Cardano Price Forecast as Analyst Calls ADA Rally an “Easy Fade” Amid Falling DeFi Activity

Cardano (ADA) price is up by 20% in the seven days leading up to today, August 27. This rally comes as the sentiment in the broader crypto market shifts to extreme greed following Bitcoin (BTC ) move to $80,000.

ADA’s rally has now drawn scrutiny from the founder of Zero Knowledge, Austin Campbell, who has questioned why Cardano price is rising when the fundamentals are weak.

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Expert Questions ADA’s 20% Price Surge

While speaking in an interview with the Wolf of All Streets, Campbell said that he did not understand why Cardano was gaining as much as Bitcoin, and even added that the rise could be because ADA had no liquidity.

“Something that has no utility and no fundamental way to value it is maybe an easy fade, because it just caught a bid in the nonsense and went up more because there was zero liquidity on it,” Campbell said.

He also added that he was not convinced by the performance of many altcoins, especially the ones that had yet to gain adoption in tokenization. Campbell opines that most of these altcoins, apart from Hyperliquid (HYPE), are just gaining because of their correlation to BTC.

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Cardano DeFi Activity Slumps

Data from DeFiLlama shows that the Total Value Locked (TVL) on Cardano has dropped from 509 million ADA on January 1, 2026, to 272 million ADA at the time of writing. This drop suggests that Cardano has shed 237 million ADA from its TVL in 2026 alone.

The DEX volumes have also dropped from the recent high of $56 million on August 22 to $965,000 at the time of writing. These volumes have dropped by 98% in five days, per these numbers.

TokenTerminal also shows that the declining DeFi TVL and DEX volumes have pushed the amount of monthly revenues on the Cardano network from $20,000 in January 2026 to $8,000 in August 2026.

The falling network activity comes ahead of the Dijkstra upgrade that will have the first phase rollout in Q4 2026, as earlier reported by CoinGape. The upgrade seeks to improve the speed and security of the Cardano network.

Cardano’s Open Interest Sheds $92M

Data from CoinGlass shows that Cardano’s open interest has dropped from $582.14 million on August 22 to $485.32 million at the time of writing. The drop follows $18 million in liquidations between August 22 and August 27.

The long/short reading of 0.89 also suggests that short sellers are now dominating Cardano’s futures market as they bet that the price will fall as traders book profits.

CoinGlass also shows that futures trading activity around Cardano has also faded after the volumes dropped by 15% to $434 million at the time of writing.

Cardano Price Forecast as Ascending Channel Holds

Cardano price is up by 0.8% today, August 27, to trade at $0.212 at the time of writing as extreme greed in the broader crypto market overshadows the falling network activity. These gains leave ADA’s ascending channel intact, suggesting that an uptrend is still in play despite several pullbacks.

If Cardano moves above the resistance at the upper trendline of the rising channel, the price could reach the 200-day EMA of $0.24. If the rally extends above this EMA, it will confirm a bullish long-term Cardano price forecast.

The midline of this rising channel at $0.19 also serves as support. This midline also coincides with the 100-day EMA, suggesting that a move below this support could turn the mid-term trend from bullish to bearish.

The MACD line that is positive and rising, suggests that the momentum is still favoring bulls. This supports the bullish thesis of a move to $0.24 if the sentiment across the broader crypto market remains positive.