AVAX tightens near $12 as VanEck’s first U.S.-listed Avalanche ETF goes live

Avalanche traders have been watching the same levels for days: support around $11.50 and resistance near $13.00. Price action has gotten so tight that it’s starting to feel like the market is holding its breath.

AVAX was changing hands near $11.76 in early U.S. hours Tuesday, up modestly on the day but still pinned inside the roughly $11.30–$12.73 band it’s held over the past week. The bigger picture remains rough. The token is down about 8% over the past month and is still far below where it traded a year ago.

What’s changed is the backdrop. VanEck’s Avalanche ETF began trading on Nasdaq on Jan. 26 under ticker VAVX, giving investors a way to get AVAX exposure through a standard brokerage account. The fund also includes staking rewards, and disclosures indicate it can stake up to 70% of its AVAX holdings. If the ETF attracts steady inflows, that staking feature could reduce the amount of freely circulating supply available to trade.

In the short run, however, participation looks uneven. Spot trading volume has eased, a sign that buyers aren’t chasing. Derivatives activity tells a different story: futures volume has fallen, yet open interest is rising. That mix suggests traders are building positions while they wait for direction. When that happens during volatility compression, breakouts tend to be sharper.

On-chain signals add another layer. Avalanche has been pushing new integrations, and the network has recently posted more than 1.38 million active addresses.

Technically, the script is straightforward. A clean daily break below $11.50 would put the $10.00 area in play. A push above $13.00 could trigger short covering and open a path toward the mid-$14s, where the next resistance cluster sits.