Cardano’s largest holders have been increasing their exposure even as smaller investors reduce theirs, according to Santiment’s latest supply distribution data.

Wallets holding between 100,000 and 100 million ADA now collectively own more than 25.6 billion coins. The figure is the highest balance since February 2023. On the other hand, wallets holding fewer than 100 ADA have reduced their holdings by about 0.7% over the past four months.

Whales See Opportunity

Santiment said this trend comes as ADA faces intense FUD. The crypto asset’s price performance in 2026 fell short of expectations, and it recently traded near multi-year lows. Last week’s upside push toward $0.2 proved futile after ADA quickly pulled back. It slid to $0.15 and was down more than 11% over the past week. Despite that backdrop, major holders have continued accumulating.

The analytics firm pointed to several ongoing developments within the Cardano ecosystem, including work on the Leios testnet, continued Hydra scaling upgrades, progress on Mithril, integration of Pyth oracles, and new ecosystem funding initiatives.

These combined factors – whale and shark accumulation, declining retail participation, and persistently weak sentiment – represent one of the healthier market setups ADA has shown so far this year, although it does not necessarily signal an immediate price reversal.

String of Setbacks

2026 has been challenging for Cardano as the ecosystem has witnessed a series of setbacks. This month, EMURGO announced it was stepping down from the Cardano Pentad, the network’s governance group, to focus its resources on helping users recover from the SecondFi exploit. One community member described the exit as worrying and speculated that the organization may have run out of funds following the SecondFi exploit.

Earlier in the year, analytics platform TapTools shut down, while the planned 2026 Singapore Summit was called off. During the same period, Charles Hoskinson also warned that a “wave of failures” could hit DeFi projects built on the network. The developments came even as the ecosystem continued pushing ahead with technical upgrades behind the scenes.

Source: CryptoPotato