Everstake Says Cardano Could Be This Year’s Biggest Surprise

Leading non-custodial staking infrastructure provider Everstake remains confident about Cardano’s outlook for the rest of the year.

According to Everstake, Cardano could emerge as one of the biggest surprises in the crypto market in 2026. The firm argues that $ADA remains undervalued despite the network’s strong fundamentals and continued ecosystem development.

Rising On-Chain Activity Signals Potential Reversal

Everstake’s optimism stems from Cardano’s growing on-chain activity, particularly recent spikes in the Age Consumed metric. This metric tracks the movement of coins that have remained dormant for extended periods.

Data from Santiment shows Cardano’s Age Consumed metric reached a five-week high on June 9, with several notable spikes recorded between June 4 and June 5. According to the staking provider, an increase in Age Consumed typically indicates that long-term holders are becoming active again.

Furthermore, Everstake stressed that this type of activity has historically served as a reliable indicator of major trend reversals. As a result, the firm believes Cardano may be positioning itself for a significant upward move.

Strong Fundamentals Suggest Cardano Will Win: Everstake

Despite ongoing market distractions, Everstake maintains that Cardano’s core fundamentals remain exceptionally strong. As a long-time supporter of the ecosystem through its staking infrastructure services, the company reaffirmed its confidence in Cardano’s long-term trajectory.

Consequently, Everstake believes the project is well-positioned for future growth and could outperform broader market expectations during the remainder of the year, declaring that Cardano will win.

Everstake’s comments echo the views of Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, who previously predicted that 2026 would be a breakthrough year for Cardano. Hoskinson highlighted several key growth drivers, including the network’s DeFi ecosystem, the Midnight privacy-focused sidechain, and the Leios scalability upgrade.

Earlier in the year, several developments appeared to support that outlook. Midnight secured a major partnership with Monument Bank, which announced plans to tokenize £250 million of customers’ deposits on the blockchain. Meanwhile, Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem surged in April, pushing total value locked (TVL) to a more than one-year high of 559.4 million $ADA. At the time, Everstake described the increase as evidence of a healthy and expanding network.

$ADA Price Lags

However, Cardano’s market performance has moved in the opposite direction. Despite the network’s operational progress, $ADA has struggled throughout much of the year.

So far, the token has declined by 48.9% year-to-date, falling to $0.1699. In addition, Cardano has slipped out of the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization and now ranks as the 16th-largest cryptocurrency globally.

Although supporters such as Everstake remain bullish on Cardano’s prospects, the ecosystem continues to face several challenges. Governance disputes and project shutdowns have fueled concerns within parts of the community on X.

Adding to the friction, Hoskinson recently proposed migrating Cardano community hubs to Discord, a move critics argue could restrict adoption rather than expand it. Navigating through these headwinds will determine whether Everstake’s optimism materializes.