Cardano Bulls Take Control

Despite warnings of additional rate hikes by the Fed, the crypto market has continued its bullish trajectory in recent days. Bitcoin (BTC) has surged past $43,000 while Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) have rallied to break through $3,000 and $100 respectively. Today, however, Cardano (ADA) leads the pack as the top performer amongst cryptocurrencies, gaining more than 9% in the last 24 hours and a whopping 38% in the last 7 days. This puts Cardano in the lead amongst the top 10 crypto assets by market capitalization.

In its rally overnight, ADA broke through the critical $1 level and continued its uptrend. As of writing, the altcoin, which has been in a peristent downtrend since September, nosediving 73% from an all-time high of $2.97 to $0.79, is trading at $1.17 with its market cap rising to $40 billion.

Aside from the improvement in the crypto market, there are two key developments that may have fueled Cardoano’s bullish narrative among investors. The first one appears to be Grayscale’s launch of The Grayscale Smart Contract Platform Ex-Ethereum Fund (GSCPxE) offering investors exposure to a variety of smart contract ecosystems excluding Ethereum (ETH). The fund has Cardano as its highest allocation.

🧵As of inception on 3/16, #GSCPxE’s holdings were: #Cardano $ADA, 24.63%#Solana $SOL, 24.27%#Avalanche $AVAX, 16.96%#Polkadot $DOT, 16.16%#Polygon $MATIC, 9.65%#Algorand $ALGO, 4.27%#Stellar $XLM, 4.06%

Holdings are subject to change. Learn more: https://t.co/hYqzyDGpvv pic.twitter.com/MbASMXZ8hy

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) March 22, 2022

The second development is Cardano’s March 21 upgrade which introduces some significant improvements to Plutus, the smart contract programming language on the Cardano blockchain. One of these improvements is an increase in the number of script memory units (SMUs) — from 56 million to 62 million — that can be executed per block.

This change will make it possible to execute more complex smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain, and will pave the way for more sophisticated applications to be built on top of Cardano in the future.

Upgrades to the Cardano network have historically caused the price of the altcoin to go up. This has led to more people buying and trading it on different exchanges.

On a technical basis, ADA is back in buy range and as long as the $1 psychological level holds, pullbacks represent an add-on buying opportunity. First resistance zone is at $1.37. The next resistance is around $1.50. Also, analysts who have evaluated ADA’s price structure believe the oversold crypto has a bullish pattern in progress. In fact, @Phoenix_Ash3s, a well-known crypto analyst and trader, sees Cardano’s price movements, at least on lower time frames, favoring the bulls.

$ADA haters may come in.

Structure turned in favour of the bulls, at least on these lower TFs.

I will be looking for longs. Drop your <40 cent charts in the comments, thnx! pic.twitter.com/l2sIimz6q6

— Phoenix (@Phoenix_Ash3s) March 23, 2022

With this latest surge in price, Cardano is sure to continue attracting attention from investors and crypto enthusiasts alike. While some investors are skittish about potential regulation from the SEC, others remain optimistic about the future of cryptocurrencies. Regardless of where you stand, it’s tough to deny that cryptocurrencies are here to stay.

So what does the future hold for this fledgling market which earlier this month again reached above the $2 trillion level? Only time will tell. but one thing is certain: the world of finance is changing, and cryptocurrencies are leading the charge.

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