I don’t think that there’s any reason to be buying Solana anytime soon.

Solana tried to rally early on Monday but pulled back as we continue to see this market drift lower. This is no different than anywhere else in the crypto world, as we continue to see money flow away from it. We are in “crypto winter”, meaning that the markets are going to do very little but maybe drift lower for quite some time. Risk appetite has been destroyed, as we have seen central bank policy shift rather drastically.

This is a bit ironic, considering crypto is supposed to operate outside of the world of traditional finance. However, it looks as if crypto needs all of the same things that traditional finance does, and when you think of Solana, you should think of something like a mid-cap stock, as it is relatively well known and traded. But at the end of the day, it’s not necessarily something along the lines of Bitcoin. It is still speculative, even by crypto standards, although there are many more speculative coins out there.

Solana certainly looks as if it probably has some type of future, but it is a competitor to Ethereum, and therefore it will probably always play second fiddle to that ecosystem. In a scenario where crypto is considered to be toxic, brand-name recognition is a huge benefit. Because of this, I think Ethereum will continue to outshine Solana, perhaps for the next few years, perhaps forever.

The $20 level is the next major level on longer-term charts that I am paying attention to, and I do think that’s where we eventually end up. Ultimately, Solana will bottom, but where that is going to be is hard to tell because the markets quite frankly have seen so much damage. This is the type of damage that can go on for months or years, so I don’t think that there’s any reason to be buying Solana anytime soon. In fact, at the very least, Solana would have to break above the $60 level to look remotely interesting. That would be a gain of 50% from the current price, something that is not easily done. Because of this, I think Solana should be thought of as dead money, or perhaps something that you can buy down the road at a much cheaper price and start to accumulate again for the next ball run.

Traders seem to believe that there are going to be multiple interest rate hikes, and as long as that’s the case it does weigh upon gold in general.

Gold markets initially tried to go higher on Tuesday but fell hard after the initial move during the day. Ultimately, we have broken through the $1840 level, which is short-term support, but having said that it does not register as far as a major level. Ultimately, it’s more likely than not the $1800 level is where the buyers will make some type of stand.

If the market was to go below the $1800 level, that could be a very negative sign for the market, perhaps sending gold down to the $1760 level. On the other hand, the market is likely to continue to see a lot of volatility and choppy behavior. That being said, I think it is going to be difficult to hang on to a position in gold unless you are a longer-term holder. I think gold will eventually have its day, especially with the way that everything has been behaving as of late. Ultimately, as long as the $1800 level holds, it’s likely that we go much higher, perhaps opening up the possibility of the $1880 level being tested again. That was a major short-term resistance level and breaking above there really opens up the doors.

The way the market is behaving on Tuesday does suggest we have a long way to go before we have a bigger move, and think a lot of repositioning is about to happen. With that in mind, gold will continue to be something that you probably need to trade in more of a range-bound attitude. Because of this, you will need to pay close attention to the way you position size because the volatility is going to continue to make this market very difficult. You should also pay attention to the bond market because the interest rates will continue to have a negative correlation to the gold market from what I can tell. After all, we are in a very strange environment, as central banks have to worry about inflation, something that they have not had to worry about for decades.

Traders seem to believe that there are going to be multiple interest rate hikes, and as long as that’s the case it does weigh upon gold in general. As long as we continue to see a lot of problems, the markets will have no idea what to do with themselves.