Cardano DeFi falls to a one-year low of $48.9 million, yet barely any ADA has left

Deposits in decentralised finance applications on the Cardano blockchain fell to $48.9 million on Monday, November 9, 2026. According to DefiLlama, that is the lowest level of the past twelve months; a year ago the figure stood at $260.4 million. What the data show: the decline since early October is almost entirely down to the price, because the number of ADA deployed has stayed practically the same. Our assessment follows further below. Users have stayed, their money is simply worth less, and that is a different signal from an exodus from the network.

Cardano traded at $0.1741 on Monday morning according to CoinGecko, equivalent to €0.1556. Over 24 hours it is down 3.4 percent, over seven days 9.6 percent and over 30 days 32.0 percent. The market capitalisation of all ADA stands at $6.54 billion, ranking 18th among cryptocurrencies. On Sunday evening ADA closed its fifth consecutive losing week.

Cardano DeFi at a one-year low: $48.9 million locked in protocols

Total value locked, or TVL, measures the dollar value of all coins that users have deposited into a blockchain's protocols: in the trading pools of decentralised exchanges, in lending markets and in staking contracts. The metric therefore always has two components, a quantity and a price. If the ADA price falls, TVL falls with it, even if nobody withdraws a single coin.

DefiLlama's data series shows the path lower clearly. On October 7, $73.9 million sat in Cardano protocols, on October 20 $61.7 million and on November 9 $48.9 million. That is a drop of just over 81 percent year on year. For comparison, Solana holds around $5.1 billion according to the same source, Ethereum just over $41.5 billion. Cardano thus plays a minor role in DeFi, even though, with a market capitalisation of $6.5 billion, the coin still ranks among the twenty largest.

The largest positions in Cardano DeFi are the decentralised exchange Minswap with around $12.3 million and the lending market Liqwid with around $8.4 million. Together the two account for just over two fifths of total deposits.

ADA in DeFi: around 281 million coins, as many as in early October

Dividing the dollar value by the daily price gives the amount of ADA deployed. We ran this calculation using daily figures from DefiLlama and CoinGecko. On October 7 around 276 million ADA were locked in the protocols, on October 20 around 283 million and on November 9 around 281 million. The amount fluctuates by a few percent, while the dollar value has fallen by a third.

Over twelve months the picture looks different. On November 9, 2025, $260.4 million at a price of around $0.578 equated to roughly 450 million ADA. Since then, around 170 million ADA have been withdrawn from Cardano protocols, a drop of just over 37 percent in volume. The outflow therefore happened mainly in the first half of the year, not in the past five weeks.

Since October 20: Cardano TVL down $12.8 million, ADA price down 20 percent

On October 20 we reported $62 million in Cardano DeFi against a market value of $8.15 billion. Three things have happened since. Market capitalisation has shrunk by around $1.6 billion to $6.54 billion. TVL has lost $12.8 million and slipped below the $50 million mark. And the price has fallen from just over $0.218 to $0.174, a drop of around 20 percent in less than three weeks.

What has held up is users' commitment to their positions. Anyone who put ADA into a Minswap pool or into Liqwid's lending market in October has by and large left it there. The figure that could have been read as a warning sign at the time was therefore the price, not an exodus.

Five losing weeks in a row: ADA falls from $0.26 to $0.174

The weekly record shows how steady the decline has been. At the start of each week, ADA traded according to CoinGecko at $0.2597 on October 5, $0.2520 on October 12, $0.2210 on October 19, $0.2039 on October 26, $0.1929 on November 2 and $0.1742 on November 9. Each of these weeks ended lower than the one before, adding up to a loss of around 33 percent.

Bitcoin also lost ground over the same period, but far less. From October 12 to November 9 the bitcoin price fell from around $83,700 to around $74,300, a drop of just over 11 percent; ADA lost almost 31 percent in those four weeks. Cardano is thus swinging almost three times as hard as the market's benchmark. That fits a coin with no exchange-traded fund in the US: Grayscale withdrew its plans for a Cardano ETF in August, as CoinDesk reported. Without fund demand, there is no buyer to push back in weak weeks.

Cardano staking: 57.9 percent of all ADA remain delegated

A second look goes to staking, the delegation of ADA to a stake pool that produces blocks and pays out rewards in return. On Cardano the coins stay in your own wallet and remain available at all times; there is no lock-up period. According to data from the blockchain service Koios, 21.33 billion ADA were actively delegated in epoch 666, which began on November 4. That is 57.9 percent of the 36.83 billion ADA in circulation. Six epochs earlier, roughly a month before, the figure was 21.27 billion.

Holders have therefore not unstaked en masse during five losing weeks in order to sell. That matches the finding from DeFi: the coins stay in the network, their price falls. According to Koios, the treasury, the network's community fund, holds around 1.40 billion ADA, which is allocated through on-chain votes.

If you stake ADA and have to value the rewards in euros, the falling price only helps on one side. In Germany, every payout counts as other income under Section 22 No. 3 of the Income Tax Act at its value on the day it is received, with an exemption limit of €256 a year. At €0.1556 per ADA, many small investors stay below it. Which providers offer ADA staking and at what yield is shown in our comparison of staking platforms.

Minswap and Liqwid: what a falling ADA price means for loans

For users of lending markets, the price decline is more than a question of valuation. Anyone who has deposited ADA as collateral on Liqwid and borrowed a stablecoin against it loses coverage with every cent the price drops. If the value of the collateral falls below the threshold the protocol sets for the market in question, the position is liquidated in whole or in part: a third party repays the loan and receives part of the collateral at a discount.

With a loss of 32 percent in 30 days, a position opened in early October with a generous buffer may now be only narrowly covered. The lending market's interface shows the health factor of your own position directly; if it sinks towards the liquidation threshold, it can be raised again with additional collateral or a partial repayment. Anyone providing liquidity in a Minswap trading pool carries a different risk: so-called impermanent loss, the shortfall in value compared with simply holding when the price ratio of the two coins in the pool shifts.

ADA price levels: $0.1436 one-year low, $0.193 as the first hurdle

To the downside, the next significant figure is the one-year low. On June 29, 2026, ADA stood at $0.1436 according to CoinGecko, around 17.5 percent below today's price. Monday's intraday low was $0.1717, only just over 1 percent below the current level; if it breaks, the stretch down to the June low has no further weekly closes for support.

To the upside, the first level is last week's close at $0.1929, just over 10 percent above the current price. Above that comes the round $0.20 mark, which ADA broke through to the downside on October 29. Only a week that closes above $0.1929 would end the run of losing weeks. For a longer-term view, it is worth comparing with the scenarios we model for ADA over the coming months and years.

ADA holding period: November 2025 purchases now become tax-free, and so do the losses

Exactly a year ago, on November 10 and 11, 2025, ADA cost between $0.578 and $0.592. That was the highest level of the past twelve months. Anyone who bought then is now around 70 percent down in dollar terms. A €1,000 stake has become roughly €300.

For tax purposes, this point in time is decisive. In Germany, private disposals of cryptocurrencies are subject to a one-year holding period under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Gains after it expires are tax-free, but losses after it expires are also worthless for tax purposes. If a coin is sold at a loss within the period, the loss can be offset against gains from other private disposals in the same year or carried forward to later years. Staking does not extend the holding period, as the Federal Ministry of Finance confirmed in its letter of March 6, 2025. Whether the holding period survives at all is politically open; our overview of the crypto holding period reform sums up where things stand.

Selling purely for tax reasons is not an investment decision, and anyone who buys ADA back afterwards starts a new holding period. A look at your own purchase history is still worthwhile: if a November 2025 purchase is still within the period and there are gains from other coins in the same year, the date of the sale changes the outcome of the tax return. The first-in, first-out calculation is handled by a crypto tax tool that brings together all exchanges and wallets.

Cardano upgrade Dijkstra: no date for mainnet

On the technical side, the network is working on its next hard fork, named Dijkstra, a protocol update that all nodes must follow at the same time. Node version 11.2 serves as the test release. There is no fixed date for mainnet: in September the coordinating body Intersect gave an estimated window from early December, and later one running to the end of March 2027. The update only becomes active after an on-chain vote. In the short term, the project therefore gives the price no firm catalyst.

Our assessment of Cardano DeFi

In the editorial team's view, the amount of ADA in DeFi shows that the price decline of the past five weeks is not users leaving. Supporting this are the stable amount of around 281 million ADA in the protocols and the almost unchanged staking share of 57.9 percent. Against it is the fact that the amount has shrunk by just over a third over twelve months and that Cardano, with $48.9 million in DeFi, reaches less than one percent of Solana's volume. Without an exchange-traded fund and without a fixed date for Dijkstra, there is no catalyst to attract new buyers. An end to the losing streak would only be confirmed by a weekly close above $0.1929. Cryptocurrencies can lose value up to a total loss.

Cardano DeFi: only more ADA in the pools would signal renewed confidence

1. Review your purchase history: Compare your ADA purchases from November 2025 with the end of the holding period, most easily with a crypto tax tool.
2. Secure loan positions: If you have deposited ADA as collateral, check the health factor against the liquidation threshold. If you would rather put ADA to work without a loan, you will find providers in the staking comparison.
3. Choose how to buy: If you want to buy in at $0.17, use a platform licensed under MiCA; fees and licences are listed in our comparison of crypto exchanges.

(As of November 9, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)