The cryptocurrency market has been hit hard, with Cardano facing a staggering 1,303% liquidation imbalance as it tests critical support levels. This downturn comes amid a broader market decline, which has seen overall capitalization fall below $3 trillion for the third time in a month, now sitting at $2.95 trillion. Market sentiment has soured considerably, evidenced by the crypto fear and greed index dropping to 11, its lowest in about a month, indicating a strong fear among investors.
At the time of writing, Cardano (ADA) is trading at $0.38, reflecting a 1.91% decrease in the past 24 hours and an 18% drop over the last week. Data from CoinGlass reveals that the recent price decline has resulted in approximately $1.24 million in liquidations for Cardano, with more than 93% of these being from leveraged long positions. Specifically, around $1.18 million in long positions were liquidated, while short positions accounted for $86,380. The extreme imbalance in liquidations highlights the struggles of bulls in the current market environment.
The immediate challenge for Cardano bulls is to maintain support at $0.32, a level where the cryptocurrency saw a significant rise of over 216% in November 2024. Looking forward to the year 2026, there are expectations of major developments within the Cardano ecosystem. As December approaches, the community is reviewing a proposed protocol upgrade aimed at enhancing the functionality of its smart contract platform, Plutus, along with improving ledger consistency and node-level security. This upgrade, known as the Intra-Era Hard Fork to Protocol Version 11, is designed to bolster performance without altering transaction structures or advancing to a new ledger era.
In addition to the upgrade, the recently approved Cardano Critical Integrations Budget, which allocates 70 million from the Treasury, aims to fund vital ecosystem integrations. This initiative, which passed with one of the fastest votes in Cardano governance history, will focus on integrating essential components such as tier-1 stablecoins, institutional digital asset custody solutions, cross-chain bridges, pricing oracles, and advanced on-chain analytics. Such developments reflect the ongoing commitment to enhancing the Cardano network”s infrastructure ahead of anticipated advancements in the next few years.
