Cardano (ADA) is trading at $0.165 on Monday, holding flat after a mild recovery the week prior. The price has stalled despite the activation of a major protocol upgrade over the weekend.
On Saturday, Cardano activated the Van Rossem hard fork, upgrading the mainnet from Protocol Version 10 to Version 11. Onchain data from Cardanoscan confirms the network moved from epoch 643 to epoch 644 during the transition.
NEWS: V11 (van Rossem) hardfork is now officially live on Cardano $ADA mainnet.
It brought new Plutus capabilities, faster/cheaper smart contracts, and protocol prep for Leios.
Congratulations to the entire Cardano ecosystem on another successful upgrade! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/KLJtAaV9Uy
— Cardanians (CRDN) (@Cardanians_io) July 19, 2026
The upgrade is the first hard fork in Cardano’s history to be approved and ratified entirely through onchain governance. Previous upgrades were coordinated directly by Input Output, the engineering firm that designed and built the Cardano blockchain.
The Van Rossem hard fork introduces new Plutus capabilities and cost-model improvements. The primary goal is to reduce smart contract execution costs on the network.
Input Output stated in a weekly development report on Friday: “As well as Plutus improvements and Plutus Cost Model enhancements, this upgrade lays the foundation for the next upgrade, the Dijkstra era hard fork, which will introduce Ouroboros Leios to Cardano.”
Ouroboros Leios is a scaling proposal built on top of Cardano’s existing proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. It is expected to launch in late 2026 with the goal of dramatically increasing transactions per second without compromising the security guarantees of the current system.
The Van Rossem upgrade is designed to lay the technical groundwork for that transition, making it a stepping stone rather than a standalone improvement.
Despite the upgrade, ADA’s price has not responded with upward movement. The token remains well below its 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day Exponential Moving Averages, which are clustered between $0.180 and $0.270.
Funding rate data from Coinglass flipped positive on Friday, reading 0.0061% on Monday. A positive funding rate means long traders are paying short traders, which points to improving sentiment.
However, the long-to-short ratio for ADA sits at 0.90 on Monday. A reading below 1.0 indicates more traders are positioned for the price to fall than rise.
The RSI is hovering just below the 50 mark, showing no clear directional momentum. The MACD is marginally positive but remains muted.
On the upside, ADA faces resistance at $0.173, followed by the 50-day EMA at $0.177. Further resistance sits at $0.195 and $0.202. Support levels are at $0.150 and $0.138.
ADA’s long-to-short ratio stands at 0.90 as of Monday, with the token trading at $0.165 following the Van Rossem hard fork activation.
The post Cardano (ADA) Price: Van Rossem Hard Fork Is Live, but Bears Still Have the Upper Hand appeared first on CoinCentral.
