Cardano Price Climbs, but Its DeFi Engine Is Quietly Collapsing

Cardano’s ADA rose about 3.6% over the past 30 days even as DeFi app-level fees fell 67.1%, signaling weakening activity in the ecosystem beneath the token. According to BeInCrypto, ADA traded near $0.167, with a market value of about $6.2 billion, while Cardano’s base-layer gas fees dropped 35.7% over the same period. On-chain transactions ran roughly 150,000 to 180,000 a week, with an early June spike to 271,000 tied to DEX swaps on Minswap, WingRiders, and SundaeSwap, but TVL still slid, including a roughly 22% monthly drop at Minswap. BeInCrypto cited thin liquidity, with Cardano stablecoin supply near $59 million versus about $1.4 billion on Avalanche, roughly $15 billion on Solana, and more than $89 billion on Tron.