Cardano's ADA token neared $2.40 on May 15 as a select few altcoins bucked the bearish mood to steal the spotlight from a weak Bitcoin (BTC).

ADA in price discovery as $2.50 nears

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed ADA/USD climbing through the weekend to hit a record $2.38.

Traders had suspected that the long-awaited $2 would come into play in the short term, with Cardano bulls taking down resistance in one fell swoop overnight on Friday.

With $2 out of the way, price discovery mode was activated, which delivered the new all-time highs before a consolidation period began at around $2.30.

As such, Cardano was giving even previously successful altcoins such as Ether (ETH) a run for their money as most tokens saw losses on Saturday.

"$ADA is now narrowing the gap between $ETH & Altcoin Market Cap," popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital noted on the day.

"ADA is now up +80% compared to ETH and Altcoin Market Cap which have both rallied +150%."

PlanB on BTC price: I'm "excited"

Joining Cardano were only a handful of major cap altcoins, these led by Polygon (MATIC) which delivered 24-hour gains of 24% and weekly returns above 130%.

VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for MATIC on May 12, prior to the recent price rise. The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historic and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score peaked a 93 on March 12 before declining to the 60 range over the next 48 hours as MATIC price consolidated in a tightening range.

According to data from Cointelegraph Pro NewsQuakes, on May 14 Kraken exchange announced that it would list MATIC, GHST and RARI and a second NewsQuake highlighted that MATIC deposits and trading had commenced. 

Hours before both NewsQuakes announcements the VORTECS™ score began to increase, peaking at a new high at 99 on May 15 as MATIC price rallied to $1.89

Others, such as Dogecoin (DOGE) and Ethereum Classic 

ETC

$22.13

, delivered mild losses in line with the general trend. Bitcoin, having recovered some of its lost ground after falling 20% earlier in the week, stayed near the lower end of its trading range without managing to reclaim $50,000.

On short timeframes, however, fellow trader Scott Melker nonetheless highlighted bullish signals for Bitcoin's relative strength index (RSI) — something which could deliver more solid progress in the coming days. 

For PlanB, creator of the stock-to-flow family of BTC price models, the RSI behavior was "typical" and comparable to the ranging seen before BTC/USD hit all-time highs in late 2017. 

"Bitcoin relative strength index (RSI): we are at the typical mid-bull-cycle drop in RSI (yellow circles), in between 2013 and 2017," he commented alongside an accompanying chart.

"Excited about next couple of months."