Cardano (ADA), the world’s third largest cryptocurrency, is making cautious moves higher as we enter September – the month when the much awaited Alonzo upgrade rolls out. At the time of writing, ADA/USD is trading around $2.78.

Even as users and investors eagerly await the major network upgrade, things have been extremely busy in Cardano’s ecosystem, lending them several reasons to be bullish on the cryptocurrency for now. According to a latest CoinShares report, the previous week saw ADA receive a record high number of inflows from investors, helping its price rally 20% higher during the period. Cardano’s inflows touched a record high of $10.1 million, helping its market share increase to 0.15%.

Meanwhile, ahead of the upcoming hardfork, the Cardano Foundation has announced a buy bounty program, offering up to $10,000 to any hacker who can find vulnerabilities in the blockchain. The firm behind the development of the Cardano network has partnered with HackerOne to encourage hackers to report any discovered vulnerabilities so that they can be remedied instead of exploiting them for stealing funds. A program like this can help make the network more resilient as it gears up to take on more DeFi projects and expand its user base.

In another promising development, leading DeFi platform on the Binance Smart Chain – NFTb, has announced a partnership with OccamFi to explore Cardano’s ecosystem for supporting NFTs. The Occam Association – the firm behind this blockchain network’s first decentralized launchpad has also partnered with MELD to bring more DeFi services to Cardano’s ecosystem, which can further drive up its use and boost the value of the ADA token.

On the technical front, popular crypto analyst Jason Pizzino expects more upside in ADA’s price soon. In a recent video shared by him on YouTube, he notes that Cardano’s price could be undergoing a consolidation around recent highs and supported by the high trading volume, it makes for a promising sign for an upcoming rally.

Key Levels to Watch

Taking a look at the H4 price chart of ADA/USD, we find some mixed signals, with the smaller timeframe moving averages and leading technical indicators MACD and momentum suggesting a bearish bias. On the other hand, the larger MAs indicate the presence of buyers in the game as well.

Cardano’s price sits right above the pivot point at $2.76 and could head higher smoothly past the $3 level until buyers face resistance at $3.05. However, this would require an increase in buying pressure. However, if more sellers jump into the market now, we could see ADA slide under the pivot towards the immediate support at $2.55.