Cardano Tests Its Floor as Whale Wallets Hit 2020 High

Wallets holding 100K to 100M ADA now hold more than 25.6 billion coins, the highest concentration since February 2023. Wallets with at least 1 million ADA control 25.1 billion tokens, or 67.5% of circulating supply, a level unseen since July 2020. Retail wallets holding under 100 ADA have cut their holdings by 0.7% over the past four months. ADA trades near $0.158, roughly 35% below its 200-day SMA of $0.26, with a falling wedge forming on the 4-hour chart. Cardano is showing a rare split between how large holders and small investors are behaving. Santiment’s Supply Distribution data shows wallets holding between 100,000 and 100 million ADA now collectively hold more than 25.6 billion coins, the highest concentration since February 2023. Extend that threshold to wallets holding at least 1 million ADA, and these large entities command 25.1 billion tokens, equal to 67.5% of the circulating supply and a level not seen since July 2020. Retail wallets holding under 100 ADA moved the other way, cutting combined holdings by 0.7% over the last four months. CME futures and a Grant Thornton audit are pulling institutional money in CME Group launched a regulated ADA futures contract this year, and Hashdex added the asset to its Nasdaq Crypto Index ETF shortly after, removing a custody barrier that had kept several traditional hedge funds out of the token entirely. Grant Thornton went further, anchoring a cryptographic financial audit directly onto Cardano’s blockchain through its Reeve system. None of this explains the price action on its own, but it does give the accumulation numbers above some weight beyond pure speculation. Wallet categoryDataReference period100K – 100M ADAOver 25.6B ADAHighest since February 2023Over 1M ADA25.1B ADA (67.5% of supply)Highest since July 2020Under 100 ADA (retail)-0.7% over 4 monthsCurrent DeFi TVL has fallen 80% from its peak, down to $137 million Binance spot volume has thinned to around $19 million over 24 hours. Total value locked in Cardano’s decentralized applications sits near $137 million, down 80% from its peak, and daily transactions have cooled to roughly 17,400. Most of the wallets buying the dip appear to be staking or simply holding rather than transacting, which is a very different behavior from an ecosystem attracting new users. Capital is concentrating at the top of the holder distribution while day-to-day network usage keeps shrinking. The falling wedge on the 4-hour chart puts $0.1588 on the line On the ADA/USDT 4-hour chart on Binance via TradingView, ADA is compressing into a falling wedge after topping near $0.1996 in late June. The upper boundary connects that swing high to a series of lower highs through the $0.19-0.185 zone. The lower boundary runs beneath an intermediate low around $0.165 down to the current price near $0.1588.