When Charles Hoskinson left the Ethereum team in 2014 to form Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), his goal was to create an “academic” blockchain product that prioritized governance, verification, and scalability, three things he thought were missing from the ETH network.
Its native token, ADA, launched in April 2018 listing for $0.2425 and in two weeks it saw a massive 62% pump in price action before topping at $0.3850. Unfortunately, early adopters of the coin were slammed with a devaluation of more than 95% over the next two years, bottoming at $0.1090 in March 2020.
Then the pandemic stuck.
The flood of new money provided by American stimulus checks, combined with stay-at-home orders saw the price pump until late July 2020, topping at $0.1549. After a few weeks of consolidation, ADA lost another 50% off its high, plunging to $0.0738 by the end of August 2020. Fear flooded the market for the next few months, and then in November 2020, ADA saw the beginning of a pump that would take it from $0.0985 to $0.1493 by the beginning of March.
With exuberance and volatility entering the market thanks to the NFT mania, Cardano continued its meteoric rise, gaining another 62% after a brief pullback in price, reaching a new all-time high of $2.4702. As with all fast-moving markets, ADA saw another pullback from this level to just under the one-dollar mark.
At this time, the Cardano team announced the rollout of the Alonzo upgrade, bringing smart contract functionality to the ADA ecosystem. The market responded with a buying frenzy, and we saw a massive pump over the next seven weeks, with price gaining another 67%, before topping at $3.0990 by the end of August 2021.
It was around this time that the Crypto bear market set in, crushing the entire crypto market, dragging ADA down with it. Price fell by 95%, eventually bottoming at $0.2400 in September 2023, thanks to the Federal Reserve lifting interest rates for the first time since 2018.
But Jerome Powell reversed the Fed’s policy stance, preparing markets for coming interest rate cuts, and that was enough, along with the SEC changing its stance on altcoins, to see the price break through technical areas, continuing ADAs 68% climb to $0.7962 in February 2024. But the hype was short-lived, and price returned to the $0.2858 level by October 2024.
Then came the much-anticipated U.S. election, and with Trump sweeping the polls, and adopting a pro-crypto stance, we saw ADA benefit from the crypto market moving higher, eventually topping at $1.3219 by the beginning of December.
Price more or less consolidated in a range for the next two months, before being dragged down by the Great Crypto Crash of February 2024, sending ADA back to the $0.50 handle.
So, what can we expect from ADA in 2025 and beyond? Is this token worth adding to your portfolio, or will we continue to see declines in 2025?
Let’s take a look at this next-gen proof-of-work blockchain and see what’s in store for the rest of the decade.
Cardano Price Prediction 2025
2024 was a big year for Cardano, with the network launching the “Hydra Protocol in May of 2023, refining it by the end of December 2024 to see the network achieve a staggering 1-million transactions per second. Despite this amazing achievement, this wasn’t the catalyst for the pump in price at the end of the year, and the BTC halving event was basically a non-event for ADA price action during the year.
Given the lack of response in ADA price action to upgrades to the Cardano network, we don’t see how the upcoming Voltaire upgrade planned for 2025 will have any impact on ADA price action. So, what catalyst are we looking for to see the price move?
If we examine the weekly chart above, we can see that the long-term growth trend line in red at the bottom of the chart shows that Cardano is still in bullish territory, despite its 60% price decline in early 2025.
Currently, the chart shows the green line representing the breakout level for Cardano to move higher, but it’s far from this point at the time of writing this post in February 2025. What we do see is an “M”-shaped retracement pattern that saw price drop back to the $0.50 handle at the beginning of February 2025.
This move seems to have bottomed for now, forming a tension pattern defined by the red and green lines drawn on the chart. Does that mean that ADA price action has bottomed for 2025? Will we see more growth during the rest of Q1?
Cardano Price Prediction 2025 Q1
The answer to that question? Likely not. The daily chart above looks like ADA has support at the red trendline marked by the beginning of the pump during the election, followed by the tail of the wick forming the next support point for the bottom of the tension pattern at the beginning of February.
The most recent weekly candle formed in the week of the great crypto crash looks frightening, it’s important to note that it didn’t pierce the support of the red trend line on the chart above. That’s good news for ADA because it means the chart forms a higher low, showing the potential to reverse and perhaps head higher.
However, being that the crypto market is in a state of chaos, ADA isn’t out of the woods just yet. The “Ides of March” in the markets could still spell out more downside for ADA in the final month of Q1 2025.
Cardano Price Prediction 2025 Q2
Let’s zoom in on the chart and turn our attention to the 1-hour timeframe. It appears that ADA is currently in a downward trend if we plug in a downward parallel channel to the chart. Right now, it looks like ADA is trying to challenge the mid-line of the channel, where it could experience a technical breakout to challenge the top of the channel in 2025.
Does that mean that we’ll see ADA breakout and head to the moon in Q2 2025? Probably not.
Given the impact of the crypto crash that started with “Black Monday” on 24 February, the most likely bullish case for ADA in Q2 2025 would be to recapture the midline of the channel and stay above it, consolidating in a range between $0.6513 to $0.7159 for most of the quarter.
We would assume the bullish case has the highest probability right now since price managed to recover at the $0.5793 level, putting in what seems to be a good level of support, before heading higher, gaining 16% off the low.
The biggest challenge for ADA in Q2 looks like its ability to consolidate at the current $0.6650 level, which would give the chart the energy to recapture the midline of the parallel channel. With no immediate catalysts for the market or ADA on the horizon, and given that upgrades to the network seem to have little effect on pumping price action, we would have to assume that it would take an external catalyst to move the chart higher than this expected outcome.
The bearish outlook for ADA could see the price fall to tag the bottom of the red trendline before experiencing another period of consolidation. Which one is more likely to occur?
At the moment, the downside momentum looks stronger if we view the crypto market as a whole. However, since ADA seems to fair better than BTC in market drops, we might see the bullish scenario play out.
- Bullish ADA Price Prediction Q2 2025: $0.6947
- Bearish ADA Price Prediction Q2 2025: $0.5623
Cardano Price Prediction 2025 Q3
The catalyst ADA needs to move higher still remains up in the air, with FED monetary policy and politics playing the lead role in price action, alongside the broader price action n the overall crypto market. The risk lies in investors moving outflows from ADA into other cryptos, or to other markets, like equities as investors cover losses on equities or add to short positions in these risk assets.
If Trump manages to bring peace to Ukraine, we could see huge inflows into crypto, and a revival of bullish sentiment in the market, which would benefit ADA as well. Then there’s also the fact that, in the past, when BTC price falls, we often see a setup for an Altcoin season, where investors move holding from BTC and ETH into altcoins to benefit from the increased volatility in these assets, leading the market higher.
If that’s the case, the bullish case for Q3 2025 could be ADA recapturing the top of the downward parallel channel, where it might consolidate, with the chart building momentum to perhaps break out of the channel and head back to challenge the green trend line.
It’s doubtful that we’ll see this breakout in Q3, and we would expect the price to consolidate around the convergence of the tension pattern formed at the intersection of the bullish and bearish trendlines at $0.9282.
The bearish outlook for Q3 could see price consolidate lower at the convergence points of the downward parallel channel and the bottom support trendline at $0.7132. A failure below this level could see a violent move to the downside, with price perhaps settling around the $0.5165 level.
- Bullish ADA Price Prediction Q3 2025: $0.7132
- Bearish ADA Price Prediction Q3 2025: $0.5165
Cardano Price Prediction 2025 Q4
Moving into the final quarter of 2025, things get harder to predict, but we can make some assumptions based on what we’ve covered so far. Before we go any further, it’s important to note that all of our predictions are merely speculation and do not constitute investment advice. Investing in altcoins is risky, and you do so at your own volition.
That said, if Cardano does finish Q3 strong, it would reach the convergence of the tension pattern defined by the red and green support and resistance lines on the above charts. At that point, all we would need would be that ever-elusive catalyst to see the price breakout and challenge the previous high from the election rally at $1.3280.
On the downside, if we see price converge at the bottom of the red trend line and the top of the parallel channel, we might see price fail and slowly grind down to the $0.3286 level, wiping out all of the gains from the Trump rally and inauguration.
- Bullish ADA Price Prediction Q4 2025: $1.3280
- Bearish ADA Price Prediction Q4 2025: $0.3286
Cardano Price Prediction 2026
In 2026, we might see a global recession, with FED data already pointing to stagflation in 2025, and possibly evolving into a full-blown recession by Q3 2025. If that does play out, 2026 could be a big year for crypto as investors turn to other alternative assets for growth.
Then there’s the consideration of Chinese capital flight from the biggest eastern economy, especially if Xi Jinping continues his plans to devalue the Yaun. We saw this happen in 2015 and in 2017 before the start of the first two crypto bull markets.
If that’s the case, we could make the bullish argument that ADA surpasses the $1.3280 handle and shoots for new all-time highs, challenging the tops of the previous cycles at $2.3830 and $3.0978.
On the downside, the bearish case would be a failure below the red trendline and a retest of the $0.2350 level.
- Bullish ADA Price Prediction 2026: $3.0978
- Bearish ADA Price Prediction 2026: $0.2350
Cardano Price Prediction 2027-2030
If ADA breaks the old ATH of $3.900 in 2026, then it’s off to the races, and there’s nothing but blue sky ahead. Catalysts from these moves might be AI-related, or they might come from the broader economy toward the end of Trump’s second term in office.
For the bearish case, a poor finish to 2026 could see further downside, with ADA sinking back to the lows of $0.2337. Do we think that’s a possibility – it’s highly unlikely unless there’s a severe catastrophe affecting the Cardano ecosystem.
- Bullish ADA Price Prediction 2027-2030: $4.500
- Bearish ADA Price Prediction 2027-2030: $0.2337
