TLDR
- Cardano rose 29% last week, partly driven by T.Rowe adding ADA to its Active Crypto ETF with a 0.43% allocation
- ADA is trading around $0.220–$0.223, facing resistance near the 200-day EMA at $0.249
- Whale wallets shed 100 million tokens since Saturday, signaling profit-taking
- DEX volumes on Cardano jumped from $4.15 million to $16.1 million in just two days
- The long-to-short ratio sits at 0.72, reflecting bearish short-term sentiment among derivatives traders
Cardano (ADA) is trading around $0.220 on Monday after a strong 29% rally last week. The gains were driven by positive market sentiment and the news that T.Rowe Price added ADA to its Active Crypto ETF.
T.Rowe Price is an asset manager with $1.87 trillion in assets under management. The firm launched its Active Crypto ETF (TKNZ) in July 2026, initially holding Bitcoin and several altcoins, but not Cardano. The fund has since been updated to include ADA with a 0.43% weighting. It currently holds 416,620 ADA, valued at around $81,000.
NEWS: T. Rowe Price has added Cardano $ADA to its Active Crypto ETF $TKNZ.
ADA wasn't part of the fund's initial holdings when it launched in July. Now it is, with a 0.44% allocation alongside $BTC, $ETH, $BNB, $SOL, $XRP and others.
It was already listed as an eligible asset… pic.twitter.com/E8sBHfekUD
— Cardanians (CRDN) (@Cardanians_io) August 20, 2026
This addition came just two weeks after Grayscale withdrew its application for a Cardano ETF on August 10. That withdrawal had pushed ADA down to around $0.196. The T.Rowe inclusion helped reverse that decline.
The broader crypto market also contributed to last week’s ADA rally. Markets responded positively to the US Treasury’s decision to double its debt buyback operations, which lifted sentiment across the sector.
Profit-Taking Slows the Momentum
After three straight days of gains, some traders are now cashing out. Data from Santiment shows that whale wallets holding between 1 million and 100 million ADA tokens have shed around 100 million tokens since Saturday. Large-holder distribution like this often signals near-term caution.
Derivatives data backs this up. CoinGlass shows ADA’s long-to-short ratio at 0.72 on Monday, near its lowest level in over a month. A ratio below 1 means more traders are currently betting on the price falling.
Analyst Sssebi noted on X that after breaking out of an ascending channel, ADA came back to retest the resistance it broke — a move he described as “usually a very bullish signal.”
After breaking out of the ascending channel $ADA came back to retest the resistance it broke.
This is usually a very bullish signal🚀 pic.twitter.com/CphMXzyJlG
— Sssebi🦁 (@Sssebi) August 22, 2026
On-Chain Activity Tells a Different Story
Despite the short-term caution, Cardano’s network activity is picking up. DEX volumes jumped from $4.15 million on August 20 to $16.1 million on August 22, according to DeFiLlama. DeFi total value locked (TVL) also rose from $54 million to $60 million in the same period.
Stablecoin supply on Cardano moved from $65 million on August 8 to $67 million, pointing to growing on-chain activity.
ADA sits above its 50-day and 100-day EMAs at $0.187 and $0.196. Resistance at the 200-day EMA sits at $0.249. A break above that level could open the path toward $0.29, based on the 161.8% Fibonacci extension.
The RSI reading of 72 confirms bullish momentum, though it also suggests buyers could soon become exhausted.
ADA is currently trading at $0.223, up 5.6% on the day of writing.
