Cardano (ADA) continues to trade bearish and is sitting dangerously close to the key $1.50 level, extending its weakness even as its adoption and use keep growing in recent weeks. At the time of writing, ADA/USD is trading at around $1.57.

Cardano’s dApps Fail to Drive Price Action

Ranking sixth among cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization, Cardano has been inexplicably bearish following the successful rollout of its Alonzo hard fork back in September. The important upgrade, which empowered the blockchain with the capability to support smart contracts, was much cheered prior to its launch and unleashed a wave of dApps on its ecosystem. However, despite news of its rising adoption, new partnerships and more, its native token ADA has failed to rally, remaining unaffected by bull runs in the wider crypto sector as well.

In a span of four years since its launch, Cardano has crossed 20 million transactions, operating without a single outage – a remarkable feat which even other potential Ethereum killers like Solana have failed to accomplish. Critics argue that the adoption among dApps remains slow as the Haskell programming language in use makes it harder to develop applications on the blockchain. However, supporters have argued that Haskell ranks higher than Solidity in terms of popularity. Meanwhile, co-founder Charles Hoskinson says the delay in getting dApps out could be due to the team of developers working to resolve all issues with the upcoming Plutus Application Backend (PAB), maintaining optimism that dApps will release soon.

Can Rising Adoption Support ADA?

On a positive note, the ADA token could get some support after one promising application, Cardano-based DEX SundaeSwap, confirmed that it will launch its testnet on December 5. The testnet launch will let users waiting to use the DEX identify and fix any possible bugs and issues before the mainnet launch.

Another interesting application to look forward to is DeFi asset management solution Genius Yield, coming soon to the blockchain. What sets it apart is its AI-powered Smart Liquidity Management protocol that leverages algorithms to automate asset allocation to maximize user APYs even as it reduces their risk exposure.

ADA/USD Technical Analysis

According to leading crypto analyst and trader Altcoin Sherpa, Cardano could be getting ready for a short bull run soon. As long as it holds above the support at $1.48, he expects a good opportunity to place a swing trade, although he indicates that he’s not yet confident to HODL ADA.

On the H4 chart of ADA/USD, we find a bearish bias among larger moving averages and the MACD. However, the smaller timeframe MAs and the momentum indicator suggest some buying interest in the coin as well.

Cardano’s price is sitting under the pivot point at $1.61 but the support at $1.39 is holding up effectively for now. We need to pay a close watch around the psychological level of $1.50 as a break below this could drive panic selling among investors and cause ADA to test the support.