Cardano’s price has remained sideways this month, but a rare chart pattern indicates a potential comeback in the coming weeks.

Cardano (ADA), the popular layer-1 cryptocurrency, is trading at $1.06, down nearly 20% from its highest level this year.

The pullback followed a rally that pushed the coin to a multi-year high of $1.327 in November during the crypto bull run. This decline mirrors the performance of other cryptocurrencies, like Avalanche (AVAX) and Binance Coin (BNB), which have also retreated from their year-to-date highs.

Cardano’s drop coincided with a decline in the total value locked (TVL) within its decentralized finance ecosystem. According to DeFi Llama, Cardano protocols now hold over $597 million in total assets, down from last month’s high of nearly $700 million. The largest protocols in its ecosystem include Liqwid, Minswap, Indigo, and Splash Protocol.

Whale activity for Cardano has also slowed, and the number of active addresses over the past 24 hours is below 43,000. Meanwhile, open interest in the futures market has continued to decline.

However, several catalysts may push Cardano’s price higher in the short term. For instance, rising crypto demand—highlighted by Bitcoin’s surge past $106,000—could support ADA. Additionally, Cardano may benefit from a potential spot ADA ETF listing as early as 2025.

In the near term, the coin could also experience a boost from the “Santa Claus rally,” a phenomenon where asset prices tend to rise ahead of Christmas Day.

Cardano price has formed a rare chart pattern

The daily chart shows that the ADA price staged a strong comeback in November after Donald Trump won the election. It has since slowly formed a bullish pennant chart pattern, consisting of a long vertical line and a symmetrical triangle. This pattern is nearing its confluence point, suggesting that a bullish breakout could occur.

Cardano has also formed a golden cross pattern, where the 50-day and 200-day Exponential Moving Averages have made a bullish crossover.

As a result, Cardano is likely to see a strong bullish breakout in the coming days. If this happens, the coin could rise to $1.325, its highest point this year, representing a 23% increase from its current level. A drop below the support at $1.00, however, would invalidate the bullish outlook.

Crypto payments provider Alchemy Pay has announced plans to launch its own layer-1 blockchain, which the company says will target large-scale business applications.

Alchemy Pay (ACH) notes that the layer-1 blockchain will be dubbed Alchemy Chain and built on the Solana (SOL) Virtual Machine architecture. Per an announcement on Dec. 11, the new L1 will offer a payment system allowing users to transact with fiat and crypto.

The platform will also offer a user-friendly ecosystem bridging on-chain and off-chain processes, chain abstraction, a stablecoin revenue mechanism, and yield generation. Additionally, the blockchain network will integrate a layer-2 solution, as outlined in the company’s blog post.

Alchemy Chain is set to launch with a meme launchpad and a meme Telegram bot, aiming to tap into the growing popularity of meme-based projects.

The company revealed initial plans for the L1 blockchain in late October 2024, news that saw the price of ACH jump double-digits.

Latest details on the previously disclosed objective has also seen ACH price record a significant spike, with the token up 14%. However, as well as the project related news, its price was trading higher as Bitcoin (BTC) spiked to $100k amid fresh recovery by bulls.

In recent months, several platforms have looked to launch own layer-1 and layer-2 chains.

Coinbase unveiled the mainnet of Base in August 2023, while Chiliz revealed its own blockchain in February. World, formerly Worldcoin, partnered with Alchemy Pay to launch World Chain. Recently, crypto exchange Kraken disclosed plans to debut its L1 blockchain in 2025.

VeChain price continued its strong bull run, reaching its highest level in over two years as the altcoin index rose.

VeChain (VET) climbed to $0.080, marking a 270% increase from its lowest level this year and pushing its market cap to over $5.7 billion. Its rally aligns with other cryptocurrencies that surged during the 2021 bull run, such as EOS, NEO, and Zilliqa. 

Some analysts predict further upside for the coin, highlighting its ecosystem growth and practical applications. In a statement, Michel van de Poppe noted the VeBetter platform, which has completed over 335,000 transactions, and its partnership with UFC, a popular U.S. sports organization.

Another catalyst for VeChain’s price surge is Grayscale’s recent decision to list it as an asset “under consideration.” This suggests the company might launch a fund similar to its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Other assets under consideration include Bittensor, Chainlink, Filecoin, and The Graph.

In an X post, crypto analyst Gremlin Mystery predicted VeChain’s price could jump to $0.175, representing a 150% upside from the current level, citing strong technical indicators.

A potential fundamental risk for the VeChain price is that the amount of assets in its DeFi ecosystem has been quite small. It has a DeFi total value locked of $877,058, making it one of the smallest layer 1 networks in the crypto industry.

VeChain price analysis

VeChain’s price has rebounded in recent weeks, rising over 270% from its November lows. This recovery followed months of forming a falling wedge pattern, a widely recognized bullish signal. 

The coin has also formed a golden cross pattern as the 200-day and 50-day moving averages crossed. Additionally, it moved above the key resistance level at $0.0550, its February 2024 high.

Therefore, the likely scenario is where the VeChain price drops and retests the support at $0.0550 and then resumes the uptrend. This pattern is known as a break and retest, and is a highly popular continuation signs.

Further gains will be confirmed if the coin climbs past $0.080, its high for the week. If successful, VeChain could move on to test the $0.10 level.