As of August 2025, the current price of ADA is $0.432, down 86.1% from its peak of $3.10 in September 2021. Bloomberg Intelligence predicts based on historical cycles that ADA may break through the $5 mark by 2030, with an implied annualized return rate of approximately 63.7%. This valuation model refers to the growth trajectory of Ethereum from 2017 to 2024 – during the period when the network effect of the latter expanded, the token price rose by more than 120 times, while Cardano’s current market capitalization is only 8.2% of Ethereum’s, and it has potential to catch up.
Technological evolution constitutes the core driving force: After the Hydra expansion upgrade is completed in 2024, the transaction processing capacity of the Cardano network will jump from 250 TPS to 1 million TPS, and the transaction fee per transaction will be reduced to 0.00017 US dollars (only 0.03% of the average value of Ethereum L1). On-chain data shows that the deployment volume of smart contracts reached 4,721 in Q2 2025, with an annual growth rate of 314%, driving the average daily trading volume of DEXs to exceed 230 million US dollars. The EMURGO report indicates that the African government cooperation project has covered seven countries and is expected to provide digital identity services to 32 million users by 2027, directly driving the growth of ADA payment demand.
Macro risks need to be quantitatively evaluated: The Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy has a significant impact on the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies. Historical regression analysis shows that for every 1% increase in the benchmark interest rate, the probability of ADA prices falling within 90 days reaches 73%. There are more uncertainties at the regulatory level – if the SEC classifies ADA as a security (refer to the Coinbase lawsuit in 2023), the risk of exchange delisting could lead to a short-term liquidity evaporation of 67-85%. However, in its “Web3 Infrastructure Forecast 2030”, Goldman Sachs still offers a positive outlook, believing that if the institutional adoption rate reaches 40% of the current Ethereum, the ADA price will reach $3.8 (requiring an additional $49 billion in market value based on the current circulation volume).
Ecological development determines the actual value capture: Cardano’s annualized yield on staking is 4.8% (with a 20-day lock-up period), attracting 45 billion US dollars in TVL, and the staking participation rate is as high as 68.5%, ranking first among PoS public chains. Simulations by the Cambridge Alternative Finance Centre show that when the monthly active users of Dapps exceed 5 million (2.1 million by the end of 2024), the volatility of ada to usd will drop from the current 82% to 35%, indicating a more stable value support. Several quantitative funds have set a stepped target: if the key resistance level of $0.85 (the high point in Q3 2025) is broken through, the medium-term price expectation is raised to the range of $1.2 to $1.8.