Cardano (ADAUSD) is one of the projects altcoin investors swore by during the 2021 altseason. Cardano is similar to many flagship layer-1 smart contract blockchains like Ethereum (ETHUSD). This means that smart contracts can run on Cardano’s blockchain, and they’ll use ADA for gas fees. It is a proof-of-stake project.

It got the title of being the “Ethereum Killer,” supposedly destined to dethrone the Ethereum ecosystem as the leading alternative blockchain. Unfortunately, that never ended up materializing.

The crypto has underperformed since late 2021, with newer projects getting more attention. However, recent performance has been unusually good.

ADA is up 22.3% in the past month and 19.6% in just the past five days alone. This is comparable to the performance of BNB (BNBUSD). Crypto investors now see a solid altseason brewing with Ethereum’s breakout accelerating, so it only makes sense to start contemplating buying ADA as well.

The Glacier Drop

The Glacier Drop is attracting lots of attention to ADA at the moment. It is a token distribution event tied to the Midnight Network. This is a sidechain built on the Cardano chain, which will allow private transactions.

Most token distributions are usually contained within one ecosystem. This one involves eight blockchains: Cardano, Bitcoin (BTCUSD), Ethereum, Solana (SOLUSD), BNB Chain, Avalanche (AVAXUSD), XRP (XRPUSD), and Brave Attention Token. Eligible wallets are those that have had at least $100 worth of native tokens based on a snapshot taken on June 11, 2025.

Cardano holders get 50% of it, whereas the remaining is split between other chains.

Upgrades Are Translating Into Momentum for ADA

Cardano has been showing signs of making a turnaround recently due to the network pushing forward with technical upgrades. In early August, the community approved a $71 million treasury allocation (about 96 million ADA) for core development by Input Output Global. This gives funding for 12 months of upgrades.

This is the first time the community has directly funded ecosystem upgrades. These upgrades will make Cardano much cheaper and faster if implemented. The Hydra Scaling Solution is a layer-2 protocol that has shown it can handle up to 1 million transactions per second.

On top of that, the Ouroboros Leios and Peras consensus mechanism upgrades will lead to much faster speeds through parallel processing and reduce transaction finality from 12 hours to 2 minutes.

There are also other minor upgrades for developers and validators. All of these upgrades will make Cardano a much hotter ecosystem to build and develop on. In the future, Bitcoin users may be able to interact with Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem.

Is Cardano Gearing Up for a Breakout?

These potential upgrades are great and would have made ADA one of the most surefire bets four years ago. In 2025, those numbers are not too impressive vs. chains like Solana or even Ethereum.

Cardano retains plenty of name recognition, and this is mainly why I believe ADA is still poised to do well this cycle. 

If it can break through resistance at $0.88 and $0.91, the next leg up should lead it to $0.97.

If such a move happens in conjunction with altseason kicking in, ADA should easily break through $1. My base, moderate, and bull cases are as follows:

For ADA to break its previous all-time high of $3.10 and make a move beyond that, it would require an exceptionally strong altseason. If these upgrades kick in earlier than expected and coincide with new major catalysts, the stars may align.