Cardano is currently trading over 100x above its ICO price, and that’s despite ADA changing hands over 90% removed from its all-time high. Its historical price growth begs the question of how much higher it could go in the future.

To gain a sense of potential future price movements, we’ve examined several Cardano price prediction scenarios based on growth projections derived from the performance of popular traditional and crypto assets, including the historical performances of the S&P 500 and Bitcoin.

Before we dive further into various growth scenarios and potential long-term price catalysts, let’s examine how a $1,000 investment in ADA could fare in the future:

*Price data was calculated using a $1,000 investment at an ADA’s price of $0.255312 on September 19, 2023.
**Price data was derived from the S&P 500’s average rate of return between 1956 and 2022.

Cardano’s price history

Cardano is one of the largest and most well-established cryptocurrencies in the industry. After its initial coin offering (ICO) ended in 2017 – during which time ADA was sold at an average price of $0.0024 per token – Cardano quickly rose through the ranks and became one of the 10 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, budding heads with the likes of Ethereum, XRP, and BNB.

Cardano reached an all-time high of $3.10 on September 2021 after gaining over +600% throughout 2021.

After that, the currency went on a massive downswing. ADA reached a multi-year bottom of roughly $0.240 in late 2022 but has since went on a mini heater and gained over 22% since the start of the year.

Cardano has historically been a particularly strong performer in Q4s, with an average rate of return during those periods of more than +450%.

Cardano price prediction for 2040

When it comes to predicting the future price movement of an asset, there are various methods available. For instance, if we rely on ADA's past annual rate of returns (which exceeds 600%) to project Cardano’s value in 2040, the outcome is downright ridiculous ($426.41M per 1 ADA), as it yields an excessively exaggerated figure that is extremely unrealistic.

Rather than using Cardano’s historical price data, which unfortunately distorts the outcome, we have opted to utilize the yearly rate of return of the S&P 500 Index, a commonly used investment benchmark – between 1956 and 2021, the S&P 500 stock index has provided an average annual ROI of approximately 11.8%.

How a $1,000 investment in Cardano would fare over time based on the S&P 500 historical ROI.

Using our Cardano profit calculator with the 11.8% ROI to project future portfolio growth, a $1,000 investment in ADA would grow to $7,446 by 2040. In other words, the price of Cardano would increase by +647%, from $0.255 to $1.905. 

For most investors, such price growth would probably be considered rather poor as the currency had previously traded as high as $3.10.

With that in mind, let’s shift our focus to another projection, which is based on Bitcoin’s historical yearly return averaged over the last 5 years of 22.27% instead. This is perhaps more in line with what we can realistically expect, as it is rooted in the historical price performance of the leading cryptocurrency asset, which has far more in common with ADA than a stock index.

Performance of a $1,000 investment in Cardano based on Bitcoin’s 5 yr. average annual return rate.

If we invested $1,000 in ADA today, that investment would grow to $37,304 in the next 17 years – in other words, Cardano’s price would increase by 3,630%, from $0.255 to $9.51 by 2040. At that price of ADA, the project’s market capitalization would reach $322.6 billion, up from $8.65 billion today.

Cardano price prediction for 2050

Looking even further into the potential future of crypto markets, the compounding effect becomes very apparent. The native token of the Cardano blockchain could grow by thousands of percent in the coming decades. However, no one can predict with any kind of certainty how the crypto market will look that far out.

Performance of a $1,000 investment in Cardano over time based on the S&P 500 historical ROI.

Again, we used the S&P 500 historical return to start off with Cardano price forecasts for 2050. 

A hypothetical $1,000 investment in ADA coins made in 2023 would grow to $22,718 by 2050. In other words, Cardano’s current price of $0.255 would increase by 2,171% to $5.791 by 2050.

How a $1,000 investment in Cardano would fare over time based on Bitcoin’s 5 yr. average annual return rate.

If we base our prediction on Bitcoin’s historical yearly return instead, the price of ADA tokens could increase by 27,746% to roughly $71 by 2050. In that case, a $1,000 investment would turn into $278,460 in 27 years.

You should keep in mind that the above predictions are nothing more than educated guesses of how the price of Cardano could behave in the future. While the rates chosen are rooted in the historical performances of some of the most prominent crypto and traditional assets, they should not be considered investment advice.

Long-term catalysts for Cardano’s price growth

There are several reasons why Cardano could be considered a good investment at current prices, including the rapid pace of development, being one of the most credible competitors to Ethereum, and demonstrating that it can trade 10x above its current price.

On a longer time scale, the main factor that will determine the success of Cardano’s Proof-of-Stake consensus-powered ecosystem is the implementation of smart contracts and the subsequent growth of decentralized applications on the platform.

If all the goals outlined in its ambitious roadmap come to pass, Cardano could challenge Ethereum’s supremacy as the leading smart contract platform. However, that will take years, as the lead currently held by Ethereum is massive. For comparison, Cardano users make about 50,000 transactions per day, whereas Ethereum users make over 900,000 daily, which demonstrates the difference in activity between the two chains.

Nevertheless, Cardano’s robust and active community and unique blockchain design that uses the EUTXO (Extended Unspent Transaction Output) model for transactions could help the currency reach higher in the future, perhaps even reaching the $100 milestone down the line.

ADA price prediction for 2023-2024

The CoinCodex price prediction algorithm forecasts ADA to more than 3x its current price by Q3 2024.

According to our algorithmically generated price prediction for Cardano, the price is forecasted to move in a positive direction in the near term, growing by+115% to $0.5435 in the next three months. Currently, 17 market signals indicate bearish activity, and 12 signal positive price action.

Cardano is expected to continue its growth in early 2024 and undergo a strong rally in Q3 2024, which could see the cryptocurrency reach beyond the $1.25 mark next August. That would mean that the price of ADA would increase by over +400% – not bad for cryptocurrency that is considered dead by some.

The bottom line: Is Cardano a good long-term bet?

If Cardano developers manage to implement roadmap goals successfully, the future of Cardano could be very bright. That’s one of the reasons why Cardano was featured on our list of best cryptos to buy for the long term.

If you want to learn more about long-term price predictions for other cryptocurrencies as well, please check our articles on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Shiba Inu.