IOTA continued its downward trend this week, reaching its lowest level in over two weeks, even as developers made further progress on the Rebased upgrade.

IOTA (IOTA) token dropped to a weekly low of $0.1743 on Monday as Bitcoin (BTC) and other altcoins slipped. It then stabilized at $0.2230 on Friday, up 30% from its lowest level this week.

The coin retreated despite ongoing progress in the Rebased testnet. In a statement, developers reported that more validators had joined the testnet, including Stakefish, which has over $3 billion in staked assets, along with Realize, Allnodes, InfraSingularity, and Keyring. Other validators include Spectrum Staking, Stardust Staking, and ALUM Labs.

These validators will also help secure the IOTA network when Rebased migrates to the mainnet. The upgrade will introduce several new features to IOTA, including a parallelized Ethereum Virtual Machine and MoveVM, full decentralization, and speeds of up to 50,000 transactions per second. This is notable as Solana (SOL) handles less than 5,000 TPS.

Additionally, IOTA holders will be able to stake their tokens and earn between 10% and 15% APY. This is a significant figure, given that US government bonds yield less than 5%, while popular cryptocurrencies like Ethereum (ETH) and Sui (SUI) offer staking yields of 3% and 2%, respectively.

IOTA hopes that Rebased will position it as a viable alternative to chains such as Ethereum, Solana, Aptos, and Cardano.

IOTA price technical analysis

The daily chart shows that the IOTA token peaked at $0.6293 in December following the Rebased announcement. Since then, it has dropped by over 64% and is now hovering near its lowest level since November.

IOTA has formed a mini-death cross, as the 50-day and 100-day moving averages have crossed. This pattern often signals further downside. The token has also moved below the key support level of $0.2530, its lowest point on December 20.

Currently, IOTA has fallen to the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level. The Relative Strength Index and MACD indicators are pointing downward but are no longer in oversold territory.

As long as the price remains below the 50% retracement point at $0.30, IOTA could remain at risk. A continued decline could see it drop to last year’s low of $0.1035.