Cardano appears set to make a bullish run in the coming months with several high-profile crypto commentators picking ADA as a coin to watch in recent days.
Founder Charles Hoskinson has also promised there is a huge appetite from institutional investors with the blockchain set to welcome hundreds of new projects to their ecosystem after the successful Vasil hard fork upgrade.
But can Cardano, long considered an undervalued crypto coin without ever truly breaking out, finally make huge returns on its great promise?
Cardano Loved by Crypto Analysts
Two videos emerged this week from highly influential crypto analysts that both spoke at length about the strengths of Cardano and native token ADA.
Dan Gambardello, who goes by Crypto Capital Venture and has more than 325,000 YouTube subscribers, claimed in a video that ADA could reach a $500 billion market cap in the next bull run.
Although it is not clear when the next bull run will start, a market cap of that size would give ADA a trading price of $15 – an increase of nearly 3,500% from today’s trading price of $0.42.
Gambardello’s analysis is based not only on the success of the Vasil hard fork but two more crucial updates planned in the near future – Basho, and Voltaire.
It is not yet clear when the two updates will take place, but Basho promises to improve transaction speed and Voltaire to introduce voting for network participants.
The upgrade will allow Cardano to process millions of transactions every second – for context, Ethereum can manage 10,000 TPS after the Merge – while Voltaire will make Cardano self-sustainable.
CoinBureau host Guy, who has more than 2.1 million subscribers on YouTube, echoed Gambardello’s bullish sentiment on ADA – although didn’t go quite so far as to predict a price of $15.
During a discussion with Benjamin Cowen, the pseudonymous talked up ADA naming it – and Algorand (ALGO) as coins to look out for in the next bull run.
“Long-term trend-wise, I think investors — particularly institutional investors, which is obviously where Cardano is lacking in that respect — but I think any investor will look at the likes of Ethereum and Cardano in the aftermath, when interest in crypto returns, and go, ‘Well, these guys were able to execute these big upgrades, and they went flawlessly.’
And I think that is a testament to the caliber of people working on those projects, and that I think will be a big part of peoples’ due diligence in the future. So although the price hasn’t done anything, I think it’s really, really positive, for Cardano especially.”
ADA has endured a poor 12 months and is down more than 85% from its September 2021 all-time high of $3.09.
However, Hoskinson remains bullish on what he and his team have been building in the last year, despite many cryptos struggling during a bear market.
We built Cardano to be the financial operating system of the world. We built it to bank the unbanked. We built it as a community to give economic identity to those who don’t have it so we can have one global fair marketplace.
Cardano remains one of the most important blockchains outside of the western world, especially in Africa where many projects use the blockchain for their projects.
Hoskinson also claims that many hundreds of projects are ready and waiting to build on Cardano.
He expects institutional and venture capitalist funds to come into Cardano in 2024 and 2025.
You don’t capture anything during the bull market, but during the bear market, everybody’s collapsing. All the bridges are getting hacked. All these DeFi (decentralized finance) Ponzi schemes fall apart that we keep saying are problems.
So that’s the community we built and the ecosystem we built. Now we are enjoying the dividends of that approach.
Cardano Price Prediction
While it’s difficult to accurately predict the fortunes of any crypto company, Cardano has the underlying fundamental qualities to become one of the premier blockchains in the space.
Cardano has long promised investors to become one of the very top altcoins on the market and has never quite got there – despite strong performance in 2021.
However, the project has continued to build and find investors during the bear market and, when the bull market returns, is a project that appears set for break-out gains.
A 10x gain, to around $4.20, is not too difficult to imagine should the market make a big recovery.
Diversification in any portfolio is also key and another green-focused project, like Cardano, is IMPT, which wants to make the carbon credit tradeable for everyone to help ease the climate crisis.
The project has just launched its presale and has raised more than $1.5 million in the first four days.
The market is currently in a news-driven environment where the prices of cryptocurrencies have been determined by news agenda rather than fundamentals.
Bitfinex analysts have warned crypto investors to be cautious as bitcoin’s (BTC) recovery over the weekend is not a sign that its correction is over; the asset could witness more bloodshed in the near term.
In the latest Bitfinex Alpha report, experts deemed the market’s reaction this week critical, especially as supply alleviated over the weekend could return when traditional markets open.
“No Man’s Land”
Since Saturday, bitcoin has risen almost 10% from $57,600 to $63,000, closing last week in the green. The asset has surged above the 125-day range low of $60,200, which it broke through earlier this month after news of the German government’s massive BTC selling hit the market.
Market sentiment began to improve after reports that wallets linked to the German government were almost empty. However, the positive sentiment may not be sustained for long as the BTC the German authorities moved to trading desks and exchanges are yet to be sold.
While the supply from Germany appears to have been factored into bitcoin’s market price, Bitfinex analysts believe the end of selling pressure depends on how the involved trading desks execute their trades in the coming days.
Although the shift in sentiment underscores the market’s capacity to integrate new information and adjust expectations quickly, analysts think the market’s reaction over the first two trading days of the week cannot be overlooked for two reasons.
First, the low support level in the $60,200 range has now become a potential resistance line. Second, trading patterns over the past three months suggest that weekends are usually favorable for markets, especially on Saturdays when supply pressure seems to subside.
“We are now in no man’s land until we get clear resolution above or below this level,” the analysts said.
A News-Driven Environment
Besides the potential resistance level and three-month weekend trading pattern, the market is currently in a news-driven environment, where the prices of cryptocurrencies have been determined by news agendas rather than fundamentals.
Since selling pressure concerns are not yet completely obsolete due to upcoming Mt Gox creditor distributions, Bitfinex analysts expect such headlines to continue to have some impact on price movements. As such, the analysts urged investors to exercise caution in their trading strategies.
BlackRock’s IBIT led with $117.25 million in inflows on July 15, also being the most traded Bitcoin ETF.
The US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a daily net inflow of $301 million on July 15th. This extended their winning streak to seven consecutive days amidst a broader market recovery.
None of the ETFs recorded outflows for the day.
Bitcoin ETFs Rake in $16.11B in Net Inflows Since Jan
According to the data compiled by SoSoValue, BlackRock’s IBIT, the top spot Bitcoin ETF by net asset value, recorded the largest net inflows of the day at $117.25 million. IBIT was also the most actively traded Bitcoin ETF on Monday, with a volume of $1.24 billion. Ark Invest and 21Shares’ ARKB came in close behind with net inflows of $117.19 million.
Fidelity’s FBTC experienced net inflows of $36.15 million on Monday, while Bitwise’s BITB saw $15.24 million in inflows. VanEck’s HODL, Invesco and Galaxy Digital’s BTCO, and Franklin Templeton’s EZBC funds also recorded net inflows. Meanwhile, Grayscale’s GBTC and other ETFs, such as Valkyrie’s BRRR, WisdomTree’s BTCW, and Hashdex’s DEFI, registered no flows for the day.
A total of $2.26 billion was traded on Monday. The trading volume for these ETFs was less than in March when it exceeded $8 billion on some days. Meanwhile, these funds have collectively attracted $16.11 billion in net inflow since their January launch.
What’s Next For Bitcoin?
Earlier this month, bitcoin’s price decline was mainly due to fears of massive selling pressure from Mt. Gox and the German government’s BTC sales.
But the assassination attempt on pro-crypto former US President and presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump at Saturday’s rally seemed to spark a recovery in the world’s largest digital asset, and experts are bullish on the asset’s price trajectory going forward. Bitcoin surged more than 9% over the past week and was currently trading slightly below $64,000.
Veteran trader Peter Brandt discussed bitcoin’s price outlook, suggesting a potential major rally. He referred to a pattern he terms “Hump->Slump->Bump->Dump->Pump” and highlighted that the July 5 double top attempt was a bear trap, confirmed by the July 13 close. He sees a likely continued upward trend but warned that a close below $56,000 would negate this bullish view.
“Bitcoin $BTC could be unfolding its often-repeated Hump…Slump…Bump…Dump…Pump chart construction. Jul 5 attempt at the double top was a bear trap, confirmed by Jul 13 close. Most likely scenario now is that bears are trapped. Close below $56k negates this interpretation”
PeckShield alert reveals LI.FI’s protocol vulnerability is similar to a March 2022 attack, with the same bug recurring.
The decentralized finance (DeFi) platform LI.FI protocol has suffered an exploit amounting to over $8 million.
Cyvers Alerts reported detecting suspicious transactions within the LI.FI cross-chain transaction aggregator.
LI.FI Issues Warning After $8 Million Exploit
LI.FI confirmed the breach in a statement on July 16 via X: “Please do not interact with any http://LI.FI powered applications for now! We’re investigating a potential exploit.” The team clarified that users who did not set infinite approval are not at risk, emphasizing that only those who manually set infinite approvals seem to be affected.
According to Cyvers Alerts, more than $8 million in user funds have been stolen, with the majority being stablecoins. According to on-chain data, the hacker’s wallet holds 1,715 Ether (ETH) valued at $5.8 million and USDC, USDT, and DAI stablecoins.
Cyvers Alerts advised users to revoke relevant authorizations immediately, noting that the attacker is actively converting USDC and USDT into ETH.
Crypto security firm Decurity provided insights into the exploit, stating that it involves the LI.FI bridge. “The root cause is a possibility of an arbitrary call with user-controlled data via depositToGasZipERC20() in GasZipFacet, which was deployed 5 days ago,” Decurity explained on X.
“In general, the risks behind routers, cross-chain swaps, etc. are about token approvals. Raw native assets like (unwrapped) ETH are safe from these kinds of hacks b/c they don’t have approvals as an option. Most users & wallets also no longer do “infinite approvals” which gives a smart contract total control on removing any amount of their tokens. It’s important to understand which tokens you’re approving to which contracts.
This dashboard looks for all transactions of a user that intersects Lifi. Not all of these transactions indicate risk- but you can see how, broadly, integrations & layers of tech (like how Metamask bridge uses Lifi on BSC) can complicate how users do or don’t put their assets at risk. Revoke Cash is the most well known approval manager app.
But it’s also good security practice to simply rotate your address. New addresses start with 0 approvals, so starting fresh by moving your tokens to a fresh address is another good security practice.” – commented Carlos Mercado, Data Scientist at Flipside Crypto.
Recent Exploit Mirrors March 2022 Attack
Further analysis by PeckShield alert revealed that the vulnerability is similar to a previous attack on LI.FI’s protocol that occurred on March 20, 2022. That incident saw a bad actor exploit LI.FI’s smart contract, specifically the swapping feature, before bridging.
The attacker manipulated the system to call token contracts directly within their contract’s context, making users who had given infinite approval vulnerable. This exploit resulted in the theft of approximately 205 ETH from 29 wallets, affecting tokens such as USDC, MATIC, RPL, GNO, USDT, MVI, AUDIO, AAVE, JRT, and DAI.
“The bug is basically the same. Are we learning anything from the past lesson(s)?” PeckShield Alert said in a July 16 X post.
Following the 2022 incident, LI.FI disabled all swap methods in its smart contract and worked on developing a fix to prevent future vulnerabilities. However, the recurrence of a similar exploit raises concerns about the platform’s security measures and whether adequate steps were taken to address the vulnerabilities identified in the previous breach.
LI.FI is a liquidity aggregation protocol that allows users to trade across various blockchains, venues, and bridges.
