Cardano loses top-10 spot as price hits 3-year low – What should traders do next?

Some of the top coins, based on market capitalization, are finding it difficult to cope with the current market conditions. Among them is Cardano, which only gained 2% in the last 24 hours after missing the wider market’s brief resurgence the previoius day.

Cardano’s troubles persist as historical price levels continue to plummet. However, the slow accumulation by institutions is one of the few positives to take here. Hence, the question – How will the altcoin’s price react to these mixed signals from Cardano?

ADA loses top-10 spot to Bitcoin Cash!

Thanks to its indifferent price action, Cardano (ADA) lost its spot in the top 10 cryptos by market capitalization to Bitcoin Cash (BCH). This is the first time this has happened since 2021.

This flip started the previous day as BCH rallied by 20% while ADA’s price lagged. At press time, ADA was capped at $9.766 billion, while BCH had a market cap of $10.43 billion.

In fact, ADA has been one of the poorest performing coins in the top ten.

Cardano’s price matches 2022 FTX crash low

In addition to falling out of the top 10, Cardano also hit a 3-year low on the price charts. It is now back to the levels it saw soon after FTX’s November 2022 crash. Back then, ADA slipped below the $0.22-level, which was revisited in early June of 2023.

Even the crash of 10 October 2025 was not enough to match this low. That wasn’t the case this week as despite some market-wide resurgence, ADA continued to lose value.

However, that didn’t seem to apply to the transaction count though. This metric hit a low of 168,100 a while back. Since then, it has risen to hit 234,443 at press time. That said, these levels appeared to be still well below its historical levels.

Technically, ADA has been in a bear market since early December 2024. The altcoin is even trading below the 05 August crash low that initiated the rally to $1.329.

Combining historical behavior and the numerical outlook on the chart, it might mean that a reversal point has been reached. The zone at $0.22 would reach its sixth rejection if it is successful this time as well.

That may be a sign, but who knows. This could be the mother of all bear market seasons. Hence, the price could break below the $0.22 support zone.

Grayscale ups ADA smart contract fund

For its part though, Grayscale has been increasing its ADA accumulation for the smart contract fund. Maybe, they view the drop to a historical low as a bargain.

The fund increased its ADA percentage holdings from 18.50% to 19.55%. This is a significant move considering the fund has other established coins like Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) too.

Taken together, these findings could mean that the 3-year low might be the start of an uptrend. However, more bearishness cannot be overlooked.

Final Thoughts

• Cardano lost its top-10 spot by market cap as the price fell to a 3-year low. 
• Grayscale stacked more ADA for its smart contract fund as the price rejected further breakdown.