Cardano’s Loyal Army: Long-Term Holders Keep Faith Since 2021 Despite Crypto Rollercoaster

Cardano defies crypto's 'what have you done for me lately?' culture as HODLers refuse to abandon ship.

The Unshaken Cohort

While other projects see holders flee at the first sign of volatility, ADA's investor base displays diamond-handed resolve. No sell-off events, no mass migrations—just stubborn conviction in the project's roadmap.

Ghost Chain or Sleeping Giant?

Detractors call it a 'ghost chain' between upgrades, but the retention metrics tell another story. This isn't blind loyalty—it's strategic patience from investors who've seen this movie before (and know how the third act pays).

The Institutional Whisper

Behind retail's commitment lies a quieter trend: smart money's been accumulating through the bear market. Because nothing says 'contrarian play' like betting on the chain Wall Street still doesn't understand.

Cardano's proving that in crypto, the real alpha isn't in chasing pumps—it's in outlasting everyone else's attention span. Even if that means enduring the occasional 'when smart contracts?' tweet from some MBA who bought last week.

ADA gains strong support from its long-term holders, who have extended an accumulation streak since 2021. Currently, Cardano shows significant reserves held in wallets aged four years or more, starting a new accumulation period in the spring of 2025. Based on Alphractal data, long-term wallets are more willing to hold, while short-term buyers remain more balanced.

Cardano adopts treasury strategy

ADA is now held closely by whales who are in no rush to sell at the current range. The token has repeated the behavior of XRP, where the patient community was ready to hold for years, expecting a bigger breakout. 

Despite the presence of whales, ADA is one of the most widely distributed tokens, where the top 100 addresses hold only 22.56% of the supply. 

Cardano is closely watched for its ability to provide funds to projects, and even build its own BTC treasury. The project handed over the reigns to the community, which recently voted on a fund distribution for network upgrades, as Cryptopolitan reported. 

One of the main sources of storage for cardano is the treasury, containing 1.6B ADA tokens. The treasury may get distributed gradually in the coming months and years, with some of the supply potentially allocated to acquiring BTC. 

One of the potential scenarios is for the entire Cardano treasury to be allocated to BTC purchases. This WOULD remove Cardano from its previous path as a platform for games and Web3 projects, which never picked up with the same speed as other L1 chains. Cardano is still fighting to complete another role after showing limited smart contract activity with just $350M in value locked and $37M in stablecoin liquidity.

ADA trading still lags behind hotter coins

ADA shows relatively low derivative activity, as the token is still outside the group of the hottest coins. Outside Cardano’s own community, there has been no talk of using ADA to build a crypto treasury company. 

ADA’s open interest decreased to around $631M, with a 77% dominance of long positions. The dominance of longs also means ADA may face selling pressure in the short term, causing a liquidation cascade. 

Short positions are under 23%, though liquidations may happen at the $0.81-$0.82 range. For now, ADA cannot hope for a short squeeze to a much higher range. 

On Hyperliquid, ADA also sees limited activity, with only five whales taking notable positions. Three positions are longing ADA with significant funding fee requirements, while short positions receive funding fees and some are in profit. 

While ADA is currently stagnating, Alphractal data indicates a rally may be in the making, especially if the altcoin bull market continues.

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