Cardano has fallen to the lowest price it has seen in more than a year, trading around $0.41 and placing the network among the weakest performers during the latest crypto sell-off.
The decline has pushed ADA roughly 70% below its peak from late 2023, intensifying questions about the project’s relevance in a rapidly shifting DeFi landscape.
Frustration around Cardano’s pace of development has been one of the main drivers of the sell-off. The project has regularly faced criticism for low user and liquidity activity compared with rival ecosystems. The tone sharpened recently when Nansen’s CEO suggested ADA could exit the top 20 cryptocurrencies due to minimal network usage — a remark that quickly went viral among traders.
The complaints are supported by on-chain numbers. DeFi liquidity on Cardano has been sliding for weeks, with total value locked dropping 36% to around $186 million. Newer chains are catching up fast; Monad, which launched this week, is already approaching $100 million in TVL. Cardano remains far behind in stablecoin presence and has almost no footprint in segments like RWAs or Web3 gaming.
Founder Charles Hoskinson says the current state of the network does not reflect what is about to unfold. In a recent video, he predicted that activity on Cardano will accelerate once the Midnight privacy-focused sidechain goes live in December. According to him, the platform has already secured partnerships with multiple high-profile developers and should pull liquidity and application growth toward Cardano after launch.
Hoskinson also hinted at progress behind a RealFi-based initiative he believes could expand the ecosystem further. However, none of these products have yet influenced on-chain statistics, which is one reason traders remain cautious.
The technical picture shows a prolonged sell-off with short-term signs of exhaustion. ADA has been trending inside a converging falling-wedge pattern, a structure that sometimes precedes relief rallies. Momentum indicators such as the RSI are already in deeply oversold territory.
If buyers trigger a breakout from the upper boundary of the wedge, analysts expect the price to retest $0.5097, a major resistance area from earlier in the year. If sellers retain control and push the chart below wedge support, downside projections extend toward $0.277, the August 2023 low.
Until Cardano demonstrates sustained growth in real application usage and liquidity, price movements will likely depend more on market sentiment than on long-term vision. The December rollout of Midnight will be the first major test of whether capital and developers are ready to return — or whether the “ghost chain” label continues into 2025.
