Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more.
Estimated reading time: 2 min
Due to the potential for losses, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) considers this investment to be high risk.
What are the key risks?
1. You could lose all the money you invest
The performance of most cryptoassets can be highly volatile, with their value dropping as quickly as it can rise. You should be prepared to lose all the money you invest in cryptoassets.
The cryptoasset market is largely unregulated. There is a risk of losing money or any cryptoassets you purchase due to risks such as cyber-attacks, financial crime and firm failure.
2. You should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) doesn't protect this type of investment because it's not a 'specified investment' under the UK regulatory regime – in other words, this type of investment isn't recognised as the sort of investment that the FSCS can protect. Learn more by using the FSCS investment protection checker.
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) will not be able to consider complaints related to this firm or Protection from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) does not cover poor investment performance. If you have a complaint against an FCA regulated firm, FOS may be able to consider it. Learn more about FOS protection here.
3. You may not be able to sell your investment when you want to
There is no guarantee that investments in cryptoassets can be easily sold at any given time. The ability to sell a cryptoasset depends on various factors, including the supply and demand in the market at that time.
Operational failings such as technology outages, cyber-attacks and comingling of funds could cause unwanted delay and you may be unable to sell your cryptoassets at the time you want.
4. Cryptoasset investments can be complex
Investments in cryptoassets can be complex, making it difficult to understand the risks associated with the investment.
You should do your own research before investing. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
5. Don't put all your eggs in one basket
Putting all your money into a single type of investment is risky. Spreading your money across different investments makes you less dependent on any one to do well.
A good rule of thumb is not to invest more than 10% of your money in high-risk investments.
If you are interested in learning more about how to protect yourself, visit the FCA's website here.
For further information about cryptoassets, visit the FCA's website here.
Our panel reveals why they think ADA will finish 2023 around US$0.32, before climbing back up to US$1.57 by 2025 and US$3.15 by the end of the decade. All prices mentioned in this report are in US dollars.
Finder runs a survey of industry specialists, asking for their thoughts on how Cardano (ADA) will perform over the coming years. Most recently we surveyed our panel in October 2023 when ADA was trading for roughly US$0.25.
On average the panel expects that ADA will end 2023 at US$0.32, with many panellists expecting ADA to experience a surge in price in 2025 thanks to a market-wide uplift led by Bitcoin.
"If next year's Bitcoin halving leads to a bullish crypto market Cardano could well be taken along for the ride," Nick Ranga, senior cryptocurrency and forex analyst at ForexTraders.com, says.
Mitesh Shah, founder of Omnia Markets, agrees.
"The overall decline in the market is one of many factors that resulted in Cardano's price plunge and slow recovery. As and when the market recovers and enters a bull run, I believe Cardano will experience near highs," he says,
He believes investors are better off holding on to any ADA right now and predicts the price may reach as high as 50 cents by the end of the year and US$2.75 by 2025.
Despite the optimism related to Bitcoin, many were pessimistic about Cardano's own merits and its ability to continue to appreciate in price in a maturing and increasingly competitive market for smart contract platforms.
"Ecosystem adoption, users, and use cases trump technology in many cases. What holds ADA back is its lack of adoption, and its slow developer activity compared to Ethereum," Josh Fraser, co-founder of Origin Protocol, says.
Fraser believes that ADA will drop to 25 cents by the end of 2023 and will eventually go to zero by the end of the decade. Despite this outlook, he's optimistic that it will reach US$1.50 by 2025 which is in-line with how many on the panel expect the whole market to lift off the back of the Bitcoin halving.
Some panellists were more blunt with their assessment.
"Cardano is dead on the vine. It had a moment to be a leader years ago, but unfortunately has not proven an ability to bring on institutions or general usage for any use cases," Joseph Raczynski, a futurist, says.
He thinks ADA will collapse to zero by 2025.
Ben Ritchie, managing director of Digital Capital Management Pty Ltd gave a more nuanced take.
"Cardano lacks a decentralised application (dapp) that can compete with the major dapps on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains... Additionally, there is regulatory uncertainty, with the U.S. SEC labeling ADA tokens as securities," he says.
The latter is in reference to multiple lawsuits by the SEC against cryptocurrency exchanges, which accuse them of illegally offering securities. These suits allege that ADA and similar cryptos like SOL, BNB MATIC and ATOM are securities and can only be sold on a licensed securities exchange.
If ADA were classified as a security in the US, it would heavily restrict how and where it is traded and have implications for how the asset is used on-chain. Both factors could be expected to negatively impact price.
On average our panel expects it will take until 2030 for ADA to pass its previous all-time high of US$3.09 again and set a new high of US$3.15.
We last polled our panel a year prior in October 2022.
Since then, their average predictions for the price of ADA by 2025 have declined by 36% from US$2.45 to US$1.57.
As for their 2030 predictions, those have decreased by 41% from a previous average of US$5.37 to US$3.15.
Speaking about Cardano's trajectory over the next year or so, Ruadhan O, creator of Seasonal Tokens had this to say.
"Cardano is likely to gain some of Ethereum's market share in the next bull run as ETH gas prices rise and users look for cheaper alternatives. However, the previous all-time high for ADA was more than 10 times its current price, and it happened when Ethereum gas fees were at their highest. In the next bull run, Polygon is likely to benefit from users fleeing Ethereum more than Cardano is. The bull market will push up the price of ADA, but probably not by a factor of 10."
He believes ADA will only go as high as 70 cents by 2025 and cap out at US$2 by 2030.
Despite the broad pessimism towards Cardano, a small number of our panel were bullish about the project's developments.
Matiu Rudolph, COO of Layer One X, thinks ADA could hit US$3.50 or greater by 2025 and just below US$10 by 2030.
"ADA has a loyal and robust community which is one of their greatest assets at this point in time," he says.
Martin Froehler, CEO of Morpher is also optimistic, expecting ADA to go to US$5 by 2025 and US$20 by the end of the decade.
"Cardano is the most serious Ethereum challenger. It is decentralized, secure, has an ambitious roadmap, and a focus on emerging markets. It will carve out its niche," he says.
According to Natalja Zaharova, head of operations FXOpen Pty Ltd, "ADA had the busiest ecosystem in 2023 and is very likely to go up in price after BTC halving in 2024."
What's behind the downward trend in ADA's price?
Despite criticisms around ADA, 39% of our panel think its downward price trend is best attributed to overall market conditions, rather than something specific to Cardano.
With that in mind, nearly a third of the panel – 29% – attribute it to Cardano failing to deliver notable products or dapps.
Jeremy Britton, CFO at Boston Trading.co summed it up neatly, "Is anyone still working on ADA?".
According to Developer Report, a website that tracks developer activity across blockchains, Cardano ranks 10th in terms of the number of active developers. Ethereum, Polkadot and Cosmos are the most active as of 1 October 2023.
As for growth, it appears that the number of active developers working on Cardano reached a peak in 2023, but has since decreased to late 2022 levels.
Will ADA reach a new all-time high if Bitcoin enters a new bull run?
Half of our panel thinks it's likely that ADA will follow BTC and set a new all-time high if the market enters a new bull run.
Many tapered their optimism by saying that it was unlikely to reach its previous all-time high of US$3.09 which was set on 2 September 2021.
"There is a possibility that tokens like ADA may never put in new all-time highs simply due to newer tokens with better tech and stronger partnerships looking to take away market share from ADA," Pav Hundal, lead market analyst at Swyftx, says.
He predicts ADA may reach as high as US$9 by 2025, before crashing back down to US$1 by the end of the decade.
Meet the panel
Methodology
Finder surveyed 31 fintech specialists in October 2023. Panellists are able to answer as many or as few questions as they like, meaning the number of responses received varies by question. 23 panellists gave their price prediction for ADA by year-end 2023, 2025, and 2030. Panellists may own some cryptocurrencies, including ADA. All prices are listed in USD per ADA.
Changes to methodology: In 2021, this research was conducted using the simple mean of all answers supplied to Finder. From 2022, we switched to using the truncated mean, with the top and bottom 10% of responses removed in order to attain a more consistent result. Any 2021 results quoted in this analysis have also been re-calculated using the truncated mean.
*Cryptocurrencies aren't regulated in the UK and there's no protection from the Financial Ombudsman or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Your capital is at risk. Capital gains tax on profits may apply.
Cryptocurrencies are speculative and investing in them involves significant risks - they're highly volatile, vulnerable to hacking and sensitive to secondary activity. The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invested. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. This content shouldn't be interpreted as a recommendation to invest. Before you invest, you should get advice and decide whether the potential return outweighs the risks. Finder, or the author, may have holdings in the cryptocurrencies discussed.
James Edwards is the global cryptocurrency editor at Finder. He coordinates a distributed team of journalists to help further Finder's mission of helping people make better financial decisions.
He has been using Bitcoin since 2013 and began working in the industry in 2017. He takes pride in boiling down complex topics into language his parents can understand.
His expertise has seen him called on to report at events such as TechCrunch Disrupt, CoinDesk Consensus and IBM Think and has coordinated a vast number of high-profile interviews with the industry's brightest minds.
He is a regular contributor to Nasdaq, The Street and is frequently called upon for market commentary in Australia and abroad.
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