On Binance, $ADA/USDT is hovering around 0.2716 tonight, up 10.8% in 24 hours, after reaching an intraday high of 0.2749. CoinDesk says that’s its highest price since May. At the same time, $BTC is up less than 1%, still moving between 84,000 and 87,000.

Trading volume has definitely picked up. CoinMarketCap data puts total market-wide volume at about $1.09 billion, or 2.06 times the 30-day median.

The reason is hard to pin down, and CoinDesk says it can’t explain it either. Two things may be relevant: RealFi, which launched on October 1 and channels stablecoins into institutional lending, with annualized returns of up to 9%; and the first phase of the Dijkstra upgrade, scheduled for late December this year or early next year. Both are good news, but neither is new today. I’ve always been more wary of a rally with no clear explanation than one with a clear one.

What makes me hesitate is the on-chain data. According to DefiLlama, daily DEX volume on Cardano fell from $11.74 million on October 1 to $4.05 million on October 4. Prices are rising on exchanges, but there are fewer people trading on-chain.

Money sometimes arrives before people do, but it doesn’t happen often. My take is that the short-term outlook is bullish, but I’m not chasing it. Around $0.28 is the first hurdle; if it falls back below $0.25, this rally will have been pretty much for nothing. I’ll believe in it once on-chain volume returns.

This is not investment advice.