It's been a disappointing year for Cardano (ADA 1.08%), which once ranked among the top cryptocurrencies in the world. It's down almost 50% in 2025, and is now trading for a bargain-basement price of less than $0.50.
That might scare off many crypto investors looking to rebalance their portfolios ahead of 2026. But are Cardano's best days really behind it? Or does it still have what it takes to be a potential millionaire-maker?
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A best case scenario for Cardano
During the previous crypto bull market rally of 2020-2021, the price of Cardano absolutely exploded. In early 2020, Cardano was trading for mere pennies. By the end of 2021, it was trading near $3. Savvy investors who bought low and sold high likely made a killing. Perhaps some even become overnight crypto millionaires.
CRYPTO: ADA
Key Data Points
Quite frankly, that's the best-case scenario for Cardano right now. Buy now when Cardano is trading for less than a buck, and hope that it explodes again in price sometime soon. Given that the all-time high for Cardano is just north of $3, there's a case to be made that Cardano could easily deliver sixfold returns to patient investors.
And, indeed, there are encouraging signs that activity is starting to surge once again on the Cardano blockchain. There's a loyal global developer base for Cardano that rivals that of Ethereum (ETH 0.40%). And Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of both Cardano and Ethereum, remains one of the most respected voices within the crypto community. So it's not as if Cardano is going to disappear anytime soon.
Where can Cardano find a competitive advantage?
The problem, quite simply, is that it's hard to point to any one area where Cardano is better than any of its rival Layer-1 blockchain networks. In the world of decentralized finance (DeFi), for example, Cardano has never gained much of a footing. In terms of total value locked (TVL), a key metric for measuring overall DeFi activity, Cardano ranks 26th among all blockchains.
To be sure, there is still hope that Cardano makes a splash in artificial intelligence (AI). Simply put, Cardano's blockchain could theoretically become the technological backbone for cutting-edge AI projects. There's been some progress on this front, but nothing that jumps off the page. But if Cardano ever finds a way to woo high-profile AI developers, watch out.
Where are the Cardano ETFs?
Most worrisome, there just doesn't seem to be the same investor appetite for Cardano that there once was even a few years ago. A good way to see that is by examining the amount of institutional investor interest in new spot Cardano exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Right now, zero spot Cardano ETFs have been approved, and only a handful of ETF applications are in the Securities and Exchange Commission's approval pipeline.
That tells me that inventors aren't jumping at the chance to buy spot Cardano ETFs. By way of comparison, investor interest was off the charts for the new Bitcoin (BTC 0.60%) and Ethereum ETFs. And there's been plenty of hype and buzz about new spot ETFs for XRP (XRP 1.06%) and Solana (SOL 0.68%).
Time to look elsewhere for a millionaire-maker?
The good news is that Cardano still ranks among the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the world in terms of market cap. And it has proven its long-term staying power. Cardano officially launched back in 2017, and has survived through several crypto market cycles.
Still, the best-case scenario for Cardano is for it to skyrocket sixfold in price, and to reclaim its all-time high from four years ago. So you would need to pony up more than $150,000 today to have any realistic chance of becoming a Cardano millionaire.
That's by no means a slam dunk, though, given that Cardano has yet to find any sort of competitive advantage. Moreover, Cardano has yet to attract the attention of big institutional investors. Until those two things happen, I'm looking elsewhere for a millionaire-maker.
