If history is any indication, Cardano is far from being dead. It is true that during the bear market of 2022, Cardano (ADA), along with most other crypto assets, saw an extreme drop in its value – ADA is changing hands 90% removed from its all-time high, controlling a $10.6 billion market share as of press time. Despite the recent poor market performance, there are several reasons to be optimistic about Cardano’s future.

Just as a quick aside, here’s a brief reminder of how quickly things can change in crypto – Cardano entered the 2021 bull season with a price of $0.10 and a market value of $3.31B. During the historic bull market, ADA gained a total of 3000% in value, reaching an ATH price of $3.10 and a market capitalization of $94.75B. 

It is totally understandable that numerous investors are asking the “Is Cardano dead?” question in light of the recent activity in the cryptocurrency market. However, we must remember that despite the massive value reduction, the ADA token is still worth over 75% more than at the start of the 2021 bull market run.

Why is Cardano down?

Numerous factors have contributed to the Cardano (ADA) crash, many of which are closely related to the reasons behind the broader 2022 crypto market crash. These can be loosely categorized into crypto-related and macroeconomic reasons. Let's start with the crypto-related ones.

Crypto-specific reasons for the Cardano crash

Arguably, the most important crypto-specific reason was the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in May 2022. Crypto markets, which had already been in decline at that point in time, were severely shaken in the collapse of a $60 billion ecosystem that included numerous decentralized stablecoins, decentralized applications (dApps), and the LUNC utility token. 

Another major blow to the crypto sector was dealt earlier this month, as the second largest cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed in a matter of days and filed for bankruptcy on November 11. The implications of the FTX collapse could end up being ever more far-reaching than the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in May, due to FTX’s numerous partnerships and investments within the crypto ecosystem. Only time will tell.

Despite bad market conditions, the Cardano team tried its best to build upon the project’s strong foundations. In September 2022, Cardano devs launched the Vasil upgrade, which brought smart contract improvements and transaction-related enhancements to the Cardano network. However, despite the rollout of the highly-anticipated upgrade, the price of ADA coins continued its steep decline.

Macroeconomic reasons for the Cardano crash

Arguably, the leading reason for the steep decline in the price of ADA is the fact that the U.S. Federal Reserve has constantly been raising interest rates this year, which is making people and businesses more reluctant to pursue risk asset investments and investments in general.

Other reasons that have affected the whole world in the past year have indirectly affected the ADA coin as well. The coronavirus pandemic that has engulfed the whole world, crisis rumors, and the Russia-Ukraine war have caused people to brace for a potential recession. 

On the other hand, the energy crisis affecting the whole world has also led to problems in the mining of crypto, the main source of which is electricity. All these events affected the global economy as well as the crypto market.

In addition to global troubles, the fact that some jurisdictions have banned crypto production and restricted access to crypto exchanges has shaken the trust in crypto and caused people to be skeptical of blockchain technology.

Cardano’s historical market performance: Is ADA dead?

To better understand where we stand, let's look at the previous bear seasons spent by ADA coin.

The 2018 Crypto Winter  (Nov 2017 - Dec 2018)

At the end of 2017, the ADA coin experienced a rapid price increase, growing from $0.029 and a market cap of $755 million to a price of $1.10 and a market cap of $28 billion. Shortly thereafter, the bears regained control, and the price of ADA plummeted to $0.042 by late 2018. It took three years, until February 2021, for ADA to retest its previous highs reached at the onset of 2018.

While history doesn’t repeat itself, the lessons can be learned all the same. While the price of Cardano is currently far from its previous ATH, we can see that ADA has previously been in a similar position and came out on top in the end. However, these things can take time (3 years in the previous cycle), so a long-term outlook is essential for anyone debating buying Cardano.

Let’s quickly compare the price of ADA and its year-to-date performance compared to some of the leading cryptocurrencies in the space:

*Price data collected on July 12, 2023

From the table above, we can deduce Cardano has been performing worse in 2023 than the two of the biggest crypto assets, Bitcoin and Ethereum. In addition, it has been completely outclassed in terms of year-to-date performance by Solana, which has more than doubled in price since the start of the year. Still, Cardano has performed better than Algorand and produced a performance very similar to Avalanche.

Does Cardano have a future? 

Cardano’s native digital token, ADA, is presently the eighth-largest cryptocurrency in the world. Launched by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson in 2017, the Cardano blockchain has since emerged as one of the most promising projects in the crypto space. However, critics point to the slow deployment of features and a somewhat lackluster dApps ecosystem as the reasons why ADA’s future price movement might see more red zone action going forward. 

Nevertheless, we attempt to determine the likelihood that ADA will reach new highs in the upcoming year as well as the factors that could contribute to this. Keep in mind that opinions expressed here are not facts and could turn out to be incorrect in the future. Also, keep in mind that the following Cardano price forecasts are modeled after the state of technical analysis indicators as of July 2023.

What will Cardano be at the end of 2023?

It is very likely that the ADA coin, which currently has a value of roughly $0.29, will see fairly strong bullish activity before the end of 2023. In the absence of notably negative news, which could substantially change the state of technical market indicators, ADA/USD is expected to close the year at $0.66 based on our Cardano price prediction. 

This would be a great scenario for ADA holders, as it would represent a 127% increase compared to the current ADA price. 

What’s Cardano's price prediction for 2024?

ADA price prediction (data collected on July 12, 2023).

Based on our algorithmic Cardano price prediction, the minimum price of the cryptocurrency in 2023 is estimated to plateau at around $0.283. ADA’s maximum price is estimated to reach as high as $0.79 in December 2023. 

The forecast is quite optimistic for 2024, as the algorithm expects the price of ADA to hit as high as $1.48 in July of 2023. However, ADA is forecasted to end the next year on a sour note, as the price is predicted to decline following the July peak and retreat all the way below $0.50. 

The answer to this question should be an unequivocal ‘no’, especially if we take into account past Cardano’s price performance and algorithmic predictions. The changing global monetary system, investments of large companies in crypto, and the increasing adoption of crypto around the globe indicate that the negative market trend is bound to reverse in due time. However, at the moment, it seems that it could take months or even years before we see Cardano retesting its previous ATH.

UPDATE (November 30, 14:45 UTC): Added a table comparing Cardano with BTC, ETH, and several smart contract competitors.