Cardano Price Prediction: ADA Bulls Eye Rally Towards $0.69 Post-Vasil Upgrade

Key Points

• Cardano is down on Tuesday and trading near its 21DMA, amid a downbeat tone to broader crypto sentiment.
• Crypto markets have been de-risking ahead of key risk events later this week, while ADA traders monitor Vasil upgrade news.
• ADA bulls will be hoping a successful upgrade to boost ADA towards $0.69.

Cardano (ADA) Falls Alongside Broader Crypto

In tandem with a broader pullback in crypto prices on Tuesday amid a combination of pre-Fed policy announcement jitters, concerns about slowing US growth after Walmart cut its profit forecast and worries about a European recession as Russia reduces gas flows to Germany, Cardano is trading with losses on Tuesday. ADA/USD was last changing hands at around $0.47, having at one point dipped back to the low-$0.46s.

The cryptocurrency is currently consolidating close to its 21-Day Moving Average, which is nearly bang on $0.47 and is down about 5.0% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. Its drop since the start of the week, which has now seen it pull around 12% lower versus weekend highs in the $0.53 area, has seen the pair fall below its 50-Day Moving Average (currently just above $0.4860) and break out to more than one-week lows.

But traders may be reluctant to place further big bearish bets ahead of a barrage of important macro events out later in the week. The Fed’s policy announcement on Wednesday, where it is expected to hike interest rates by 75 bps for a second successive meeting, is the main focus, with Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s tone on the outlook for the economy and further tightening in the post-meeting press conference key. US Q2 GDP data on Thursday, as well as flash July Eurozone CPI data and June US Core PCE data on Friday, will also be in focus, as well as a barrage of earnings from US mega-cap companies over the next three days.

Crypto bulls will be hoping that 1) the Fed comes across as a little more dovish amid signs of (core) US price pressures and inflation expectations having peaked and growth slowing and 2) data/earnings show the economy is holding up better than feared. Meanwhile, ADA technicians are eyeing a retest of a downtrend that had been capping ADA upside between mid-June to mid-July in the $0.45 area. A retest of this downtrend could provide a nice set-up to target a rebound to recent highs in the $0.55 area.

But all going well on the macro front this week, ADA bulls might not get the opportunity to buy a dip back to $0.45. If a broad crypto rally helped ADA/USD rebound to $0.55 resistance and the cryptocurrency managed to break above, this would open the door to a surge higher towards late-May highs in the $0.69 area.

IOG Gives Vasil Hard Fork Update

Another key theme for ADA traders to monitor this week is news about the Cardano blockchain’s upcoming Vasil hard fork upgrade. Input Output Global (formerly Input Output Hong Kong), Cardano’s creator, released a progress update on Monday. The long and short of it pretty much is that, after performing the Vasil hard fork on Cardano’s testnet at the start of July, developers in the node, ledger and consensus teams are still at work.

No date was given when the hard fork on Cardano’s mainnet will officially go ahead, but most still expect it to go ahead before the end of this month. One Cardano analyst and builder did, however, share his thoughts on why he expected another delay last week, as well as why he doesn’t think a delay really matters.

Recall that the Vasil hard fork was initially scheduled to go ahead in late-June, but was delayed, resulting in downside in ADA’s price at the time. Thus, if it does get announced this week that the upgrade is being delayed again, that could deliver some short-term pain to ADA.

Cardano’s developers say that the upcoming upgrade is the most complex program of development and integration on Cardano since its Alonzo hardfork added smart contract functionality to the blockchain back in September 2021. The Vasil hardfork aims to improve the network’s speed and scalability by reducing transaction size and, as a result, increasing the network’s throughput whilst also lowering transaction fees on the network.

Could A Successful Vasil Upgrade Boost ADA?

Many analysts think that a successful hard fork transition could deliver a significant boost to the price of Cardano’s ADA token. Indeed, bulls will be hoping that ADA can rally as ETH did upon the announcement of a date for the so-called “Merge” to Ethereum 2.0.

Experts responding to a recent finder.com survey were split over how the upcoming Vasil hardfork will impact Cardano. 20% said it would positively impact ADA’s price, 18% said it would have an adverse effect, while 50% said it would increase the functionality of the Cardano blockchain.

But assuming that all goes well and the ADA bulls regain control, what levels should they be looking at to the upside. As mentioned above, a break above resistance at $0.55 is key to unlocking a move higher towards late-May highs in the $0.69 area. Beyond that, the next significant area of resistance is in the $0.74s, with the 200DMA then coming in around $0.81.