Cardano Price Under Pressure, Yet 58 Percent of All ADA Stays Staked

Cardano traded at $0.185 in the early hours of Friday, November 6, 2026. According to CoinGecko, ADA lost 6.3 percent in 24 hours, with a daily low of $0.178. The last time it closed a day this low was August 19. What stands out is what holders are not doing: 58.5 percent of all circulating ADA remains delegated to stake pools, barely less than a year ago.

The slide therefore comes mainly from outside, from the broad sell-off in equity and crypto markets. The base of long-term holders has so far eroded only slowly. This article sets out the figures, puts the chart levels into context and explains what investors in Germany should consider on tax, buying and custody.

• Price: $0.185, down 6.3 percent in 24 hours, market capitalisation around $6.9 billion.
• Twelve months: down 65 percent from the annual high of $0.59 on November 11, 2025.
• Staking: 21.54 billion of the 36.82 billion ADA in circulation are actively delegated.
• Levels: the August floor around $0.174 below, the 200-day moving average at $0.208 above.

Cardano price at $0.185: lowest daily close since mid-August

On Thursday ADA still closed at $0.197. Overnight it fell as low as $0.178 and has since steadied just above that. Over 30 days the loss is 27.6 percent, measured against the October 8 close of $0.255. The twelve-month picture is starker: in November 2025 ADA cost $0.53, and at the annual high on November 11, 2025, as much as $0.59.

That puts the distance to the all-time high of $3.09 from September 2021 at around 94 percent. Trading volume over 24 hours was $351 million, and Cardano ranks 18th by market capitalisation. The move is larger than that of Bitcoin, which gave up 5.7 percent over the same period, but smaller than Ethereum's 7.8 percent.

Readers of our Cardano price prediction from November 4 know the starting point: ADA stood at $0.196 at the time, and we named $0.1834 as the key support. The price briefly dipped below that level overnight. The daily close is currently back just above it, so a confirmed break is still missing.

Nasdaq sell-off and liquidations: where the pressure on ADA comes from

The trigger did not lie with Cardano itself. On Thursday chip and AI stocks slumped on the Nasdaq; we reported on the sell-off in chip stocks on November 5. The crypto market followed within a few hours, and Bitcoin briefly fell below $76,000.

Forced closures in the futures market amplified the move. According to ETHNews, citing CoinGlass, leveraged positions worth $1.03 billion were liquidated within 24 hours, 89.4 percent of them bets on rising prices. A liquidation is the automatic closing of a leveraged position by the exchange as soon as the posted collateral no longer covers the loss. Each of these closures is a sale that pushes the price down further.

The Fear and Greed sentiment index from alternative.me fell from 50 to 28 points within a day, signalling fear. For altcoins such as Cardano, this kind of environment is usually harder than for Bitcoin, because investors cut their riskiest positions first in periods of stress.

Staking share on the Cardano blockchain: 58.5 percent of all ADA stays delegated

How are long-term holders behaving? The blockchain itself provides an answer. On Cardano, staking means that a holder delegates ADA to a stake pool. A stake pool is a network node that produces blocks and earns rewards for doing so, which it passes on to its delegators. The coins never leave your own wallet and are not locked.

In the current accounting period, 21.54 billion ADA are actively delegated. With 36.82 billion ADA in circulation, that equals 58.5 percent. For comparison:

• Epoch 593, early November 2025: 21.88 billion ADA delegated, 61.0 percent of supply.
• Epoch 630, early May 2026: 21.73 billion ADA, 60.0 percent.
• Epoch 663, late October 2026: 21.50 billion ADA, 58.4 percent.
• Epoch 665, current: 21.54 billion ADA, 58.5 percent.

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on November 6, 2026. It is based on Cardano blockchain epoch data on active stake, circulating supply and rewards paid out, covering four epochs over twelve months.

The share has fallen by 2.5 percentage points within a year, or by around 340 million ADA in absolute terms. Over the same period circulating supply grew by almost one billion ADA, because new coins are continuously paid out of the reserve as rewards. Since late October the delegated amount has even risen slightly. The on-chain data therefore shows no flight of stakers, but it does show a slow erosion over the year.

Cardano staking yield: a little over 2 percent a year on paper

Cardano settles in epochs. An epoch lasts five days, and at the end of each one the protocol distributes rewards. They come from transaction fees and from the reserve, which currently still holds around 6.03 billion ADA. For epoch 664, 6.15 million ADA in rewards were paid out. Extrapolated to the active stake of 21.5 billion ADA and 73 epochs a year, that gives a gross yield of about 2.1 percent annually.

A year ago the same figure was still 2.4 percent. The yield is falling as planned, because the reserve shrinks with every epoch, and with it the amount the protocol pays out. Stake pool fees, which vary by operator, are still deducted from these gross figures. If you stake through an exchange, you usually receive even less, because the provider keeps a share.

An important point of perspective: a staking yield of 2 percent does not offset a price loss of 6 percent in a single day. On Cardano, staking is extra income for holders who intend to hold anyway, not a hedge against falling prices. Which providers pass on how much is shown in our comparison of staking platforms.

Staking without lock-up or slashing: why Cardano stakers are not forced to sell

On many other blockchains, staked coins are tied up for a certain period. Anyone who wants to exit on Ethereum or Polkadot waits days to weeks, depending on conditions. Cardano has no such lock-up. Delegated ADA can be sold or transferred at any time, and the delegation ends automatically for the amount moved.

There is also no slashing. On other networks, slashing is the penalty under which part of the staked coins is destroyed if a validator makes mistakes. A poorly run Cardano pool costs its delegators at most missed rewards, never the stake itself.

That explains part of the calm in the data. A Cardano delegator does not have to unwind the position to stay flexible, and so has less reason to rush in a sell-off. Conversely, the high staking share is no solid floor. Any of these coins can move to an exchange within minutes.

Open interest and funding rate: the ADA futures market on OKX is shrinking

The reduction in risk is more visible in the futures market than on the blockchain. Open interest is the total value of all open futures contracts on a coin. For ADA perpetual contracts on the OKX exchange it stood at $32.8 million on November 4 and is now $24.5 million. A good quarter of positions has thus disappeared within two days, through liquidations or voluntary closures.

The funding rate is the balancing payment between buyers and sellers of such contracts, due every eight hours. For ADA on OKX it currently stands at minus 0.012 percent. A negative value means that sellers pay buyers, so the contract price is below the spot price. At the same time, there are 2.5 accounts with a long position for every account with a short position.

Many small accounts are therefore betting on a recovery, while larger capital sits more on the selling side. These figures are based on OKX market data analysed by cryptoticker.io on November 6, 2026. They cover only part of the futures market but show the direction: leverage is being reduced, not built up.

DeFi on Cardano: deposits fall to $51 million

A second look at usage: according to DefiLlama, $51.2 million currently sits in decentralised finance applications on Cardano. On November 1 it was still $54.3 million, and on October 7 $73.9 million. Deposits have thus shrunk by 31 percent within a month.

Most of this decline is down to the price, as deposits are held mainly in ADA and valued in dollars. If ADA falls by a quarter, the dollar value of deposits falls accordingly. Relative to a market capitalisation of just under $7 billion, DeFi usage on Cardano remains small and is not currently supporting the price.

ADA chart levels: $0.174 below, $0.208 above

On the downside, the next key zone is the August floor. From August 16 to 19, ADA closed four times between $0.174 and $0.176, and from there the recovery began, taking it above $0.25 in October. If this zone fails, the annual low of $0.144 from June 29 is the next level on the chart, a good 22 percent below the current price.

On the upside, ADA first has to reclaim Thursday's close of $0.197. Above that lies the 200-day moving average at $0.208. The 200-day moving average is the average of the closing prices of the past 200 days, and many traders regard it as the line between an uptrend and a downtrend. Since our prediction on November 4 it has barely moved, from $0.2085 to $0.208, but the price's distance from it has widened from 6 to 12 percent. The 50-day moving average runs higher still, at $0.228.

As long as ADA trades below both lines, the trend remains pointed down under the usual rules of chart analysis. Levels are no guarantee; they only show where many buyers or sellers became active in the past.

Holding period and staking: what the German tax office counts on ADA losses

For investors in Germany, cryptocurrencies are subject to a one-year holding period under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If you hold ADA for more than twelve months, you sell tax-free. If you sell earlier, the gain is taxed at your personal rate, provided total gains from private disposals in the year reach 1,000 euros.

Staking does not extend the holding period. The tax authorities dispelled the earlier concern about a ten-year period back in 2022. The rewards themselves, however, count as income when they are received. They remain tax-free as long as all other income of this kind stays below 256 euros a year.

The slide has a tax side that many overlook. Anyone who bought ADA over the past twelve months at around $0.53 is roughly 65 percent down. While the holding period is still running, such a loss can be offset against gains from other private disposals in the same year. Once the period has expired, the loss has no tax value. A crypto tax tool shows at a glance which purchases reach the deadline and when.

Buying, leverage and custody: ADA in a falling market

If you want to enter or add now, do so through a provider licensed under the EU's MiCA regulation. MiCA stands for Markets in Crypto-Assets and, since the end of 2024, has governed across the EU which providers may hold and trade crypto assets. Whether a provider is licensed is shown in the register of the supervisory authority ESMA. Our overview of regulated crypto exchanges shows a selection.

Leveraged products are particularly risky in this situation. The liquidation wave of the past 24 hours hit leveraged buyers above all, and with ten-times leverage a 6 percent move is already enough for a loss of 60 percent of the stake. If you want to hold and delegate ADA for the long term, you do not need leverage.

Cardano offers a particular advantage for custody: staking works directly from your own wallet, including a hardware wallet. The private keys stay with the holder. If you stake through an exchange, you give up control and share the provider's risk.

ADA staking below $0.19: every delegated coin can still be sold

The slide is mainly part of a market-wide sell-off. The blockchain shows no flight of stakers, the futures market a clear reduction in leverage. For readers in Germany, that leads to three steps:

1. Choose how you buy: Only buy through a provider with a MiCA licence, listed in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Compare staking providers: Cardano staking currently yields around 2.1 percent a year gross, and provider fees differ considerably. The staking comparison shows how much reaches you.
3. Record the holding period: Note the date of every purchase so that losses can still be offset before the period expires. A crypto tax tool does this automatically.

(As of November 6, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)