Cardano Gains 24% in a Week as ADA Holders Continue to Decline

Highlights:

• Cardano price gains 24% in one week despite a decline in its holders’ count. 
• Santiment says ADA is one of the best-performing altcoins amid the broader crypto market dip.
• ADA is currently priced at about $0.196 after its recent short-term price surge. 

Cardano (ADA) has continued to gain momentum, as its price hit $0.195 for the first time since July 4. In an X post on Tuesday, crypto analytical intelligence platform Santiment reported that the price surge pushed ADA’s market value by 24% over the past week. This made Cardano one of the best-performing altcoins during a week characterized by a broader crypto market decline. 

Santiment added that the price increase occurred amid the dip in the number of wallets holding ADA. Recent data showed that there are now 7,070 fewer non-empty wallets than there were two months ago. This suggests that many smaller holders are still hesitating to buy ADA even as its price continues to recover. 

The analytical intelligence firm explained that this scenario often arises when large or more confident buyers intensify their accumulation, while retailers remain significantly cautious. This ensures that ADA’s available supply is being absorbed despite the declining number of active holders.

The on-chain platform explained:

“Rising price with falling holders can mean stronger buyers are absorbing supply, and retail confidence has not fully followed the move yet.”

🔗 Live Chart: https://t.co/Q1Mg3jpRTJ

🚀 $ADA just reached $0.195 for the first time since July 4th. Its market cap is up 24% over the past week, making Cardano one of the cleanest standouts in an otherwise disappointing and choppy altcoin market.

📉 This market cap growth is… pic.twitter.com/u9OKHZbnzO

— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) August 3, 2026

Santiment Explains Reasons for the Recent Cardano Price Gains

Ongoing projects across the Cardano network were highlighted as the major factors driving ADA’s recent recovery. Developers have continued testing Leios, making progress on Hydra scaling, rolling out updates to Mithril, adding support for Pyth, and approving new projects through the latest round of Catalyst funding. 

On July 15, Crypto2Community reported that the Cardano Foundation has confirmed the ratification of the van Rossem hard fork. The hard fork went live on mainnet on July 18, marking its first-ever approval through the Voltaire on-chain governance system. 

For context, Cardano presented the van Rossem hard fork governance action to the mainnet during Epoch 637 on June 16. The Cardano community finally ratified the proposal on July 13 after four weeks of on-chain governance voting. 

In June, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said Cardano has the technical base to become one of the world’s leading operating systems for trust, finance, and digital coordination. Hoskinson argued that Cardano is not only competing with other blockchains. Instead, it is also building infrastructure that could support larger global systems.

The Cardano founder stated:

“The cost of establishing trust on a global basis is in the hundreds of billions for just the well-regulated financial markets. Our goal is to shrink or remove all of these third parties on a global basis.”

Cardano Continues to Trade Around $0.195 as Whales Keep Accumulating ADA

At the time of writing, the crypto market is 1.6% up in the past 24 hours. Its market cap is $2.265 trillion, while its trading volume is $55.7 billion. During the same period, ADA’s price spiked 6.3%. The asset is changing hands at approximately $0.196 with a market capitalization of $7.3 billion. ADA’s fully diluted valuation is $8.8 billion, while its 24-hour trading volume is $677.3 million. 

In the past week and month, ADA’s price has appreciated by 27.1% and 2.8%, respectively. However, the asset is 73.4% down year-to-date. Meanwhile, whales have been accumulating ADA, showing renewed interest in the asset. 

Recent on-chain data showed that large investors acquired more than 240 million ADA over the past five days. These consistent accumulations increased the whales’ combined holdings to about 14.5 billion ADA. 

Whales loaded up. Cardano took off.

Over 240 million $ADA have been accumulated in the past five days, helping fuel a 22% price surge per data from @SantimentData. pic.twitter.com/6Q6P6luBZn

— Ali Charts (@alicharts) August 2, 2026