According to Santiment, Cardano (ADA) key investors, including whales and sharks holding between 100K to 100M ADA, have increased their holdings by 819.4 million ADA over the past six months. Despite a significant 71% price drop from $0.90 to $0.26 during this period, these wallets have added approximately $213.9 million worth of ADA, accounting for an additional 1.6% of the total supply. This accumulation trend highlights confidence among large holders and suggests potential future market movements.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, he has voted NO with 61.15 million ADA voting power against the proposed governance action to set a Net Change Limit of 300 million ADA for epochs 613–713. He argues that such a limit is excessive and advocates for a reduced range of 200–250 million ADA to enforce stricter fiscal discipline. This approach aims to prioritize spending, ensure sustainability, and grow the treasury rather than deplete it, especially after significant infrastructure investments.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, Grayscale Investments has increased its allocation of Cardano (ADA) in its Smart Contract Fund to 20.34%, up from 20.12%. This rise signifies growing confidence in ADA's potential, possibly influenced by recent developments in Bitcoin DeFi integrations within the Cardano ecosystem.

According to Dave (@ItsDave_ADA), the DAVE Stake Pool, representing 36.7 million ADA in voting power, has cast its vote in favor of the governance action to increase transaction and block memory units on the Cardano network. This proposal is part of a larger effort to enhance network scalability. Despite significant progress, only 31.54% of the required 51% has been achieved, with 8.12 billion ADA still unvoted. Dave commends the Intersect Parameter Committee for their efforts in driving forward this governance initiative.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, Grayscale has increased its ADA allocation in the Smart Contract Fund from 19.50% to 19.55%. This move aligns with Cardano's growing efforts in Bitcoin DeFi, leveraging non-custodial collateral, stablecoin-based credit, and liquidation-resistant lending structures through its smart contract layer. These advancements may explain why institutional investors are quietly expanding their Cardano exposure.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, Grayscale has increased its ADA allocation in the Smart Contract Fund from 19.50% to 19.55%. This move aligns with Cardano's expansion into Bitcoin DeFi, leveraging its smart contract layer to attract external Bitcoin liquidity through non-custodial collateral, stablecoin-based credit, and lending structures designed to prevent liquidation risks. These developments suggest growing institutional interest in Cardano (ADA) as a platform for predictable borrowing and yield generation, particularly for retail Bitcoin holders.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, Grayscale has increased its holdings of Cardano (ADA) in its Smart Contract Fund from 18.55% to 19.50%. ADA remains the third-largest asset in the fund, reflecting growing institutional interest in Cardano's blockchain capabilities for smart contracts. This increase highlights ADA's prominence in the evolving DeFi landscape.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, live on-chain data over the last hour shows real DEX swaps, real transactions, and resulting liquidity changes on Cardano, captured directly from the syncing ledger with no simulations or replays (source: @ItsDave_ADA on X). According to @ItsDave_ADA, his DEX battle view reveals that competition on Cardano is active—liquidity competes, routing competes, and execution quality matters—and DEXs contending for flow is a good signal the network is being actively used (source: @ItsDave_ADA on X). According to @ItsDave_ADA, he upgraded his arbitrage dashboard to combine swap execution, pool state changes, monitoring, and analytics in one place, emphasizing that Cardano’s determinism makes state transitions predictable, traceable, and verifiable for reliable operations over time (source: @ItsDave_ADA on X). According to @ItsDave_ADA, these observations highlight real-time liquidity routing and execution dynamics traders can monitor directly on-chain to evaluate DEX performance on Cardano (source: @ItsDave_ADA on X).

According to @ItsDave_ADA, a Cardano DRep with 60.59 million ADA voting power representing delegates voted NO on the governance action Cardano DeFi Liquidity Budget - Withdrawal 1, citing duty of care and strict fiscal responsibility to ADA holders. Source: @ItsDave_ADA on X. He said he previously voted YES on the governance action and supports the strategic intent but cannot justify this treasury spend at present. Source: @ItsDave_ADA on X. He stated the proposal relies on a 0.40 USD ADA peg and, with the current price significantly lower around 0.286 USD, the withdrawal would be underfunded at execution. Source: @ItsDave_ADA on X. He invited a re-submission when ADA price improves and shared the on-chain transaction reference. Source: @ItsDave_ADA on X.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, USDCx, described as a privacy focused version of USDC, is coming to Cardano and is framed as an important leap for Cardano’s adoption (source: @ItsDave_ADA on X). According to Charles Hoskinson, he has signed the integration agreement for USDCx on Cardano and welcomed the project to Cardano Circle, signaling formal progress toward deployment (source: @IOHK_Charles on X, cited by @ItsDave_ADA). According to @ItsDave_ADA, the announcement highlights adoption momentum for Cardano’s DeFi stack by bringing a dollar stablecoin variant into the ecosystem (source: @ItsDave_ADA on X). According to the cited posts, no launch timeline or technical details were disclosed, so traders should monitor official updates for rollout milestones and potential liquidity effects across ADA pairs and Cardano DEXs (sources: @ItsDave_ADA and @IOHK_Charles on X).

According to @ItsDave_ADA, Cardano node diversity is progressing well through Amaru, with the team commended for transparency and prudent treasury management (source: @ItsDave_ADA). The Amaru 2026 Budget Draft states that 2025 activities were fully funded using only a fraction of allocated funds without using contingency and that remaining funds will be returned to the Cardano treasury after settling late 2025 invoices (source: Amaru 2026 Budget Draft). The full treasury journal is public and verifiable on GitHub, providing transaction-level transparency (source: Amaru Treasury GitHub). The author expresses strong support for Amaru’s 2026 proposal due to clear outcomes and responsible capital use (source: @ItsDave_ADA). For ADA traders, these disclosures offer verifiable visibility into operational funding and planned treasury replenishment that can be monitored via the budget draft and treasury journal (source: Amaru 2026 Budget Draft; source: Amaru Treasury GitHub).

According to @ItsDave_ADA, a Cardano transaction about 1 year and 10 months ago created an output of 1.32 billion ADA, valued around $478 million at that time, with an on-chain fee near $0.26 (source: @ItsDave_ADA). The transaction record confirms the large output and low fee for the cited transfer (source: Cexplorer, txid bcaabc2a9c8f325ceec93f3955cd2d4e9982c43ec82b99c5b9e17c3d670910c2). For traders, @ItsDave_ADA highlights Cardano’s capacity for large value settlement with predictable, stable fees, a factor that can support efficient high-value transfers and on-chain liquidity in ADA (source: @ItsDave_ADA).

According to @santimentfeed, on chain data shows Cardano's smart money wallets accumulated 454.7M ADA over the past two months while the token's price remained suppressed, driven by addresses holding 100K to 100M ADA increasing balances (source: @santimentfeed). @santimentfeed also notes that addresses with 100 ADA or fewer collectively reduced 22.0K ADA over the past three weeks, underscoring a divergence between whale wallets and small holders (source: @santimentfeed).

According to @AltcoinDaily, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson criticized Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse for supporting the current draft of the crypto market structure legislation known as the CLARITY Act, source: @AltcoinDaily on X, Jan 19, 2026. The update was shared as a video post, underscoring a public disagreement between Cardano (ADA) and Ripple (XRP) leadership over market structure policy, source: @AltcoinDaily on X, Jan 19, 2026.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, a NO vote with 37.67 million ADA was cast against the Cardano governance action titled Cardano 2030: Vision, Mission, Strategy Framework and KPIs on behalf of delegates. Source: @ItsDave_ADA on Twitter, Jan 18, 2026. The rationale opposes funding DReps, SPOs, and the Constitutional Committee based on observable activity such as votes, rationales, and attendance, citing risks of centralized judgment. Source: @ItsDave_ADA on Twitter, Jan 18, 2026. The post adds that DReps should act independently and not be bound by a static community-vetted filter to evaluate funding requests. Source: @ItsDave_ADA on Twitter, Jan 18, 2026. The vote is verifiable via the provided on-chain transaction link: https://adastat.net/transactions/cb1ad605781b525516e8a627e66d576d13c530d706b848be28fcc00a706ca52f. Source: AdaStat.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, a YES vote using 37.65 million ADA was cast on the Cardano governance action CARDANO BLOCKCHAIN ECOSYSTEM CONSTITUTION v2.4, with transaction evidence provided, source: x.com/ItsDave_ADA/status/2011178384639082536 and adastat.net/transactions/80c24fd5d27d29d5a227765f5d2596be683a912fdbf1129df2743345b1ad0e9b. According to @ItsDave_ADA, the stated rationale for the YES vote is to mature governance by removing redundant Budget Info Actions, preserving fiscal discipline via universal audit safeguards, and enforcing immutable proposal documents while commending the proposal creator for incorporating community feedback, source: x.com/ItsDave_ADA/status/2011178384639082536. According to @ItsDave_ADA, a NO vote using 37.71 million ADA was cast on the DeltaDeFi: Hydra Trading Infrastructure Budget request for 1,500,000 ADA on behalf of delegates, with transaction evidence provided, source: x.com/ItsDave_ADA/status/2010699440944738368 and adastat.net/transactions/79bab53fe9f84e61127371e7ba725958554ae45e6bc3cd399d24fd87afeca3da. According to @ItsDave_ADA, the stated rationale for the NO vote is support for Hydra development but opposition to using the Cardano Treasury to subsidize operational costs of an individual commercial DEX, recommending Project Catalyst or private venture capital instead and reserving treasury funding for neutral, protocol-level public goods, source: x.com/ItsDave_ADA/status/2010699440944738368.

According to @AltcoinDaily, Cardano's founder stated, "If the Clarity Act doesn't pass this quarter, then I think David Sacks should resign. He's utterly failed us as an industry," emphasizing a deadline this quarter and direct criticism of Sacks; source: @AltcoinDaily on X, Jan 12, 2026, https://twitter.com/AltcoinDaily/status/2010598495288492040. According to @AltcoinDaily, the statement puts legislative timing and policy risk in focus for ADA and broader altcoins this quarter, making the Clarity Act a key near-term watch item for traders; source: @AltcoinDaily on X, Jan 12, 2026, https://twitter.com/AltcoinDaily/status/2010598495288492040.

According to @AltcoinDaily, Charles Hoskinson blamed a 'Trump coin' for ADA’s price being down, said David Sachs should be fired, and asserted that the Clarity Act will not happen, source: Altcoin Daily on X (Jan 12, 2026); Jungle Inc Crypto News video on X. The post highlights these statements as a market narrative debate and asks whether Charles is right or underestimating progress, without providing specific price levels or timelines, source: Altcoin Daily on X (Jan 12, 2026); Jungle Inc Crypto News video on X.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, Google Cloud is operating a new stake pool on the Cardano testnet, indicating active node participation in the network’s testing environment. Source: @ItsDave_ADA on X, Jan 9, 2026. A related update states that running an ADA node is a requirement for Midnight privacy validators, linking the activity to Midnight’s validator infrastructure; the posts reference testnet only and include no mainnet or timeline details. Source: @StakeWithPride on X, Jan 9, 2026; @ItsDave_ADA on X, Jan 9, 2026.

According to @ItsDave_ADA, the DAVE stake pool outperformed previous epochs again, delivering a positive outcome for delegators. source: @ItsDave_ADA on X, Jan 9, 2026 For ADA market participants, this operator-reported outperformance highlights recent strength in the pool’s staking results that delegators may consider when evaluating staking allocations. source: @ItsDave_ADA on X, Jan 9, 2026