Cardano (ADA) has just gone through a volatile trading week: from reaching multi-month highs, facing short-term profit-taking pressure, to maintaining strategic support levels despite a market-wide sell-off. Many analysts believe that ADA is in the 'pre-explosion phase' – similar to the scenario that took this coin to its historical peak in 2021.
Adjustment pressure but ADA still maintains the upper hand
On Thursday, the price of Cardano (ADA) plummeted by 11% immediately after first surpassing the $1 mark since March 2025, amid a widespread decline across the cryptocurrency market.
Pressure is coming from multiple factors at once: unfavorable macroeconomic data as the U.S. PPI – a measure of producer prices – recorded an inflation rate of 3.3%, significantly higher than the forecast of 2.5%, raising expectations that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will maintain high interest rates for a longer period.
Additionally, market liquidity tightened as statistics from CoinGlass indicated that over $941 million in leveraged positions were liquidated within 24 hours, causing a 'chain reaction sell-off'.
In particular, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a pause on plans to purchase more Bitcoin for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund (SBR) established by President Trump in March 2025, instead opting to maintain the current BTC holdings and supplement through seized assets. As a result, Bitcoin, after reaching a new historical high of around $124,000 on Wednesday night, quickly fell back to the support zone of $117,000–$118,000, dragging most altcoins into the red – except for Cardano, the rare coin that maintained positive momentum.
Within 24 hours, ADA broke through the local resistance zone to reach $1.02 – the highest level in 5 months. After this bounce, the price has remained stable above the $0.89–$0.91 zone up to the time of writing, indicating that buying pressure is being maintained strongly. The current developments show that the bulls are persistently reinforcing the $0.89 zone as a strategic support level, thus laying a solid foundation for a new breakout phase in the near future.
Technical analysis perspective – Historical repeating patterns
Analyst Ali Martinez stated that ADA has been trading in a downward channel since reaching a peak of $1.32 in December 2024. After two failures at the resistance level, this coin finally broke through the $0.84 mark – an important technical signal, opening up the possibility of a rise of up to 70% and targeting the $1.50 area.
Meanwhile, Crypto Yhodda believes that ADA's current price behavior closely mirrors the cycle from 2018 to 2021. At that time, ADA underwent an ABC correction after the 2018 peak, entering a prolonged accumulation phase within an expanding wedge pattern, before breaking resistance and surging to its historical peak of $3.09 in 2021. In the current cycle, since 2022, ADA has also been accumulating within this same model and is now approaching the gradually increasing resistance zone around $1.80 – a price level that, if conquered, could trigger a strong FOMO wave across the market.
Alongside positive signals from technical analysis, many fundamental factors are also solidifying ADA's bullish outlook. The DeFi and NFT ecosystem on Cardano is rapidly expanding, with hundreds of projects having launched or in the process of launching on the mainnet, contributing to increased demand for network usage. On-chain trading volume has continuously increased over the past three months, especially with strong participation from large wallets (whales), indicating long-term investor confidence.
At the same time, ADA is also beginning to attract attention from financial institutions, as some investment funds have actively added this coin to their portfolios, viewing it as one of the top potential altcoins capable of a strong recovery when the market shifts to a 'risk-on' state.
Price outlook – Short and medium-term scenarios
Short term (1–2 weeks):
The important support zone currently lies at $0.89–$0.91, acting as a 'shield' protecting the newly formed upward trend. Conversely, the $1.02–$1.05 area is the nearest resistance that needs to be conquered. If this level is successfully broken with high trading volume maintained, the price could fully expand its upward trajectory and head straight to the $1.20 region.
Medium term (1–3 months):
Analysis from technical models shows that ADA's next target is $1.50. In the event of a trading volume explosion, supported by positive information from the market or ecosystem, this coin has the potential to challenge the $1.80 region before targeting the historical peak (ATH) of $3.09.
Currently, Cardano is considered one of the altcoins with the strongest technical structure and solid fundamentals in the large-cap group. Maintaining key support levels even amid strong market fluctuations indicates that buying pressure is sustainable. If it successfully breaks above $1.05, ADA could trigger a new growth cycle, similar to the explosive phase of 2020–2021.
