Cardano’s September Surge: Will ADA Smash Through $1 This Month?

Cardano flashes bullish signals as September approaches—traders eye the elusive $1 benchmark.

Technical Breakout Imminent

ADA's chart patterns suggest mounting pressure against key resistance levels. The altcoin's recent consolidation phase hints at potential upward momentum, with on-chain metrics supporting renewed investor interest.

Market Sentiment Shifts

Whale activity spikes and growing DeFi integration fuel optimism. Meanwhile, traditional finance pundits still dismiss crypto as 'digital gambling'—proving some analysts would rather study spreadsheets than actual market dynamics.

September's Make-or-Break Moment

All eyes remain fixed on whether Cardano converts technical potential into tangible gains. Either ADA punches through that psychological barrier or risks another frustrating stall. No middle ground.

Key Takeaways

Cardano’s price action in recent months has been bullish, but this suggested there may be a risk of profit-taking activity that could stall the uptrend. The mean coin age showed that network-wide accumulation was getting started.

Cardano [ADA] is gearing up to challenge the $1 psychological resistance once again. This, on the back of Bitcoin’s [BTC] price pullback from the weekend continuing on Monday, 25 August.

In fact, over the past three days alone, Bitcoin has dropped by 4.6% from $117k to $111.5k.

Source: ADA/USDT on TradingView

During the same period, Cardano shed 6.67% of its value and fell from $0.93 to $0.86. However, the price action on the 1-day price chart looked bullish. The trading volume has been relatively high in August too.

On 14 August, ADA tested $1 as resistance, but was unable to climb higher. It was likely to make another attempt. If successful, the $1.2-level WOULD be the next target, based on the Fibonacci extension levels.

Do on-chain metrics agree with the bullish Cardano price trajectory?

Source: Santiment

The development activity, a metric that Cardano generally dominates, has been falling throughout 2025. At the time of writing, it was still a respectable figure of 80.86. For comparison, the development activity score for ethereum [ETH] was 25.05 at press time.

Even so, the falling activity could be a concern for long-term investors. An even greater concern appeared to be the steady drop-off in transaction volume. There have been two step-downs in transaction activity over the past year.

The first was in November 2024, and the second in April. The volume on-chain in recent months was down 90% compared to levels from early November. On the contrary, the daily active addresses have been steady throughout 2025.

Source: Santiment

Cardano’s bullish structure and its challenge of the $1-resistance mean that a large number of holders may be in profit. The 180-day MVRV reflected this. Its high value also underlined the threat of profit-taking from holders.

This threat has not yet materialized though. The dormant circulation has remained relatively low in August. Another encouraging factor might be the slow uptick in the mean coin age (MCA).

The MCA tracks the average age of all tokens on the network. A falling trend implies coins are being distributed, something cardano has witnessed since May. Over the past two weeks, the mean coin age has slowly begun to trend higher – A sign of accumulation.