Cardano founder and Input Output CEO, Charles Hoskinson, received an award in Switzerland for his role in Ethereum Foundation’s creation of Crypto Valley.
According to Input Output’s press release, Hoskinson and seven other Ethereum (ETH) co-founders were honored with a prestigious award from the Canton and City of Zug at the ETH10X in Zug, Switzerland on Oct. 2.
ETH10X was an event held in celebration of Ethereum Foundation’s 10th anniversary. The Cardano (ADA) founder was recognized for his involvement in Ethereum’s creation of Crypto Valley, a global hub for blockchain innovation.
“It’s an incredible honor to be recognized at ETH10X alongside my fellow Ethereum founders. Crypto Valley has been a cornerstone for the global blockchain industry, and I am proud to have played a part in its origins,” said Hoskinson upon receiving the award.
Although he is no longer a part of Ethereum Foundation, Hoskinson expressed his continued commitment towards paving the way for the blockchain industry, which has led him to collaborate with Jeremy Wood in 2015 to create Input Output, is one of the world’s leading blockchain infrastructure research and engineering companies.
“Our mission has always been to push the boundaries of decentralization, and with projects like Cardano and Midnight, we are leading the way in building more secure, inclusive, and scalable financial systems that can empower people around the world,” said Hoskinson.
One of Input Output’s most notable project is Cardano, a third-generation blockchain platform that hosts the ADA cryptocurrency. Now, Input Output is preparing for its fourth-generation blockchain platform, Midnight.
Input Output claims Midnight will allow users to put confidential and public information on-chain, empowering selective disclosure and addressing critical issues such as privacy, identity, and interoperability.
Aside from Cardano and Midnight, Input Output recently launched the Chang hard fork on Sept. 1, a projects that marked the age of Voltaire for Cardano by implementing CIP-1694.
ETH10X brings together key figures in the blockchain space to commemorate a decade of Ethereum and Crypto Valley’s development
Cardano, Celestia and dogwifhat are witnessing positive sentiment on social platforms as the broader crypto market.
According to data provided by Santiment, Cardano (ADA) and Celestia (TIA) recorded an impressive surge in their respective weighted sentiments over the past two days. Dogwifhat’s (WIF) bullish social sentiment was triggered yesterday, Sept. 24, as the meme coin’s upward momentum started.
Weighted sentiment of ADA, TIA and WIF – Sept. 25 | Source: Santiment
The dominant positive sentiment around these tokens has brought impressive gains as well.
ADA rose by 6.3% in the past 24 hours and is trading at $0.38 at the time of writing. Its market cap is currently sitting at $13.8 billion with a daily trading volume of $350 million.
ADA price and RSI – Sept. 25 | Source: crypto.news
Cardano’s bullish momentum started after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a 50-basis-point rate cut on Sept. 18 — unlike the March 2020 rate cut that crashed the ADA price by 57%.
Moreover, Cardano recorded a pretty similar positive sentiment on social platforms on Sept. 2 on the back of its Chang hardfork announcement. The upgrade switched the network’s system to decentralized.
TIA briefly touched a local high of $6.8 earlier today but soon started to decline. At this point, Celestia is up by 1.3% over the past day and is changing hands at $6.36 at the reporting time. The asset’s market cap is hovering at $1.35 billion with a daily trading volume of $240 million.
TIA price and RSI – Sept. 25 | Source: crypto.news
Celestia recorded most of its gains yesterday after a $100 million funding round.
WIF also gained 12.5% in the past 24 hours and is currently trading at $2. The meme coin had been struggling around the $1.5 mark for almost a month and bullish movements after the rate cut news emerged last week.
WIF price and RSI – Sept. 25 | Source: crypto.news
Despite the positive sentiment surrounding these tokens, their Relative Strength Index has already heated up.
ADA, TIA and WIF saw their RSIs rise to 74, 60 and 68, respectively. While Cardano has already entered the overbought zone, Celestia and WIF aren’t far away from the 70 RSI mark.
High RSI levels usually bring high price volatility due to increased profit-taking among short-term traders. However, if the market-wide upward momentum is sustained, further gains could be expected for these tokens thanks to the positive sentiment surrounding them.
It’s important to note that macro events can instantly change the direction of financial markets.
Charles Hoskinson, Cardano founder and former Ethereum chief executive, criticized an article published by Cointelegraph after an interview where he dubbed Ethereum a ‘dictatorship’ when compared to Cardano’s new governance model.
In an interview with Cointelegraph on the the sidelines of TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore, Hoskinson explained how Ethereum’s (ETH) current governance model is too dependent on its co-founder Vitalik Buterin when it comes to decision-making, though he does not view Buterin as having absolute power.
Shortly after the article was published, Hoskinson took to his X account to claim that he would not be giving the legacy crypto media any more interviews, due to having “had enough of the dramatic headlines and wasted interviews.”
⚡️𝗘𝗫𝗖𝗟𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗩𝗘: Ethereum is a ‘dictatorship’ claims Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson.
Hoskinson argues that Vitalik Buterin exerts too much influence over the development of the decentralized network. pic.twitter.com/Nh27nSa2UP
When asked to explain why he compared Ethereum to a dictatorship, the Cardano (ADA) founder said that the decentralized platform looks to Buterin for inspiration on where the blockchain is headed.
Though he does acknowledge that Buterin does not necessarily hold all the power, as Ethereum consists of the Ethereum Foundation, a community and stakeholders that make major decision during core meetings. Even so, he cannot deny the influence Buterin has over the blockchain.
As an example, he highlights how Buterin had a major role in spearheading Ethereum’s shift from sharding-based optimization to rollups and layer-2 networks.
In contrast, Hoskinson claims that Cardano’s own governance model is much more collaborative and ensures that the decentralized platform will still go on long after he is gone.
This is due to the blockchain’s delegate-based model, consisting of researchers and engineers that make up what he calls an Intersect that uses a voting system to determine its next steps.
He goes on to explain how the model solves the problem that has plagued other major blockchains, such as “the anarchy” of Bitcoin’s governance and “the dictatorship” of Ethereum’s model.
Before founding Cardano, Hoskinson was one of the co-founders of Ethereum along with Buterin and held the position of CEO in 2013. He was later removed from the company in 2014 because Hoskinson wanted the protocol to be commercialized while Buterin wanted it to be a non-profit.
Cardano founder raised concerns about the Trump-backed crypto platform, warning it could bring regulatory challenges and politicize the industry.
Charles Hoskinson, founder of the Cardano (ADA) blockchain, has expressed concerns over World Liberty Financial, a new decentralized finance platform backed by former U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Hoskinson warned that Trump’s push into crypto could complicate the regulatory landscape for the industry, saying that “everything Trump does the left hates with such a passion.” He also cautioned that this partisanship could provoke investigations from U.S. regulatory bodies, potentially destabilizing the broader crypto market.
Despite Trump’s previous dismissal of Bitcoin as a “scam,” he has recently pledged to transform the U.S. into a “Bitcoin superpower.” However, Hoskinson remains skeptical of both Trump and Kamala Harris‘s ability to foster a supportive environment for cryptocurrency as he believes that neither candidate demonstrates the necessary sophistication in understanding crypto issues.
“I do not see that level of quality and sophistication in the discourse [with Trump or Kamala Harris in the crypto space].”
Charles Hoskinson
Hoskinson’s comments follow World Liberty Financial’s confirmation that it plans to launch a governance token, WLFI, which will be available only to accredited investors under a Regulation D exemption. The project has enlisted top-tier security firms to audit and secure the platform as regulatory uncertainty remains a challenge.
Nonetheless, Hoskinson still believes Trump may struggle to fulfill his pro-crypto policy promises if he wins the November election, casting doubt on the administration’s capacity to nurture the industry.
Cardano dropped 57% when the Federal Reserve cut rates back in 2019. With another rate cut on the horizon, the cryptocurrency faces a similar setup that could bring major downside.
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Cardano prepares for September decline
In May 2019, the Federal Reserve initiated its first rate cut, lowering rates from 2.42% to 2.39%. Rates at that time were much lower than today, and the public debt stood at $22 trillion. Today, debt has increased to nearly $35 trillion, and interest rates now stand at 5.33%, more than double the 2019 levels.
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED)
When the rates started to fall in 2019, Cardano experienced a sudden drop. After a brief period of recovery, the downtrend continued for months until early 2020. An uptrend emerged later, but the market downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with further rate cuts. Despite uncertainties around the exact link between rate cuts and crypto declines, Cardano and the broader market saw a clear decrease in value.
A similar scenario could unfold today. Crypto has shown correlations with traditional finance in the past, including during the 2019 rate cut. The Federal Reserve’s upcoming meeting is likely to result in a rate cut based on CME data. If the market follows the 2019 pattern, Cardano could face a multi-month decline, which could last until the end of the year, before recovering in early 2025. A repeat of the previous trend could push Cardano’s price down to around $0.15.
Additionally, September has often proven to be a tough month for both stocks and crypto. In September 2020, during a halving year, Cardano also faced a downtrend. Coupled with the current 10% drop since the start of this month, these factors could drive Cardano toward a deeper fall in the weeks and months ahead below its 2022 support line at $0.2349.
Cardano’s bearish momentum grows with SRSI, MACD, and VRVP
Many traders focus on short-term movements, but stepping back for a longer-term view can give a better sense of the bigger picture. Cardano’s monthly Stochastic RSI (SRSI) and MACD are flashing warning signs that shouldn’t be ignored, and both are painting a rough picture for ADA.
The SRSI tracks momentum by looking at an asset’s price range over time. The scale goes from 0 to 100, with anything below 20 showing oversold conditions. Since March 2024, the SRSI has been sliding, and it’s now closing in on that oversold region.
The MACD, meanwhile, is showing similar bearish vibes. On the monthly chart, the MACD line has already crossed below the signal line, which is a sign of downward pressure. The histogram, which shows the gap between the two lines, is about to flip red, also pointing to a growing bearish momentum.
Alongside the bearish signals from the Stochastic RSI and MACD, the Visible Range Volume Profile (VRVP) adds even more negative pressure to the outlook. The VRVP shows where most trading volumes occurred at various price levels. In Cardano’s case, the volume bars within the current price range are quite thin, which indicates weak support. The biggest volume bar begins at the $0.15 level, suggesting a strong support zone there. Below the current price, there’s a gap in the volume profile, which means if Cardano continues to fall, there’s little trading activity to slow down the drop until it reaches that $0.15 zone.
Is Cardano’s 2022 support line strong enough to hold?
Despite the bearish indicators, a couple of factors could prevent Cardano from dropping sharply. At the moment, the price sits within a macro Fibonacci golden pocket, drawn from the all-time low to the recent high in March 2024. This zone, between $0.2951 and $0.3204, has acted as support for now. However, when looking at other Fibonacci retracements from different points, ADA has already fallen below the 78.6% retracement on every one of them. This could raise doubts about the strength of the current golden pocket, as there’s a possibility it may not hold up in the long term.
A stronger support level, however, lies at $0.2349, a line that was respected during the 2022 bear market. But, with ADA currently around $0.315, a drop to that support would still represent a 25% decline, which would be far from ideal.
Strategic considerations
In our view, there could be a dead cat bounce before the September 18 Fed meeting. However, after that, ADA is likely to face a 2-3 month downtrend until the Fed slows the pace of its rate cuts. A more cautious strategy would be to wait for ADA to drop below the $0.2951 golden pocket before shorting. This offers a safer entry point compared to shorting immediately right now, as Cardano could see a short-term uptrend while holding above the golden pocket. If the price falls below this level, shorting down to $0.2349 becomes a more calculated move.
Cardano has experienced a drop in price despite the Layer-1 blockchain completing its highly anticipated Chang upgrade.
The Chang hardfork introduces key changes to Cardano, including on-chain voting, Delegate Representatives, enhanced smart contract capabilities, and a new governance structure with cost model improvements. ADA holders can now vote directly on governance issues or delegate their voting power to trusted representatives.
At the time of writing, Cardano (ADA) was down 2.7%, exchanging hands at $0.3335 per price data from crypto.news. The crypto asset’s daily trading volume hovered around $307.4 million while its market cap stood at $11.75 billion.
The latest drop in price comes as, in the past 24 hours, Cardano saw liquidations totaling $731.46K, with the majority being long positions at $698.32K, while short positions accounted for $33.14K. This suggests considerable selling pressure as the token remains in a downtrend.
Technical indicators also indicate that bears are in control, with ADA trading near the lower boundary of its Bollinger Bands, suggesting a potential oversold condition that might lead to a stabilization or minor recovery in price. Nevertheless, the volatility of the market leaves room for further declines.
ADA price, Bollinger Bands and MACD chart – Sep. 2 | Source: crypto.news
The Moving Average Convergence Divergence indicates a strong selling pressure, with the MACD line positioned below the signal line, signaling a likely continuation of the downward trend. Similarly, the Relative Strength Index stands at 38.56, below the neutral threshold of 50, further indicating selling momentum without reaching oversold territory yet.
ADA Aroon and RSI chart – Sep. 2 | Source: crypto.news
Further, the Aroon indicator points to a predominantly bearish trend, with the Aroon Down at a full 100.00%, indicating strong downward momentum, while the Aroon Up is at a lower 35.71%, showing weak upward movements.
However, according to analyst Crypto Yapper, Cardano’s intraday losses are part of a multi-month Falling Broadening Wedge pattern characterized by two descending and diverging trendlines, indicating lower lows and higher highs with increasing volatility over time.
Falling Broadening Wedge pattern emerging on ADA chart | Source: X/Crypto Yapper
Given the nature of the Falling Broadening Wedge, if ADA can break above the upper trendline, it could lead to a sharp reversal, potentially driving the price higher. This volume spike reinforces the possibility of an approaching breakout, making it a critical level for traders to watch closely.
Cardano records a resurgence of bullish sentiments despite persistently underperforming in comparison to the broader market.
This uptick in sentiment is particularly notable given the broader market context. The crypto market is showing signs of recovery, with Bitcoin (BTC) reclaiming the $61,000 price mark, which has bolstered optimism across major cryptocurrencies.
Despite recently dropping out of the top 10 list of largest assets, Cardano (ADA) is one of the biggest beneficiaries of this optimism. Per Santiment, Cardano’s weighted sentiment score is at an impressive 1.69, surpassing other major assets like BTC and Ethereum (ETH).
📊 Crypto is showing signs of recovery, with Bitcoin rebounding to as high as $61.3K today. The crowd sentiment has been flipping more and more bullish for most top caps since the August 5th bottom, and BTC +19% since that fear-causing crash. 👍 pic.twitter.com/giuRmtgX5o
Data confirms that Cardano’s current bullish sentiments represent the highest level in 2024. The increased sentiments come at a time when ADA is shouldering a significant 47% slump over the past five months.
The rise in positive sentiment around Cardano despite its continued price struggles represents a contrast in market trends. However, the optimism could be linked to the upcoming Chang hard fork, which would introduce Voltaire, Cardano’s last era, and a shift in governance.
Nonetheless, it appears the market has yet to translate this optimism into significant price recovery, leaving ADA still hovering at one of its lowest points in recent months.
In contrast, other assets like Bitcoin and Binance Coin (BNB) have shown more direct correlations between sentiment and price movement. Bitcoin, with a sentiment score of 0.54, has managed to sustain its recovery above $61,000, while BNB, with a sentiment of 0.77, is up 9% over the past week.
Meanwhile, Cardano is trading at $0.3438, up 2.1% this morning. The asset currently faces stiff resistance at $0.3872. Above this level, further roadblocks lie at $0.4409 and $0.4741. On the downside, Cardano has strong support at $0.3336 and $0.3004, which could act as a cushion if the price retraces.
The Aroon indicator, which tracks the strength of the trend, shows that Aroon Up is at 35.71%, indicating a moderate uptrend. However, Aroon Down is at 0.00%, suggesting that there is little downward momentum at present.
Intersect, the organization overseeing the Cardano blockchain’s development, issued an urgent call for decentralized application projects on the blockchain to hasten their preparations for Chang Upgrade #1.
According to an Aug. 17 statement by Intersect shared with crypto.news, more than 80% of stake pool operators on Cardano (ADA) have already moved to the latest validator node, 9.1.0. However, crypto exchanges and decentralized apps on the blockchain also need to upgrade to node 9.1.0 and report their progress.
In its statement, the organization said that the success of the upgrade depended on exchanges meeting a target of 85% liquidity on the new node.
The Chang upgrade is set to introduce on-chain governance to the Cardano ecosystem. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson previously highlighted the significance of the upgrade, describing it as a pivotal step toward establishing a “decentralized civilization” for millions of users.
As crypto.news previously reported, the Chang upgrade will usher in the Voltaire era, which is expected to move the network closer to a fully decentralized system.
The blockchain has already undergone several upgrade eras, each named after influential poets (i.e., Byron, Shelley, Goguen, and Basho). The upcoming Chang upgrade will allow holders of the ADA token to vote on protocol changes. Furthermore, the upgrade is expected to bring improvements to smart contracts, especially with the introduction of the PlutusV3 cryptographic primitive to secure data on the network.
So far, the Cardano token has not shown much reaction to Intersect’s exhortations. It is currently trading at $0.3345, a 0.8% improvement over the last 24 hours.
Cardano price chart, May 1-Aug. 17 | Source: crypto.news
Across 30 days, the current ADA price still reflects a 21% drop — a 24% improvement year to date.
At the end of July, ADA caught a break after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shelved allegations that ADA was an unregistered security, in its ongoing legal battle with Binance.
Cardano is preparing for the Chang hard fork, which will bring in the Voltaire era by introducing on-chain governance. The upgrade allows ADA holders to vote directly on key decisions, moving the platform closer to a fully decentralized blockchain ecosystem.
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A deep dive into Cardano’s development stages
Cardano’s development is divided into phases known as “eras,” named after influential poets, mathematicians, or computer scientists. Every era introduces new features through hard forks.
Byron: Launched Cardano’s foundational network, enabling ADA transactions.
Shelley: Transitioned the network to decentralization with community-driven block production.
Goguen: Introduced smart contracts and the capability to build decentralized applications.
Basho: Focused on optimizing scalability and interoperability.
Voltaire: Will introduce decentralized governance.
In addition to the main phases, eras often include multiple sub-eras, as seen with Goguen (e.g., Allegra, Mary, Alonzo), which bring more specific features. The Chang hard fork will be the first hard fork and sub-era of Voltaire.
What is the Chang hard fork?
The Chang hard fork allows (ADA) holders to vote on protocol changes and governance actions, with the option to delegate their voting power to designated representatives, known as DReps.
In addition to governance, Chang brings enhancements to Cardano’s smart contract platform through the introduction of PlutusV3. PlutusV3 includes new cryptographic primitives, which are used to secure data and transactions on the blockchain. For example, the new BLS12-381 and Keccak-256 cryptographic functions improve the security and efficiency of operations like zero-knowledge proofs and digital signatures, making them more reliable and faster.
Moreover, Chang adds bitwise primitives, which are tools that allow developers to perform low-level data manipulations within smart contracts. Bitwise primitives can optimize how contracts handle and store information, leading to faster execution and reduced costs for DApps. These improvements make it easier for developers to create more complex and efficient DApps on Cardano.
The upgrade will also refine how transaction fees are calculated for DApps by adjusting protocol parameters related to reference scripts. Reference scripts help reduce the size of transactions, thus lowering the cost for users and increasing the network’s capacity to handle more transactions simultaneously.
Node operators, particularly stake pool operators, need to upgrade to version 9.1 to support the new governance mechanisms and smart contract improvements. For the hard fork to take place successfully, 70% of the network’s stake pool operators must upgrade their nodes to version 9.1. The new version was released on July 25, and just 12 days later, more than one-third of the network is already running it. As of August 5, around 63.7% of operators are running version 8.0, 1.3% are still on version 9.0, and about 35% are using version 9.1.
What past hard forks reveal about ADA’s future
Source: TradingView
Historically, ADA’s price has shown a pattern of downturn following major Cardano upgrades, with one exception. The Allegra upgrade is the sole instance of significant price appreciation, with a 133% increase. This anomaly skews the overall average, creating a misleading impression of a 9.88% average price increase one month after upgrades. However, when the Allegra hard fork is removed from the dataset, the average price change reveals a decline of -14.74%.
Given the current market downturn, it remains difficult to predict the exact direction ADA will take after the Chang upgrade.
But if the historical trend holds, ADA could drop by around -15% in the month following the hard fork.
