Very heavy crash of Cardano: concern also in the long term?

One of the historic cryptocurrencies that is suffering the most right now is Cardano’s ADA.

Its recent crash is in fact much deeper than the average of those of the other main cryptocurrencies, to the point of triggering the attention threshold even for the long term. 

The picture is actually really very bad, and decidedly worse not only compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The rise of Cardano

During 2024/2025 the price of ADA was not able to record new all-time highs.

The peak of this cycle was in fact recorded in December 2024, in the middle of the Trump trade, above $1.2, but it was still very far from the all-time high of $3.1 recorded in 2021. 

If this was already bad news in itself, the news that came afterwards is even worse.

In fact, since December 2024 the price of Cardano has lost 88%, and given that that peak was already low, this loss has made it plunge decisively. 

ADA landed on the crypto markets in 2017 at about $0.02. At the beginning of 2018, during its first big speculative bubble, it briefly exceeded $1, but during the subsequent bear market it fell back below $0.03. 

Those were different times, so much so that in 2021 a new large speculative bubble swelled that in less than a year took it from less than $0.1 to $3.1. 

Such a bubble was bound to burst, but during the subsequent bear market the drop stopped at $0.24. 

The crash

The problem is that during this year’s crash, potentially still underway, the 2022 low ($0.24) did not hold. 

So not only during the current cycle did the peak remain far from that of the previous cycle, but the current $0.16 is also decidedly lower than that low. 

It is true that the 2018 lows are still very far away, but the $0.1 of late 2020 is not that far. 

Indeed, the current $0.16 is in line with the 2020 highs, before the big 2021 speculative bubble was triggered. 

The fact is that the descending channel that already started in the second half of December 2024 is still absolutely in place. 

This channel first took it from $1 to $0.7, then in December 2025 it took it below $0.5, and then again last month it led it to start a new drop below $0.25.

At this moment this trend would indicate a reference price of about $0.21, therefore the current $0.16 could also end up establishing a local low, but if it were to continue in the coming months the landing could be precisely the fateful $0.1 in August. 

The causes

The causes of this crash are actually a combination of factors related to specific problems of the Cardano ecosystem and to the crypto market in general.

Certainly the crash of the entire crypto market played an important role, due to macro factors such as geopolitical tensions, inflation, interest rates, and the decline in risk appetite.

However, internal problems within the Cardano ecosystem have also come into play, such as some project failures like TapTools and JPG Store, and lack of funds. Cardano’s own founder, Charles Hoskinson, explicitly spoke of a real wave of failures expected for 2026 due to difficult market conditions.

Moreover, the adoption of ADA in the DeFi world is still decidedly low compared to competitors like Solana or Ethereum, with few active users that do not allow buying pressure to remain high. 

Finally, there have also been some governance crises that have further sunk sentiment. 

The comparison

Taking the highs of the current cycle as a reference, Bitcoin is now at -50%, Ethereum at -66%, and Solana at -77%.

Cardano is at -88%.

Taking the all-time highs as references, Cardano among these is the only one that did not record new highs during the current cycle, and it is at -95% from the 2021 highs, while for the other three cryptos the percentages are the same as above. 

To find another -95% from the highs among the main cryptocurrencies you have to go down to Bitcoin Cash (BCH), or to Avalanche’s AVAX. 

For example, Binance’s BNB is at -56%, and Tron’s TRX is even only at -26%. 

The future of Cardano

The 2026 crash highlights the fact that there are many concerns about Cardano’s future. 

Competition is now extremely high and fierce, and this project has not shown that it is able to compete on equal terms. 

In particular, since Solana forcefully entered the DeFi world, many altcoins have started to suffer, including in some ways Ethereum, even though the latter maintains absolute leadership in decentralized finance. 

In the current state of affairs there is still no real way out of this tunnel in sight for Cardano, but given that in the past ADA has already shown that it can suddenly form new speculative bubbles, it could still hold interesting surprises in the future for those who trade it.