Cardano price forms rare pattern pointing to a Santa Claus rally

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.