Cardano (ADA) Whales Stand Pat as Ali Martinez Maps 24% Drop to $0.17

Sell Signal Without the Breakdown

Cardano (ADA) price recovered about 3% to $0.2235 on Wednesday, October 21, but the token now carries a bearish warning from analyst Ali Martinez, who maps a potential slide toward $0.17 if a key support level fails. In a commentary posted on October 20, Martinez flagged that the SuperTrend indicator, a trend-following tool that flips its reading when momentum shifts, has turned bearish on the daily chart. The last comparable signal appeared on May 22 and was followed by a 46% price correction. He stopped short of predicting a decline of that magnitude, arguing the indicator deserves attention rather than a verdict that history must repeat. “The sell signal is here, but the breakdown isn’t,” his October 20 post reads.

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October 20 post.

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The call rests on the structure of an ascending price channel. Cardano (ADA) has pulled back from its October highs and moved closer to the channel's lower boundary, which Martinez places at roughly $0.21. A daily close beneath that level would, in his analysis, confirm a break below the channel and open the path toward $0.17, a target about 24% below Wednesday's price. Because the lower trendline slopes upward, its exact value shifts over time, and $0.21 serves as his reference point for the bearish scenario. The note arrived a day before Wednesday's bounce, so the signal predates the recovery rather than reacting to it. It also builds on an earlier October 8 assessment, when Cardano traded around $0.232 after rejection near the channel's upper boundary and the $0.21–$0.215 area was flagged as the next downside test. ADA has since drifted toward that region without printing a confirmed daily close beneath it.

100M to 1B ADA Wallets Hold Steady

Whale behavior is the second pillar of the assessment. Using Santiment Intelligence data, Martinez examined wallets controlling between 100 million and 1 billion Cardano (ADA) and found their balances largely unchanged across the past 10 days. Shifts in this cohort's holdings have historically coincided with substantial moves in the token's price, and the latest readings show no clear preference for either accumulation or distribution. The Cardano ledger runs on proof of stake, where large holders can commit coins to staking and earn yield without selling, a structure that keeps size on the network through drawdowns. The stable reading follows a stretch of reported distribution. On October 13, whale balances had declined by more than 110 million ADA over five days, and Santiment figures cited at the time showed daily active addresses falling from 27,248 to 15,977, a 41.36% drop. The new 10-day window covers a different observation period and a defined wallet-size group, so it does not establish that every large investor has stopped selling. Martinez treats renewed reductions in these balances, alongside a daily close below $0.21, as the confirmation his bearish case needs.

On the daily chart, the 9-day moving average stands at $0.2255 and the 21-day at $0.2394, and the nearest support and resistance levels to clear on a recovery sit at $0.2255 and then $0.2394. Support rests near $0.2200 and $0.2100, with $0.2000 as the psychological floor before the $0.17 target. Momentum is soft but not oversold: the Relative Strength Index reads 44.35 against a signal line of 46.09 and the neutral 50 mark. Spot trading volume stood near $254 million across the past 24 hours, with Cardano (ADA) changing hands between $0.21468 and $0.226044. The token is down 4.99% over seven days despite Wednesday's gain, holds a market capitalization near $8.4 billion, and trades 93% below its $3.10 peak from 2021. A separate October 17 assessment framed $0.21–$0.22 as decisive support and sketched a recovery toward $0.30–$0.36 that a move below $0.21 would invalidate.

The tension between the chart and the ledger is the part worth watching. The bearish SuperTrend reading currently has no matching evidence of fresh distribution from the cohort Martinez tracks, and no confirmed daily close below $0.21 has landed. A recent map from analyst Tony had already sketched a $0.19 downside target after ADA's rejection near $0.23, so the bearish camp is not short of company. The full ladder of levels is laid out in our Cardano technical analysis. Until whale balances start falling again or a daily close lands beneath $0.21, the $0.17 call remains exactly that: Martinez's warning, standing on his own terms, not a confirmed breakdown.