Cardano’s development began just over a decade ago, though the project did not launch immediately. A major milestone came in 2021 with the Alonzo upgrade, which enabled smart contracts and marked a pivotal moment for the network.
The native token, ADA, has won a loyal following among many cryptocurrency investors, but it also faces significant skepticism from critics and analysts.
Most Overvalued Network?
On Crypto X (formerly Twitter), Satoshi Flipper — a prominent account with over 240,000 followers — reposted another analyst’s critical take on the Charles Hoskinson–founded network with the caption: “Is Cardano the most overvalued blockchain on the planet?”
The analysis raised concerns about on-chain activity and ecosystem health. It highlighted a DeFi total value locked (TVL) of just $128 million, which matches DeFiLlama’s figure at the time of writing, along with a 24-hour decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume of about $1.3 million, roughly $26 million in stablecoins, and approximately 17,000 active addresses.
Eye Zen Hour characterized those metrics as “an incredibly small on-chain economy relative to valuation.” The critique pointed out that Cardano’s market capitalization for ADA stands near $9 billion — a valuation that places the token among the top 15 altcoins despite its dramatic decline from its peak.
Based on these figures, Eye Zen Hour argued the market must eventually decide whether Cardano represents a genuinely functioning ecosystem or is instead “just a memory from prior cycles.”
Cardano has a $9B market cap
I’m not joking when I say I don’t know a single real person active on Cardano. I don’t know many holding $ADA
The chain’s numbers are a bit scary:
> TVL: $128M
> 24H DEX vol: $1.3M
> Stablecoins: $26M
> ~17K active addressesThat’s an incredibly… pic.twitter.com/BWhn3fzQzZ
— eye zen hour 🥶 (@eyezenhour) May 23, 2026
ADA’s Memory From Past Cycles
The Alonzo upgrade coincided with ADA’s most notable price surge in the third quarter of 2021. At that time, ADA rose with the broader market and reached an all-time high just above $3. That rally, however, quickly turned into a classic sell-the-news moment, and ADA has struggled to regain that level since.
During the 2025 market-wide rally, many cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and several altcoins, hit new highs. ADA did not experience a comparable recovery — its 2025 peak remained well below the 2021 record, failing to climb past roughly $1.30. As of now, ADA trades below $0.25, representing a decline of over 92% from its 2021 all-time high.
While the broader crypto market has faced widespread declines since October of the prior year, ADA’s drop has been especially pronounced. Falling more than 90% from its peak raises difficult questions for Cardano’s sizable community about the network’s adoption and long-term prospects.