Cardano’s Surge: T.Rowe’s Move vs. Profit-Taking and On-Chain Activity

(SeaPRwire) –   By: Oliver Hawthorne

Cardano’s recent 29% price rally has traders on edge, but the story isn’t just about the jump. T.Rowe Price’s decision to add ADA to its Active Crypto ETF played a big role. This asset manager with $1.87 trillion in AUM updated its ETF in July 2026 to include ADA, a 0.43% allocation. Just two weeks prior, Grayscale withdrew its Cardano ETF application, which had pushed ADA down to $0.196. T.Rowe’s move helped reverse that slide.

But profit-taking is a factor. Santiment data shows whale wallets holding 1-100 million ADA tokens shed 100 million tokens since Saturday. That’s a signal of near-term caution. Derivatives data backs this up too. CoinGlass reports ADA’s long-to-short ratio at 0.72 on Monday, near a month-low. A ratio below 1 means more traders bet on price drops. Analyst Sssebi noted ADA broke an ascending channel and retested resistance, which he called “usually bullish.” But is it sustainable?

On-chain activity tells a different tale. DeFiLlama shows Cardano DEX volumes spiked from $4.15 million to $16.1 million in two days. TVL rose from $54 million to $60 million. Stablecoin supply on Cardano went from $65 million to $67 million, pointing to growing on-chain action. ADA sits above its 50-day and 100-day EMAs at $0.187 and $0.196. Resistance at the 200-day EMA is at $0.249. A break above could push it to $0.29, but the RSI at 72 hints buyers might be exhausted. Right now, ADA trades around $0.223, up 5.6% on the day.

Author bio: Oliver Hawthorne, Principal Correspondent at an international technology review, with over a decade covering crypto and tech market dynamics.