The price of Cardano (ADA) fell on Monday in line with the other top cryptocurrencies despite the completion of its hard fork upgrade dubbed "Alonzo," which introduced smart contract functionality.

The ADA/USD exchange rate dropped ten.67% to accomplish its intraday low of $two.xxx, partly due to profit-taking sentiment among traders following the pair's 1,200%-plus toll rally this year. Additionally, the intraday sell-off as well surfaced in the period of an overall crypto marketplace decline, with height tokens Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) falling 4% and 6.97%, respectively.

Top 10 cryptocurrency tokens and their performance in the last 24 hours. Source: Messari

Cardano's drop appeared when its core foundation rolled out a long-awaited smart contracts feature on its public blockchain for the first fourth dimension. The launch expects to tap the booming decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) sector as they grapple with slower and costlier transaction fees on the leading smart contracts platform Ethereum.

As a event, anticipation for an extended upside blast in the ADA markets was high, with The Value Trend, a financial analyst at Seeking Alpha, expecting the Cardano native token to hit $10 should it flip Ethereum to become the leading smart contracts platform.

Overall, the belief helped ADA/USD deliver potent profits in the days approaching the Alonzo upgrade. On July 20, the pair was trading for every bit low as $i. After, on Sept. 2, its value rose to a record high of $iii.16, a 200% rebound.

Bullish continuation signals persist

Bullish assets tend to consolidate sideways or lower following a potent movement upside every bit some traders decide to secure their profits. At the same time, investors with a long-term bullish outlook buy the asset from weak hands to build long-term investment strategies.

The Cardano chart below hints at a similar consolidation phase after ADA delivering a strong 200%-plus bull run. Equally a result, the probability of the ADA/USD exchange charge per unit standing its uptrend remains high.

ADA/USD daily cost chart featuring Bull Flag formation. Source: TradingView

The rectangle pattern appears like a bull flag. And, equally a full general rule, the turn a profit target for bulls in a balderdash flag scenario is the same as the length of the previous uptrend.

ADA/USD daily toll chart featuring Bull Flag target. Source: TradingView

A break above the upper balderdash flag trendline (at $two.93) could put ADA/USD en route toward $4.l.

Additionally, the Cardano token would need to maintain its foothold in a higher place its 50-day exponential moving average (50-day EMA; the velvet wave) near $two.27 to keep its interim bullish bias intact. A drop below the bull flag support and 50-solar day EMA floor would risk sending ADA to $ane.92, its support line from mid-Baronial.

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Analysts shared deeper price targets, with a pseudonymous Twitterati spotting a "Double Bottom" scenario, adding that traders are selling the news.

Cerbul, another market analyst, said ADA's ongoing plunge was not due to the "sell the news" sentiment, calculation that more capital letter would flow into the Cardano ecosystem from the DeFi sector.

"Accumulate," he said.

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