- ADA whale wallets now control 35.62% of the supply, but remain underwater.
- Will whales hold their ground or start trimming to break even?
Cardano [ADA] isn’t getting much love from the whales right now.
Instead of buying the fear, they’re dumping into it, reiterating the same old playbook: dump first, pump later. The $0.60 level is barely holding, and without strong support kicking in, it’s looking more like a crack than a bounce.
So, with whales bailing and fundamentals not stepping up just yet, is the $1 target starting to feel more like a stretch than a setup?
Will the 10M–100M bracket trigger a breakdown?
Santiment data showed a sharp concentration, with wallets holding between 10 million and 100 million ADA controlling 35.62% of the total supply, making this whale tier the most dominant force in Cardano’s on-chain structure.
Close behind, addresses in the 100k to 1 million ADA range held 16.23%, marking them as the largest mid-sized liquidity tier.
Together, these cohorts commanded over half of all ADA, setting the stage for sharp directional pivots depending on their flows.
That means if the 10M–100M bracket kickoffs are distributed into weakness, ADA’s structure risks further breakdown.
Source: Santiment
That’s why reclaiming $1 isn’t just a psychological milestone. Instead, it’s a structural reset.
You see, back in mid-January, whales holding 10M–100M ADA started accumulating heavily. Two months later, when ADA clawed its way back to its original cost basis, it began offloading to breakeven.
Their share of the supply dropped from 35.51% to 34.41%.
The result? ADA slid all the way back to $0.60. But then came another shift. Whales bought the “dip,” pushing their holdings back up to 35.62%.
Yet, three months later, the price still sits below their average cost basis, meaning this cohort remains underwater. There’s a solid chance some of them start cutting again to break even.
That 270 million ADA dump this week? It could be just the start.
Whales test patience as $1 remains out of reach
With leverage fading from ADA’s perp markets, it’s clear that futures traders are steering clear of high-risk setups. The lack of speculative appetite is keeping sidelined capital on hold.
From a technical lens, RSI is approaching a historically reactive oversold zone. These are levels that have previously triggered sharp mean reversions.
But context matters. Last time this setup emerged, Bitcoin [BTC] was breaking above $110k, loosening macro FUD and igniting altcoin rotations.
Now, ADA/BTC is retesting February support, but with RSI pinned deep in oversold and volume failing to confirm, momentum remains flat.
Without a pickup in relative strength, ADA continues to lag in attracting conviction buyers.
Source: TradingView (ADA/BTC)
Stack that with a lack of speculative interest, on-chain accumulation, and rotational flows, and the picture turns increasingly fragile.
The once-crucial $1 milestone now looks more like resistance than recovery, while growing signs of whale fatigue raise the probability of a capitulation flush, putting ADA’s $0.60 support on thin ice.
