Cardano ADA sinks to $0.1665, a 5-year low, as whales sell off

Cardano's ADA token fell to $0.1665 on June 11, its lowest since December 2020, as whale wallets unloaded millions of tokens and the ecosystem's total value locked collapsed to $94 million.

ADA fell to $0.1665 on June 11, a level last seen in December 2020, as whale wallets sold millions of tokens and TVL collapsed 87% from its peak.

On-chain analytics firm Santiment flagged a sharp spike in Cardano's Age Consumed metric as ADA printed a low near $0.1485, a signal consistent with long-dormant holders moving coins, according to data shared on June 11.

Wallets holding 10 million to 100 million ADA sold roughly 180 million tokens over several days, while wallets in the 1 million to 10 million ADA range shed over 560 million tokens in a prior four-day window, Santiment data shows. Cardano's total value locked sits near $94 million, down about 31% on the month and roughly 87% from its $721 million peak, according to DefiLlama.

The breakdown has unwound the entire speculative premium from Cardano's Alonzo-era rally. The 50-, 100-, and 200-day EMAs are clustered between $0.23 and $0.33, all well above current price — a configuration that confirms a structurally broken trend rather than a temporary dip, according to TradingView data.

Whales Accumulate as Ecosystem Data Worsens

Despite the selling pressure, two whale cohorts began adding ADA on June 7. Wallets holding 1 million to 10 million ADA lifted their share of supply from 15.24% to 15.28%, while the largest tier — 100 million to 1 billion ADA — grew its stash from 5.83% to 6.16%, according to Santiment.

The accumulation coincided with an escalation in a probe into Cardano's founding. Investigator Thomas Braziel named the original 2016 foundation board on June 7 and pressed on roughly 1,090 Bitcoin missing from the early foundation.

Derivatives data suggests the whale buying may be tactical rather than conviction-driven. The top-trader long-short ratio on Binance stood at 1.53 as of June 11, while the all-accounts ratio sat at 2.09 — a divergence of 0.57 points, according to Coinglass. Retail traders are far more aggressively long than the largest accounts, a setup that historically precedes squeezes that large holders can sell into.

Open interest has fallen about 39% over 30 days to $70.6 million, with funding near neutral, Coinglass data shows. That thins the fuel for any squeeze, but the positioning skew remains the dominant signal.

For ADA to break the bearish structure, the token would need to reclaim the $0.20 level and sustain buying above the EMA cluster near $0.23. A loss of the $0.17 to $0.18 range could bring $0.15 and the $0.10 to $0.12 region back into focus. No fundamental catalyst has emerged to reverse the trend, and the Flare Network FXRP integration — cited by some as a potential catalyst — has yet to produce measurable on-chain activity.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.