Cardano Investment Calculator
What would buying ADA have been worth? Pick a plan and a start date and this replays it against real daily Cardano closes.
What ADA actually did, in the data this page replays
Measured from the 3,072 daily closes this page replays — 17 April 2018 to 13 September 2026, from Binance. Figures are bounded by that window, not by the asset’s whole life.
| History available | 8 years and 5 months (from Binance) |
|---|---|
| Bought on the first day, held to the last | 0.852× — a loss of 14.8% |
| Highest close in this window | $2.97 on 3 September 2021 |
| Where it sits against that high | 93% below |
| Deepest fall | −95.2%, 3 September 2021 → 25 June 2026 |
| Time to get back to that peak | still below it |
| Separate falls of 50% or more | 3 |
| Days spent more than 20% below a previous peak | 94.1% |
| Best calendar year | 2021: +647% |
| Worst calendar year | 2022: -82.2% |
| Annualised volatility | 100.4% |
ADA year by year
First close to last close each year. 2018 and 2026 are partial — the data starts mid-2018 and 2026 is still running.
| Year | Change | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | -83.3% | partial year |
| 2019 | -21.7% | |
| 2020 | +441.6% | |
| 2021 | +647% | best full year |
| 2022 | -82.2% | worst full year |
| 2023 | +137.7% | |
| 2024 | +35.6% | |
| 2025 | -63.8% | |
| 2026 | -42% | partial year |
The part the calculator does not show you
Held from the first day in this data to the last, ADA returned 0.852× — a loss of 14.8%. Long holding periods are usually presented as the thing that rescues a volatile asset, and over this particular window for this particular coin, they did not. It is worth setting the calculator above to the full range and seeing that result written out before assuming time fixes an entry.
The deepest fall took ADA down 95.2%, from $2.97 on 3 September 2021 to $0.1438 on 25 June 2026 — 4 years and 10 months of falling. ADA has not been back to that peak since. Anyone who bought on 3 September 2021 is still waiting, 3 years and 7 months later — which is the scenario a backtest showing a positive average return quietly averages away.
100.4% annualised volatility is ordinary for a major crypto asset and still several times a stock index. All ADA calculators →
Frequently asked questions
＋Would buying ADA on the first day of this data and holding have made money?
No. Held across the whole window the position ended at 0.852× — a loss of 14.8%. That is worth stating plainly because "hold long enough and it recovers" is the usual advice, and over the 8 years and 5 months we hold for ADA it did not happen.
＋What is the worst ADA has fallen?
95.2% in this data, from 3 September 2021 down to 25 June 2026 — 4 years and 10 months of falling. It has not returned to that peak since, so anyone who bought at the top is still waiting. Bear in mind our ADA series starts in 2018; a deeper fall before that date would not appear here.
＋How often does ADA lose half its value?
3 separate falls of 50% or more appear in this data, and the position spent 94.1% of all days more than 20% below a previous peak. A drop of that size is not an exceptional event for this asset — it is a recurring feature of the record, which is the thing to size a position around.
＋What were ADA's best and worst years?
2021 was the best at +647%, and 2022 the worst at -82.2%. The gap between those two is the reason a single average annual return is a poor description of this asset: almost nobody experiences the average, they experience one of the two extremes depending on when they bought.
＋Is 8 years and 5 months of data enough to trust this backtest?
It is among the longer records available here — 8 years and 5 months covering several complete cycles, which is enough for the drawdown and recovery figures to carry real weight. It is still one path that already happened, and the next sequence of prices has no obligation to resemble it.
What to keep in mind for ADA
ADA is a large-cap altcoin that tends to lag BTC on the way up and fall harder on the way down.
Cardano fees are a predictable formula rather than an auction, so costs stay stable even when the chain is busy.
A backtest is one path that already happened. It shows what this plan produced through the exact sequence of prices ADA went through — not what a similar plan will produce through a sequence nobody has seen yet.