Cardano (ADA) traded near $0.161 on Thursday after a slight pullback, but the biggest holders are piling in. Wallets holding between 100,000 and 100 million ADA now own more than 25.65 billion tokens — their highest collective stash since February 2023. The accumulation comes just days before the van Rossem hard fork, scheduled for Saturday, which will introduce new Plutus functionality and protocol enhancements.
Whale wallets hit a 16-month high
Data from on-chain analytics shows that the cohort of large investors has been steadily adding to their positions. Their holdings have climbed to levels not seen in over a year. Meanwhile, smaller wallets — those with fewer than 100 ADA — have trimmed their exposure by roughly 0.7% over the past four months. The divergence suggests that while retail interest has cooled, big-money players are betting on the network's upcoming upgrade.
What the van Rossem hard fork brings
The van Rossem hard fork is the next major step for Cardano's development. It will enable new Plutus capabilities, the platform's smart-contract scripting language, along with other protocol improvements. The upgrade is named after a Cardano community member and is part of the roadmap toward greater scalability and functionality. No specific downtime or disruption is expected, but the event has drawn attention to the network's technical progress.
ADA's technical picture remains bearish
Despite the whale accumulation, ADA's price action still looks weak. The token trades below all three key exponential moving averages — the 50-day at $0.179, the 100-day at $0.208, and the 200-day at $0.276. It's also beneath the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level of $0.173 and below a trendline resistance near $0.207.
The Relative Strength Index sits near 46, neutral territory. But the Moving Average Convergence Divergence has turned slightly positive, a sign that bearish momentum is easing. That could give bulls a chance to push higher if the hard fork triggers renewed buying.
Key support levels to watch
Immediate support sits at $0.1500. If that breaks, ADA could slide to retest the June 25 swing low of $0.1382. On the upside, reclaiming the 50-day EMA would be the first bullish signal. Futures open interest has risen from about $422 million on Monday to $445 million on Thursday, and the funding rate turned positive at 0.0042% — both signs that leveraged traders are leaning long.
The hard fork is set for Saturday. Whether it can reverse the broader downtrend remains an open question, but the data shows that the largest holders are already placing their bets.
