Cardano (ADA) Surges 8% Amid Trump's Crypto Endorsement

Cardano (ADA) has experienced a notable surge in price, gaining 8% between March 23 and March 25, approaching the $0.76 resistance level. This level has held firm for over two weeks, and while it is still far from its March 3 high of $1.18, traders remain optimistic about further gains. This optimism is fueled by the ongoing efforts of founder and CEO Charles Hoskinson to highlight the network’s advantages and ADA’s potential, particularly within traditional finance markets.

One of the key drivers of the recent price surge was the mention of Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP), and Cardano by US President Donald Trump on his official social media accounts. Trump highlighted these as leading candidates for the US Digital Asset reserves. However, the subsequent executive order signed by Trump on March 7 did not include plans to purchase any altcoins, despite his earlier claims.

A fresh wave of bullish speculation for ADA emerged after Donald Trump Jr. was announced as a speaker at the DC Blockchain Summit 2025. This event, moderated by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, will feature several prominent speakers, including Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Cynthia Lummis, and Bo Hines, Executive Director of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets. Trump Jr. is scheduled to speak on March 26 alongside three co-founders of World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture backed by US President Donald Trump. Launched in September 2024, the company has conducted two public token sales, raising a total of $550 million. More recently, on March 24, the project introduced a dollar-pegged stablecoin on Ethereum and BNB Chain, though it is not yet tradable.

A significant portion of ADA’s recent gains is likely driven by speculation about a potential collaboration with World Liberty Financial, similar to the $30 million investment from Tron founder Justin Sun or Web3Port platform’s $10 million investment. However, some analysts, including 6MV managing partner Mike Dudas, have criticized Trump’s crypto venture, calling it a “pay-to-play” scheme rather than a true decentralized finance (DeFi) gateway. The potential listing of World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin on Cardano could be a game changer for the blockchain, generating significant hype around Charles Hoskinson sharing the stage with their representatives. Additionally, despite its relatively low total value locked (TVL) and onchain activity, the Cardano network has outperformed some of its competitors during testing.

Improvements within Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem and the opportunity to capture outsized yields could also benefit ADA price. Hydra, a layer-2 scalability solution on Cardano, has achieved nearly 1 million transactions per second while running a game. Some users have pointed out that no transactions have ever failed on the Cardano base layer, setting it apart from networks like Solana, which claim scalability but have faced issues. Citing data from Dune Analytics, TapTools reported a 40% failure rate on Solana transactions in the 30 days leading into March 17. In contrast, the post claims that “every transaction is validated before hitting the chain” on Cardano’s “eUTXO model.”

Despite this criticism, user grekos99 argued on the X social network that most failed transactions on Solana are “typically transactions which are not fully executed because some conditions were not met, for example, slippage.” Regardless of perceptions of Cardano’s unique validation and scalability processes, some of its DeFi applications show potential. For example, Indigo, a non-custodial synthetic asset protocol on Cardano, is currently offering a 28% yield on its stablecoin and 20% on Bitcoin-wrapped deposits. However, part of the difference can be explained by returns being paid in INDY tokens, making them less appealing compared to some of its competitors.

The path for ADA to reclaim levels above $1 heavily depends on the Cardano Foundation and Charles Hoskinson’s ability to guide the network’s governance and support for use cases that align with its scalability and decentralization goals. Other catalysts include potential developments in the US government’s Digital Asset stockpile and inflows into Cardano’s DeFi applications, which are currently offering higher yields than most competitors.