Cardano testnet successfully hard forked but here’s a point of concern

Input Output Global (IOG) had earlier informed members of the Cardano ecosystem of the postponement of the deployment of the network’s Vasil Hard Fork to the testnet. Interestingly, in a Twitter thread on 3 July, IOG confirmed to the community members that it had successfully hard forked the Cardano testnet.

Speaking on the next steps, IOG stated that it had invited SPOs, developers building on Cardano, and exchanges to commence their final testing and integration processes. According to it, this testing phase would last four weeks as per the request from the Cardano community. A hard fork would then follow for the Cardano mainnet.

According to data from CoinMarketCap, the price of Cardano’s ADA had gathered momentum before the announcement. However, following the announcement and after the coin had touched a high of $0.458, the bears forced a correction, and the price embarked on a downward spiral. So what happened in the last 24 hours?

Harbinger of doom?

ADA started yesterday’s (3 July) trading session at an index price of $0.452. As trading progressed, the price per coin declined and marked a low of $0.445. Although, the bulls were able to force a correction that pushed the price back to the $0.45 level. 

However, following the announcement by IOG, the price of ADA started to plummet. By press time, the coin had returned to the $0.44 level. Exchanging hands at $0.4485 per at the time of writing, a 0.36% decline was posted in the last 24 hours. Trading volume also registered an 8.33% decline in the last 24 hours. 

With ADA price mainly represented by red candles in the last few days, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) of the coin lived beneath the 50 neutral region since the beginning of June.

Facing south, the RSI was caught at 39.80 while writing. Reaching for a position beneath the 50 neutral region, the Money Flow Index was  spotted on a downward curve at 55 during press time

Not a single hoot was given

According to data from Santiment, the ADA did not record any on-chain growth in the last 24 hours. For example, the count for the number of daily active addresses transacting ADA has logged an 81% decline in the last 24 hours.

Transaction volume for the coin in the last 24 hours also registered a 68% drawdown. At press time, this was 318 million. On 3 July, it saw a high of over one billion. Valued in USD, the transaction volume declined from $847.13 million to $150.64 million.

Further, despite the announcement, data from Santiment revealed that the whales have also looked the other way. The count for whale transactions above $100,000 recorded an 82% drop in the last 24 hours. Within the same window period, the count for whale transactions above $1 million also saw an 80% decline.

Despite ADA’s reaction within the last 24 hours, the Vasil hard fork remains the most anticipated network upgrade in the cryptocurrency space in the last few months.