ADAUSD
Cardano / United States dollar
crypto Composite

Yes, sadly I think this what caused most of pump up. I had around 20k ADA and sold it all at around a 15% loss in December 2024, when it had one last little rally. It is not a asset for speculation. You can stake and make decent rewards, but the rewards got much smaller. Basically it just long term generally goes down in value.

Key Catalysts for 2026 and Beyond
The Midnight Sidechain: Launched in late 2025, this privacy-focused partner chain is expected to see its first dApps go live in Q1 2026. By Q3 2026, it aims to enable hybrid applications across multiple chains, potentially attracting institutions that require "rational privacy" for compliance.
Ouroboros Leios Upgrade: This major scalability update is targeted for Q1 2026. Simulations indicate it could boost base-layer throughput from roughly 20 TPS to over 1,000 TPS, significantly closing the performance gap with competitors like Solana.
Institutional Infrastructure: Cardano is finally addressing its liquidity bottleneck with the native integration of USDCx (a Circle-linked stablecoin) in Q1 2026. Additionally, the CME Group is expected to list ADA futures on February 9, 2026, a move that could stabilize volatility and invite more institutional capital.
Decentralized Governance: In the Voltaire era, the Cardano treasury now holds over $1 billion in ADA. In early 2026, this treasury is being used to fund critical ecosystem integrations, such as stablecoin liquidity and oracles, reducing dependence on venture capital.

Can someone create a sports card resale site where only ADA is used?

Top 10 doesn't mean very much in crypto. It changes a lot.
Peak this cycle [https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20251005/](https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20251005/)
Peak 2021 cycle [https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20211114/](https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20211114/)
Peak 2017-8 cycle [https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20180114/](https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20180114/)
So which coins, excluding stablecoins, are in all three
BTC, ETH, XRP, ADA BTC is the only one with a big increase in fiat price. ETH was slightly above its 2021 peak in this cycles ATH. XRP was also up, but was way down in 2021 with the SEC case. ADA didn't match its 2021 peak.
SOL and BNB were in the last two cycles, but SOL didn't get anywhere close to the optimistic predictions expecting it to match ETH's growth between 2017 and 2021. BNB did well.
DOGE and TRON were sort of odd shots with DOGE roaring in 2021 and TRON reaching its ATH this cycle.
The other thing is its possible to buy former top 10 coins when they're massively depressed in the bear market and hope to take profits, even if they don't reach previous ATHs.

Most mentions on r/cc (2026-01-31 00:00:00):
||Mentions|
|:-|:-|
|BTC|393|
|ETH|67|
|SAFE|23|
|USDT|19|
|SOL|17|
|MOON|16|
|XMR|13|
|XRP|13|
|USDC|12|
|FLOW|11|
|IP|8|
|ADA|7|
|SNT|6|
|HOME|5|
|MOVE|5|
|FIGHT|4|
|MAGIC|4|
|MTL|4|
|UNI|4|
|AXS|3|
[Data source and app](https://www.redditcoins.app/)

XRP is a dud. Move on. I’ve had people tell me that this is about to explode. That was 5 yrs ago !
The same people saying ADA was going to the moon

Like I said, in crypto, visibility, marketing, brand affiliation, recognition etc. is as, if not more important than any fancy capabilities of the platform. The asset needs to be visible for mass adoption to take hold, and they don’t seem to prioritize this at all and just focusing on development. But if they continue with this strategy, then they’re just going to become a Charity Research and Development team that invested all their time and resources into designing and innovating technologies that a future project that actually prioritizes marketing and visibility, to build into their product while ADA fades into irrelevancy. Like you said, majority of investors don’t buy into a given crypto because of the technologies it offers - marketing is paramount and they are lagging compared to other top 10 projects in this department. Something needs to change in this aspect for this downward momentum to turn around for sure.

Well people who had no clue about crypto were reaching out to me and asking what projects I would suggest as someone who has some experience with crypto investments and I told them about the project I believed was legit. At the time there were countless garbage projects that offered nothing unique and no intention to build anything long term - they just wanted to ride the wave, pump it then exit, leaving investors to hold the bag. I suggested cardano - I didn’t reach out to everyone out of the blue to implore them to buy ADA. I’m sure there are many people out there in my shoes in this respect.
At the very least I’m glad I suggested a legitimate project with long-term aspirations and aim to build a legitimate crypto with great features, instead of the fly by night scam project I alluded to. I am just bummed out to see it underperform relative to other top 10 projects, that’s all.

Nah, bought some ADA

You're drinking the kool aid.
Big Ethereum L2s like Arbitrum have way more usage than ADA.

Incredibly low chance with BTC or ETH. There's like a very slim possibility that ETH goes to 10k, and even slimmer possibility that BTC goes to 250k, and that's still not even close to 10x.
So now you need to go down the list. Very unlikely any of the top 10 does a 10x (like SOL going from 60B to 600B, very unlikely). You're essentially looking for a 10B mcap to turn into 100B mcap, or 1B into 10B. The only 10B coin in the top 15 is ADA, but that is dogshit and basically 0% chance it does 10x.
So the next choice is Canton CC. This is a network created by banks, and they'll be using it as a private network. But it also has a public facing side. Many won't distintuish between priate Canton and public Canton, so once toknenization gets into full swing later this year, CC is going to find itself as an new L1 with a hot narrative behind it. So that's where my money would go if you forced me to invest 300k looking to hit 3M in 2 years.

Fair points, these are legitimate questions.
Quick clarification on the technical side: xReserve isn't a traditional bridge setup. It's how Circle natively issues the same stablecoin across different chains, similar to how USDC exists on Ethereum, Solana, etc. as separate native assets, all backed by the same reserves. So USDCx on Cardano would be a native asset, not a wrapped token.
On the Midnight thing - we get your view on that. The way it actually works though is that Midnight handles the private computation stuff, but it settles on Cardano L1 for consensus and finality. So when Midnight grows, it's literally using Cardano's infrastructure as its security backbone.
The 70M ADA allocation debate is totally valid though. Whether those funds should go to L1 development versus partner chains is a real strategic question.

U/Technical-activity95 just want to let you know ADA is under $0.3 you must be buying like crazy now!

Projects like Cardano work in these macro conditions uphill. Part of the momentum comes from thriving market conditions, not just increase in value but volume, transactions and institutions, even whole countries stepping into this. But with negative macro this is all on the back burner. Too risky, even with a stable coin on the chain. Regulations keep shifting, international conditions and rules are shifting. Whose going to go big?
Yes, ADA is relatively doing worse than some of the direct peers. But it's not a massive difference. Mostly the transaction rates, even lower than Dogecoin, despite all the smart features and DeFi possibilities.
I think the disabling issues around CF and the counterproductive, aggressive evangelism of Charles, just exciting a loyal base but hardly anyone else, has done the most damage of all. Just my opinion.

ADA I dead, like the 99% of the coins out there, it's just people find it hard to accept

I don't get the ADA hate at all... it seems Cardano is the only project with real use cases while keeping the crypto spirit: store of value (finite supply), focus on decentralization (unlike SOL), identity management, supply chain management, focus on integration into corporate structure, and a visionary CEO... seems like a very solid tech startup to me... best pick after BTC and ETH, imo

There is always HOPE with ADA

I’m sorry but getting a bridge of a bridge is not a big W in my eyes. I still struggle to see how developments on Midnight would affect Cardano in a meaningful way.
USDCx won’t be a CNT (unless you bridge it from Midnight to Cardano, but why would you do that honestly? You’d be holding a wrapper of a wrapper), it will be an asset on the Midnight network. I’m tired of pretending I’m not seeing Charles have a new child that’s getting more attention. Sure they’re “partnerchains”, but they’re their own chains nonetheless. It’s like saying great advancements on (random chain) is good for Cardano because we can just bridge our assets to that chain using (random bridge). When is CARDANO getting something? Why is Midnight getting funded with 70m ADA from the Pentad?

There is always HOPE with ADA. There is rarely price increases and profits for anyone who invested unless you were in very early.

I traded all my ADA for SOL last week. Had been a long term holder and accumulator. My ADA days came to an end.