Cardano (ADA) whales have added over 210 million tokens ($82 million) in the last three weeks alone, according to data from Santiment presented by a popular crypto analyst on X. The 10th-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is currently trading around $0.36, down from its weekend losses.
Ali Charts, the analyst in question, tweeted:
Based on the chart provided by Ali, the layer-1 blockchain network witnessed a flurry of whale buying activity during the last three weeks. Starting from the end of last month, the amount of ADA held by whale addresses rose from just under 13.49 billion ADA to 13.66 billion ADA by January 16. In dollar terms, these big players added roughly $82 million in Cardano during this period, with the bulk of the purchases occurring between 8 and 16 January.
ADA, along with the rest of the altcoin market, had a disappointing 2025. The cryptocurrency lost around 70% of its value over these 12 months, and the last quarter was especially devastating for the spot index, which saw a price tank of around 60%. However, the new year has brought some measure of hope for the bullish cause with the index recording a brisk recovery above $0.42 before slipping below $0.40 this weekend.
Here is the ADA liquidation graph from last week:
More shorts have been liquidated than longs during this time as the bulls try to stage a swift recovery. However, the upward market forces still have a long way to go before turning market sentiment around.
Whales have only recently started to add more ADA to their coffers after a major selling spree in much of 2025, which shows the tide is beginning to turn in favor of the bulls. Conventional wisdom holds that sustained buying activity, particularly by the big players, can trigger a major shock to the underlying asset’s market supply, driving increased demand and higher prices.
However, the buying activity has only been going on for a few weeks, and they’ve added less than $100 million worth of ADA to their reserves, which isn’t much. The whales need to continue this positive on-chain activity, which is often aided by strong spot market performance.
This is why the next few weeks will be extremely crucial for the major digital asset, as bulls lock horns with downward market forces to determine the immediate outlook. The cryptocurrency is still in deep bearish territory and is currently riding a short-term recovery wave across the entire coin market.
