DOT Price Hovers at $1.21 as Market Awaits Permission to Break Above Resistance

Polkadot (DOT) is trading at $1.21 as Q4 2026 begins, but its recovery has hit a crucial test.

The token's price action suggests a more complicated story than the modest daily gain implies, with major moving averages pointing up but momentum dead in the water at critical short-term resistance.

Smart money is leaning long, but real-time order flow shows aggressive sell orders outpacing buy orders by a meaningful margin, indicating that someone is taking liquidity from longs rather than adding to it.

The market is telling us it wants to go higher, but it needs permission first, either from Bitcoin holding above its key levels or a meaningful uptick in DOT-specific on-chain activity.