60, a level it has not fallen below since November 2023. The price has formed a triple-bottom pattern, a bullish reversal pattern with a neckline at $11.56. Additionally, the formation of a small inverse head and shoulders pattern, along with upward-pointing top oscillators like the Relative Strength Index and the MACD indicators, suggests that the DOT price is gaining momentum. Therefore, the DOT price is likely to continue rising as bulls target the next key resistance level at $11.5, up by 126% from the current level. However, a drop below the support at $3.60 would invalidate this bullish outlook.