On December 11, 2025, the Cardano ecosystem came under renewed pressure as ADA shed roughly 5% to trade near 0.42 US dollars — the strongest daily drop since October. The move reflected broader weakness in risk assets following the latest Federal Reserve decision, compounded by turmoil surrounding the debut of Cardano’s Midnight sidechain.
Fed decision weighs on the crypto market
The U.S. central bank cut rates by 25 basis points for the third consecutive meeting. Yet the outcome failed to spark optimism: Bitcoin hovered around 90,200 USD, Ethereum slid 4.3%, and ADA dropped about 5% in sympathy with the risk-off tone.
CoinGlass data illustrate the scale of the session’s volatility: within 24 hours, positions valued at nearly 496 million USD were liquidated, with 370 million USD of that in long positions. Traders positioned on rising prices were caught off guard by the abrupt move.
Midnight Launch adds to volatility
Concurrent with broader selling pressure, the Midnight sidechain rollout drew attention for less favorable reasons. The new NIGHT governance token exhibited extreme price swings: after initially trading near 150 USD, it tumbled to around 0.02 USD. The drastic drop was driven largely by large sell-offs from airdrop recipients.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson maintained an optimistic outlook for the Midnight ecosystem, predicting a potential valuation of 10 billion USD in the future — a tenfold potential relative to present levels. Midnight is designed to bring privacy features to Cardano and has already connected with partners like CSWAP for DeFi applications.
Community approves 70 million ADA for infrastructure
Amid the price turbulence, Cardano’s on-chain governance advanced. The community approved the release of 70 million ADA from the Treasury, with more than 60% of delegates voting in favor. The funds are slated to support essential infrastructure initiatives, including:
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- Stablecoin development and integration
- Oracle feed infrastructure
- Cross-chain bridges
- Custody solutions
- Analytics tooling
The vote is viewed as a milestone for Cardano’s on-chain governance framework.
Ouroboros Leios progresses; Hydra hits production readiness
In parallel with governance and ecosystem growth, development on Ouroboros Leios continues. The scaling solution aims to increase network throughput by roughly 30- to 50-fold, boosting capacity from about 4.5 TxkB/s to a target range of 140–300 TxkB/s. The deployment timeline is estimated at 1 to 1.5 years.
Meanwhile, the Layer-2 solution Hydra has reached version 1.0 and is considered production-ready. Hydra enables high-frequency transactions off the main chain while maintaining security through its connection to Layer-1.
Technical backdrop and near-term outlook
In the near term, ADA faces ongoing pressure. Following a brief 13% uptick after the Fed decision, the token failed to sustain gains above the 200-day EMA. The RSI shows bullish divergence, but the MACD signal remains unsettled. A decisive breakout above the resistance zone around 0.64 USD would be technically necessary to rebuild upside momentum.
Whether ongoing ecosystem developments — from Midnight to Leios and the potential Grayscale ETF approval — will be enough to shift price momentum remains to be seen in the coming weeks.
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