Cardano regains Leios's gains: ADA's two declines far exceeded the altcoin index

Cardano retracted its weekend gains in a single day, and forced market liquidations triggered a chain reaction

Cardano (ADA) vomited all the weekend gains in a single trading day. On Wednesday, October 7, 2026, the ADA transaction price is US$0.2546 (approximately 0.2275 euros). According to CoinGecko data, that's down 7.97% from 24 hours ago. Although the cumulative increase in the past seven days has been 4.28% and the increase in the past 30 days has been 16.80%, the key point is that this correction erased short-term fluctuations on October 5 and 6 and did not change the overall trend in the near term.

The trigger for this decline did not come from Cardano itself. Large-scale forced liquidations occurred across the market, and the ADA was hit above average. For holders, the following three points are more important than percentage numbers: whether borrowed funds have been used to enter the market, when the position period expires, and where the token is stored.

Today's market: A single-day decline of 7.97%, and the price was quoted at US$0.2546.

The price range in the past 24 hours ranged from a high of US$0.27981 to a low of US$0.252659. The euro equivalent is approximately 0.25003 euros to 0.225769 euros. The current price is slightly above the intraday low and about 9% below the intraday high. As the euro weakened simultaneously against the US dollar, the decline in euro terms (7.52%) was slightly smaller than the decline in US dollar terms.

Cardano currently has a market value of US$9.56 billion, ranking 17th. The circulating supply is 37.55 billion ADAs, and the maximum supply limit is 45 billion. Trading volume in the past 24 hours was $703.7 million. This price is well below the all-time high of $3.09 set on September 1, 2021.

Review of daily closing trend

On October 4, ADA closed at US$0.24389; on October 5, it was US$0.25973; and on October 6, it was US$0.27041. The increase was nearly 11% in two days. Today's price of US$0.2546 is lower than its close on October 5, which means that prices have fallen back into the initial range of the start of the market. Investors who bought late Monday or Tuesday are currently at a loss.

Driving force for the rebound: Leios forecast, RealFi launch and the formation of the "golden fork"

In early October, three things happened at the same time. On October 1, after months of public testing, the RealFi feature was officially launched on the Cardano main network. On October 5, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson drew attention on social media to the planned Leios extension, a reconstruction effort aimed at significantly increasing network throughput. During the same period, a "golden cross" was formed on the chart, that is, the short-term moving average crossed the long-term moving average upward.

However, none of these three points is an established fact that has an immediate impact on prices. Although RealFi is online, it is still in its early stages;Leios is only in the announcement and testing stage and has not yet been officially deployed; and the "golden fork" is just a chart form, not an event within the network. A rally based on announcements and chart patterns becomes particularly fragile when the broader market fluctuates. That's exactly what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Source of pressure: Outside the spot market, leveraged positions encounter large-scale liquidation

压力并非来自现货市场，而是源于涉及借贷资金的合约交易市场。据CoinDesk报道，加密货币市场在过去24小时内的清算金额激增235%，达到5.47亿美元。其中，以太坊（Ether）头寸独占1.74亿美元。CoinDesk指出，油价上涨、美国国债收益率高企以及美元走强是主要驱动因素。跟踪山寨币整体表现的CoinDesk 80指数下跌了近4%。

此前，《The Block》已报道比特币曾短暂跌破84,000美元，导致价值4.87亿美元的做多头寸被清算。两家媒体独立描述了同一情况：这并非基于信念的抛售，而是押注价格上涨的头寸引发的连锁反应。

ADA跌幅近8%，约为CoinDesk 80指数跌幅的两倍，其冷静的原因在于：近期大幅上涨的币种往往积累了不成比例的新鲜杠杆头寸。当市场下跌时，自动清算机制首先冲击这些币种。

杠杆与清算：价格在0.2527美元附近遭遇强制平仓

清算并非投资者的主动决策。任何在期货交易所使用杠杆交易的投资者仅需缴纳头寸价值的一部分作为保证金。一旦保证金不足，交易所将自动关闭头寸并将背后的代币卖出到市场中。同时突破阈值的头寸越多，抛压越重，导致价格进一步下跌，进而引发更多头寸爆仓，形成恶性循环。

This means for ordinary users: The intraday low of $0.252659 is not what anyone considers a fair price, but the point where forced sales are exhausted. Users who do not leverage ADA only see the price impact of this mechanism.

How to identify leveraged positions

Not everyone knows they are using leverage. One sign is the emergence of clearing prices in the overview. Another sign is the Funding Rate, which is settled regularly. The third sign is products marked in the product list as perpetual contracts, futures, contracts for difference (CFD) or with a knock-out threshold. If you simply buy ADA on a spot exchange, the above situation does not exist.

Buy ADA in Germany: MiCA Authorizations, Spreads and Order Types

Since the full implementation of the European Crypto Asset Markets Regulation (MiCA), any service provider selling crypto assets to German retail customers must have authorization as a crypto asset service provider. This is the primary filter for selecting a provider: Unauthorized providers are not allowed to serve this service, and you are not protected by the EU framework in a dispute. Details on which institutions hold authorizations and the fees for purchasing ADAs can be found in the overview of regulated crypto exchanges.

Next is the price you actually paid. It can be seen that expenses are usually not the entire bill. On top of that, it's a bit worse (the difference between buying and selling prices), and there are often additional surcharges for credit card deposits. In today's fast-moving days, a third factor follows: the execution price deviates far from the display price than usual.

Limit orders can help deal with this situation. You can set a maximum acceptable purchase price and accept that the order will not be closed if the price is not reached. In contrast, a Market Order is executed immediately at any price currently in the order book. In calm times, the difference is small; but in a wave of liquidation, the difference can be as high as a few percentage points.

Holding period: One year distinguishes between tax-exempt and taxable sales

In Germany, crypto assets among private assets are considered "other assets." If it is sold at a profit within one year after purchase, the proceeds are subject to tax as a private disposal transaction at the personal income tax rate. If there is more than twelve months between purchase and sale, proceeds are exempt from tax. In addition, there is a tax exemption threshold of € 1,000 per year for the total of all private disposal transactions. Once this threshold is exceeded, the full amount is taxed, not just the excess.

Therefore, the price collapse is also related to the purchase date. Selling ADA at a loss within one year will generate losses that can be used to offset gains from other private disposal transactions. Conversely, if twelve months are approaching and profitable, a few days of impatience can lead to the payment of the full tax rate. Therefore, investors buying in batches need a schedule that records the respective purchase dates for each transaction.

It is uncertain whether this one-year rule will be retained in the future. The petition committee of the German Bundestag will consider a proposal on the holding period of crypto-assets on October 12. A hearing is not a legal change, but it is a critical point at which potential changes emerge.

ADA pledge: Five-day cycle, no lock-in restrictions

Cardano is different from other networks in many ways, which is particularly important in the downward market. Delegating ADA does not transfer tokens to the pool. What is entrusted is the wallet authority, and the token is still kept by the holder and available at any time. There is no lock-in time or notice period in the agreement.

The network takes five days as an epoch (Epoch). Rewards are distributed after the end of the era; after a new order, it takes approximately two to three weeks for the first payment to arrive. As a result, users who want to sell today don't have to cancel anything or wait.

The situation is different when ADA pledges are made through exchanges or providers. Such services replicate the protocol functionality but follow their own terms and may have lock-in periods. There are also differences in tax terms: distributed rewards must be recorded as other income in the year they are received, whether or not you sell them.

Custody after sell-off: Exchanges, software wallets and hardware wallets

A day of high-definition computing is a good time to review your own custody strategy. If the token is stored on an exchange, it legally belongs to you, but the provider holds the private key. This is convenient as long as everything is operating normally; it poses a concentration risk if a provider gets into trouble or suspends trading.

手机或浏览器中的软件钱包将私钥归还给你，便于日常使用，但其命运取决于运行它的设备。硬件钱包将私钥与互联网隔离，适合长期不动的持仓。适用于这三种途径的基本规则相同：助记词不要保存在照片、笔记应用或云端中。

关键价格水平：0.2439美元、0.2527美元和0.2798美元

从最近几天的走势中可以读取三个数值，因为它们来自实际交易的价格。下行方面，10月4日的收盘价0.24389美元是反弹的起点。如果价格跌破此位，则之前的涨幅完全回吐。其上方是今日的日内低点0.252659美元，即强制销售结束的点。

上行方面是日内高点0.27981美元。该价值在过去24小时内有过交易，因此是复苏必须跨越的下一个障碍。这些数值并非预测，仅标记了最近交易中实际发生的点位，以此衡量行情而不必押注于特定目标价位。

观察的次序至关重要。只要更广泛的市场受到油价、债券收益率和美元的压力，ADA的动向将更紧密地跟随这些宏观指标，而非其自身的新闻。只有当市场范围的清算潮退去后，Leios等网络话题才会重新对价格产生权重。

Leios与CIP-164：测试网运行状况与待办事项

Leios is the reason for this rebound, so it is necessary to treat it rationally. The reconstruction effort is described as improvement proposal CIP-164, called Linear Leios. The idea is to add blocks, so-called endorser blocks, to bear transaction data, allowing the network to process more data in the same time. In tests on the experimental network Musashi Dojo, a six-fold data throughput was measured.

The key is status: Leios is under testing and has not yet been released. Developers aim to launch it by the end of 2026. At Cardano, there are often months between the successful test network and the hard fork of the main network, including the voting session. Anyone who views the October 5 announcement as a complete improvement is overestimating its status.

The Internet Treasury has the right to speak. One detail from September showed how Cardano currently operates: Project Pogun applied to get 12.29 million ADAs from the Internet vault, but failed due to insufficient support. Treasury funds are determined by the holder's representative. This means announced projects in the Cardano environment must be voted on to receive funding. In such networks, the likelihood that an announcement is almost equivalent to an implementation is lower than in other networks.

Cardano Price: The next three steps

1. Check whether a clearing price occurs: Open an overview of each ADA provider position you hold. If you find a clearing price, funding rate, or product with a knock-out threshold, you are using leverage and exposed to the mechanism that caused a $547 million position to be cleared today. Those who unintentionally leverage should release them in calm times, not in market downturns. For a list of tool usage methods and providers, please refer to the Overview of Analytical Tools.
2. Record the purchase date of each ADA batch: Whether a sale is taxable depends only on the twelve month period since each purchase, multiple purchases mean that each batch has its own date. The list should be on the table before any sale decision, especially since a hearing on the holding period is scheduled for October 12. Please refer to the relevant comparison guide for which tax tools can automatically track expiration dates.
3. Move what you intend to hold for the long term out of the exchange: If you don't plan to trade in the next few weeks, you don't have to leave the assets with the provider. Cardano's commissions do not need to be locked up, and even if you entrust from your own wallet, you will not lose rewards. To learn about the equipment available in Germany and its costs, refer to the Hardware Wallet Comparison Guide.

(As of October 7, 2026. This article does not constitute investment advice. Price and fee structures are subject to change; please check terms with your provider before purchasing.)