Can Cardano Price Hold $0.20? Whale Selling Triggers Fresh Market Jitters

Key Highlights:

• The Cardano price rebounds to $0.2176 on Friday, following a sharp 6% sell-off the previous day.
• Mid-tier whales (10M–100M $ADA) reduced supply dominance from 38.27% to 37.93%, reinforcing sell-side sentiment.
• The open interest tied to $ADA’s futures contracts recorded a steep contraction of 30% within three weeks, indicating a significant long liquidation and lack of conviction among derivative traders.

$ADA, the native cryptocurrency of the Cardano ecosystem, saw a 2% uptick during Friday’s Asian market hours, following a 6% decline the previous day. While the sell-off aligns with a broader market pullback, the Cardano price faced additional bearish momentum amid increasing selling pressure from large-wallet investors and a lack of conviction from retail buyers. The technical outlook of $ADA coin further highlights the risk of a prolonged price correction.

Cardano On-Chain Metrics Signal Bearish Shift as Whale Holdings Shrink

Cardano price continues to experience increasing downside momentum, with large wallet investors trimming their holdings and adding more selling pressure to the market. Santiment’s metrics show that mid-tier whales with holdings ranging from 10 million to 100 million tokens reduced their dominance from 38.27% on October 10 to 37.93% on Friday. Meanwhile, larger addresses holding above 100 million $ADA shifted slightly to command 16.04% of the circulating supply, compared to 15.92% previously.

At the same time, profit margins have fallen significantly in the markets. The proportion of the circulating $ADA supply currently in profit fell from 30.78% to 17.8%, pointing to a sudden wave of profit-taking.

Together, these metrics demonstrate a distinct sell imbalance among leading investors. This shifting sentiment could heavily restrict upcoming recovery efforts and keep short-term price action under pressure.

Cardano price has experienced intense downward pressure over the past three weeks, plunging 20% from a local high of $0.2704 down to $0.2164, which dragged its total market capitalization down to $7.95 billion. The downward momentum gained significant momentum on Thursday, dropping nearly 6% from $0.2253 to $0.2123. This aggressive price reversal led to a series of long liquidations worth almost $1.8 million in $ADA perpetual contracts.

$ADA Open Interest Shrinks Significantly

Reflecting a mass exodus of capital and declining market participation, Cardano’s Open Interest (OI)—which measures the total value of active futures and options contracts—collapsed from $658 million to $459.5 million over the same timeframe. This represents a huge pullback of around 30.17%.

The price decline coupled with the Open Interest drop indicates that the market downturn is being led by long liquidation and active unwinding of positions, rather than heavy new short selling. As confidence in a near-term relief rally fades, traders are walking away, letting go of trades and reducing their leveraged exposure.

Adding to the bearish outlook, Cardano’s OI-Weighted Funding Rate has dropped into negative territory, hitting -0.0095%.

The negative funding rate indicates that short traders are paying long traders a fee to keep their bearish positions. This move into negative territory highlights the prevailing bearish sentiment, reflecting a strong push from short sellers who are anticipating additional declines for the asset.

Cardano Price Losses Major Support From Multi-Month Recovery Channel

Since June 2026, the Cardano price witnessed a steady recovery within the two ascending trendlines of a channel pattern. The chart setup shows two parallel walking trendlines that act as dynamic support and resistance to market participants.

During the Thursday selloff, the $ADA price gave a decisive breakdown below the pattern’s support trendline, signalling a change in market momentum. Today, the price uptick to $0.2163 acts as a short retest of the breached trendline and validates suitability for further correction.

If Cardano price could continue to hold below the $0.22 resistance and the 100-day exponential moving average (EMA). the sellers could drag the asset to the next significant support near $0.19.

On the contrary, if the $ADA coin reenters the channel boundary with a bullish thrust above the 100-day EMA, the bearish thesis would get invalidated.