Cardano: Are risks increasing?
April 7, 2026
Cardano, a cryptocurrency ecosystem, has been making significant strides in terms of technological advancements and expansion. Despite the positive developments such as the upcoming Van Rossem Hard Fork, the launch of the Midnight-Mainnet, USDCx integration, and listings on exchanges like Interactive Brokers, the ADA token’s price remains close to its yearly low.
The Van Rossem Hard Fork, set to take place in April 2026, is designed as an Intra-Era Upgrade and aims to improve performance for Plutus, introduce new cryptographic functions, and establish clearer ledger rules without altering the transaction structure or moving to a new ledger era. Furthermore, the upcoming release of Cardano Node 10.7.0 will initiate coordinated testing across the ecosystem to ensure compatibility before a major network transition.
Looking ahead, the Ouroboros Leios upgrade, scheduled for later in 2026, is expected to enhance throughput by enabling up to 1,000 transactions per second through parallel block processing, a significant improvement from the current sequential processing. This advancement could position Cardano in the realm of high-performance chains for decentralized finance (DeFi) and regulated asset (RWA) applications, as emphasized by founder Charles Hoskinson.
Despite the ADA token’s price being near its 52-week low, Cardano’s development activity remains robust. With over 17,000 commits on 550 repositories in the past year, Cardano ranks third globally in terms of development activity, following Ethereum and the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). Noteworthy recent milestones include the launch of the privacy-focused Midnight network’s Mainnet and ADA’s accessibility to European retail customers through Interactive Brokers, enhancing institutional access.
Over 63% of ADA tokens in circulation are actively staked across more than 3,000 independent stake pools, providing structural resistance against liquid selling pressure due to the absence of lock-up periods and slashing risks, unlike Ethereum. Despite large holders buying over $53 million worth of ADA in late March, macroeconomic challenges, such as new US tariffs on trade, have weighed on risk assets broadly, causing ADA to decline by approximately 49% since the beginning of the year. Whether the upcoming Van Rossem upgrade and the anticipation of Leios are sufficient to overcome these headwinds depends largely on when the macroeconomic environment shifts.
In conclusion, while Cardano continues to achieve significant technological milestones and expand its ecosystem, including broadening institutional reach, the ADA token’s price performance has been muted due to macroeconomic challenges. The upcoming upgrades and integrations hold promise for Cardano’s future trajectory, but the impact on market dynamics remains contingent on external factors shifting in a favorable direction.
