With Cardano (ADA) consolidating in a tight range for almost two months, some traders and ADA bulls think the altcoin could be in a calm before the storm.
ADA entered this year trading at $0.18, and hit an all-time high of $3.09 in early September for a gain of 1616% in nine months. After two months of healthy uneventfulness and resilience around the $2.00 range, Cardano could be ready to move according to multiple analysts.
Widely followed analyst Benjamin Cowen, known for longer time frame technical analysis, said yesterday that ADA has “completely outperformed” his initial expectations for 2021. With that said, Cowen doesn't necessarily see the crypto as being over extended and in need of a bear market just yet.
The analyst says that ADA is in the “why doesn't ADA do anything?” phase, which he suggests is often the time just before another parabolic price movement. Using logarithmic regression bands, Cowen says an explosion to the $10.00 level by early 2022 is completely possible, but also not as conservative and realistic as he'd like to be.
Cowen suggests that a better way not to get set up for disappointment would be to assume a slightly longer market cycle that sees ADA bounce around more or less in its current price range until the new year, before making the big move up.
“A healthy way to get there would be a move up in a few months to maybe a $3.00 to $4.00 ADA, where we go down to support for a while, then maybe a move to like a $6.00 to $7.00 ADA half a year after that, and then a rally to $10.00 ADA. That would be a healthy way to get there. A more unhealthy way to get there would be… if we just rallied up at the end of the year going into early $2022 and let's just say we hit like a $9.00 ADA by the end of the year or by early next year. If we had a $9.00 by early next year, the we're looking at basically dropping down two regression bands and moving up probably too quickly for the market to sustain it in the short term and then we would probably get a sizeable pull back, maybe back to the current prices, honestly.”
Being bullish on Cardano, Cowen says there's nothing wrong with ADA staying boring for a while because it gives one time to accumulate more, plus take advantage of staking.
Other traders like Cardano Dan, think ADA has been in a giant ascending channel dating back to the COVID-19-induced crash on March 2020. Based on this thesis, ADA is still currently in the lower half of the channel with an upside target somewhere between $9.00 and $12.00 by early 20222.
This chart from Dan Gambardello is also optimistic, depicting a monthly trend taking us somewhere between the $15.00 and $31.00 range in mid to late 2022.
While ADA investors and traders keep their eye on the charts, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has kept extra busy with the company's agenda to place its blockchain in key parts of the African economy.
Great meeting with his excellency President Évariste Ndayishimiye about the future of Burundi's digital transformation pic.twitter.com/r4HK7kIN9i
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) October 25, 2021
And before Burundi, we had a wonderful meeting about the Blue Economy with President Hussein Ali Mwinyi in Zanzibar. pic.twitter.com/jOqUmj0VeB
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) October 25, 2021
Whether Hoskinson and Input Output Hong Kong's (IOHK) activity in Africa provide the fundamental spark that ADA needs for another leg up remains to be seen, but market sentiment is generally very positive. At the time of writing, ADA is trading at $2.15.
