Major ADA holders hit a 4-month high as Cardano launched Midnight privacy sidechain with major corporate validators, despite a 30% price drop and declining DeFi activity.
Despite Cardano’s ADA token hovering near its 52-week low, a significant group of major investors is sending a powerful countersignal. On-chain data reveals that wallets holding at least ten million ADA climbed to a four-month high of 424. These large holders now control nearly 14 billion tokens, representing roughly 37% of the entire circulating supply. This congestion is unfolding as the network launches its most significant enterprise-focused initiative to date.
The driver behind this institutional interest is the recent mainnet launch of the Midnight privacy sidechain. Designed for regulatory compliance, Midnight uses zero-knowledge credentials to protect sensitive data by separating it from transaction validation. Its validator suite has attracted heavyweight names including Google Cloud, Worldpay and MoneyGram — entities that collectively process more than $2 trillion in annual payment volume. This enterprise-grade validation framework is a clear attempt to capture confidential transactions in the chain of regulated corporations.
However, the market price tells a very different story. ADA has lost almost 30% of its value since the beginning of the year and is currently trading around $0.25. The token remains well below its record high of $3.10, and technical indicators paint a bearish picture with the price trapped below key moving averages. Network activity statistics reflect this pressure: the total value locked up in Cardano’s ecosystem fell from more than $700 million to $132 million, and daily transactions more than halved compared to the previous year.
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This price weakness persists even as network activity points to broader participation. Data from TapTools shows that approximately four billion ADA, worth more than $1 billion, have moved across the network in the past five days. Furthermore, the ecosystem shows robust health in other areas. Over 63% of all circulating ADA is in over 3,000 independent pools, one of the highest participation rates in the crypto sector. Developer activity also remains strong, with Cardano ranking third globally last year with 17,417 commits across 550 repositories, trailing only Ethereum and ICP.
Upcoming protocol upgrades aim to build on this foundation. The planned Protocol 11 hard fork in April will fundamentally change Cardano’s governance model, allowing ADA holders to directly vote on treasury fund allocation, parameter changes and protocol upgrades. Later in the second quarter of 2026, the Van Rossum hard fork and Node 10.7.0 are scheduled to improve smart contract performance and node efficiency. The long-term scaling roadmap continues with Ouroboros Leios, which targets around 1,000 transactions per second.
On the regulatory and investment product front, Cardano is making increasing progress. Hashdex has received approval to include ADA in its Nasdaq-listed crypto ETF, where it has a weighting of 0.68%, placing it behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and Solana. Ark Invest’s preliminary filing for a 20-asset basket assigns 2.29% to Cardano, putting it ahead of Chainlink and Litecoin. CME futures for ADA have been tradable since February 2026, facilitating institutional exposure, although a dedicated spot ETF, such as the one proposed by Grayscale, remains pending.
The widening gap between Cardano’s technical progress and its market valuation presents a complex puzzle. While whale accumulation and high-profile corporate endorsements indicate strong underlying conviction, the price action and key ecosystem metrics such as TVL reflect persistent bearish sentiment. The network’s ability to translate its upcoming management overhaul and Midnight’s early adoption into renewed capital inflows will be the ultimate test of its fundamental strength.
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