Cardano’s Chang hard fork – Where does ADA stand on the eve of activation?

• Cardano’s past hard fork events have failed to inspire a sustained price uptrend
• ADA gave in to the wider market’s bearish sentiment this week, touching a week low of $0.338

Cardano is on the verge of a transformative milestone for the blockchain, with the Chang hard fork now hours away. Intersect, Cardano’s off-chain forum and discussion hub, confirmed the activation date for the first phase of the technical upgrade this week.

Chang #1, set to go live on the mainnet on 1 September. It represents an immutable and binding step in Cardano’s journey to becoming a fully decentralized ecosystem. One where the community is directly involved in decision-making processes like protocol updates and fund allocation.

Community-run governance and decentralized decision-making

The first phase lays the groundwork with the core protocol changes to enable community participation in on-chain governance. A second phase, scheduled for later this year, will introduce additional features that require further testing and community consensus. Following the implementation of Chang, the Cardano community will be responsible for shaping the future of the network.

This transition will be implemented through Cardano Improvement Proposal CIP-1694, which formalizes various governing structures for the Cardano ecosystem. In the bigger picture, Chang upgrade is part of the final era on Cardano’s roadmap, Voltaire. The era focuses on introducing voting and treasury systems to make Cardano a fully self-sustaining network.

Chang’s readiness metrics

The run-up to Chang’s activation has renewed some optimism among market participants who have been closely monitoring the upgrade over the last few weeks. Successful implementation could bolster Cardano’s position in the competitive blockchain space and potentially affect ADA’s market performance.

Though the activation thresholds have been met, readiness metrics are not completely realized. A total of 42 exchanges have prepared their systems, while 6 are currently in progress and 10 were yet to enter the queue, at the time of writing.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson confirmed phasing out of its Genesis Keys previously under Cardano’s founding entities in an update on X. The burning action enhances the network’s security and trustlessness. It does so by ensuring that no central authority can control or intervene in the blockchain through special privilege or a backdoor of sorts.

ADA price rebound in September?

ADA has been trading inside a falling wedge since April. In the latest attempt to break out of the bullish descending wedge, ADA bulls failed to flip the immediate resistance at $0.40 on 24 August.

On the daily chart, the ADA/USDT pair has been subdued for the better part of this week, despite a strong weekly close.

Source: TradingView

ADA was changing hands at $0.34 at press time, down 10.54% over the last seven days.

Traders are eyeing the $0.40 resistance, which aligns with the 100-day simple moving average (SMA), as a crucial test. A successful breach of this level and significant trading volume could set ADA towards the critical resistance at $0.49 near the 200-day SMA.

Source: TradingView

Historical data, however, suggested that the hype around previous hard forks has failed to materialize into an extended positive action for ADA. This has consequently diminished enthusiasm for the upcoming Chang event.

Source: TradingView

The surrounding negative sentiment could exert selling pressure and exacerbate the prevailing bearish trend, potentially driving ADA’s price down instead.

This outcome would leave ADA vulnerable to revisiting $0.31. This level has acted as a significant floor during previous corrections.