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Reality Check / Cardano
REALITY CHECK · PILOT · VERIFIED 7 OCT 2026

Cardano ADA

Strong evidence Evidence 84%

100
Evidence score: what we could verify, not a forecast
What can be checked

Key facts

TeamPublic team
Why

Cardano Foundation (Swiss, CEO Frederik Gregaard, chair Jillian MacNab); Input Output Group (IOG, founded 2015 by Charles Hoskinson); EMURGO; Intersect (member org) and PRAGMA are listed as Cardano entities on cardano.org.

source source source
Legal entityIdentified
Why

Cardano Foundation: Swiss-based not-for-profit (Cardano Stiftung); exact registration details not stated on the page. IOG (Input Output Group) is a company; legal entity and jurisdiction not stated on the page read. EMURGO not verified.

source source
Independent auditPublished
Why

Tweag audits of Cardano governance scripts for Intersect (Constitution Script Jul 2024, Governance Credential and Identity Manager Jun 2024) and of Cardano ecosystem contracts; Essential Cardano says Quantstamp audited Cardano (undated, components unstated). No dated audit of the full ledger/node found; exact day not published.

source source
Control riskNo privileged key
Why

No admin key for supply or freezing found. Protocol parameter changes and hard fork initiation are ratified through CIP-1694 on-chain governance (DReps, Constitutional Committee, and for hard forks also SPOs; at least two of three bodies). Founding entities (IOG, EMURGO, Cardano Foundation) hold ADA and develop software, but no privileged key was identified in the sources read. The Constitutional Committee is a small elected body with veto-like role on constitutional compliance.

source source
New supply, next 12 monthsNot verified
Why

No fixed unlock schedule: new ADA is released from the reserves each epoch by formula (rho = 0.3% of remaining reserves per epoch, 20% of the pot to treasury); max supply 45B, circulating 37.547B per CoinGecko. Exact reserves balance was not read, so the 12-month percentage was not computed.

source source
Revenue evidenceCheckable on-chain
Why

Transaction fees visible on DefiLlama (total1y 1,025,680); fees flow to the rewards pot, not to a company.

source
Market context

Price beside proof

Market cap$9.65Brank 17 · 7 Oct 2026
Fully diluted value$11.56B
Annual fees (DefiLlama)$1.03M
How measured

DefiLlama Cardano fees total1y = 1,025,680 (USD assumed, unit not stated). DefiLlama lists revenue as burned coins but returned no revenue total.

Market cap per $1 of fees9,404 x
Top 10 holders (not scored)Not verified
How counted

No readable top-10 list found. Only available: top 100 addresses hold about 29.6% of supply (FXStreet via Capital.com, 2025-09-12), mostly exchange and staking-pool addresses.

Listed on KrakenYesKraken audit

Context only: not scored and not a valuation. Aggregator data as of 7 Oct 2026.

Price and a what-if

Today's price, and what it would take

Price$0.2569snapshot 7 Oct 2026
Last 30 days

Snapshot from the aggregator on 7 Oct 2026. The live price loads from CoinGecko when your browser allows it.

What-if lens: which price does a multiple of fees imply?

Pick a multiple of the last 12 months of fees. The tool shows the token price that multiple would imply with today's supply. The multiple is your assumption, not our estimate. Fees are tiny compared with the market cap (9,404 x), so this lens says little here: the price rests on something else.

Implied price

Fees are what users pay, not what holders receive: how much reaches token holders depends on the design (burns, treasury, fee switches, validators). The result ignores issuance, risk, growth and time. A lens to ask questions, not a valuation or advice.

Score breakdown

Where the points come from

Accountability15 / 15
Team publicly identified: yes; Legal entity or foundation identified: yes
Code and audits15 / 15
Independent audit published: yes; Audit date not verified (unscored); Source code public: yes
Control risk10 / 10
No privileged key found that can change rules, mint or freeze outside open consensus
New supplynot scored
Supply schedule not verified (unscored)
Verifiable revenue10 / 10
Fees can be checked on-chain
Security record15 / 15
Worst incident in the last five years scored: 15 of 15
Compliance record15 / 15
No regulator or court action found in our search
Track record

Incidents and legal actions

Incidents

  • 2025-11-21 Chain partition: a malformed transaction was handled differently by different library versions, splitting Cardano mainnet into two ledger histories (began on testnet). Outcome: Emergency patch within about 3 hours of detection; canonical chain overtook the split chain after about 14 hours. No funds lost reported by the Cardano Foundation; exchanges temporarily paused ADA deposits/withdrawals. No user funds lost source

Regulator and court actions

  • None found in our search.
Limits

What we could not verify

Not verified: top-10 holder share (no rich list readable); 12-month release percentage (reserves balance not read); IOG and EMURGO legal entities; dated independent audit of the core ledger/node (only governance scripts and ecosystem contracts by Tweag, undated Quantstamp claim); DefiLlama revenue and fee currency unit. Fees 1,025,680 are as returned by the API.

Facts as of 7 Oct 2026. Searches are not exhaustive. Report an error with a source: corrections policy. Education only, not investment advice.

Sources

  1. [1] CoinGecko Cardano accessed 2026-10-07
  2. [2] Kraken ADA price page accessed 2026-10-07
  3. [3] DefiLlama API Cardano fees accessed 2026-10-07
  4. [4] Cardano Foundation about accessed 2026-10-07
  5. [5] IOG about accessed 2026-10-07
  6. [6] cardano.org accessed 2026-10-07
  7. [7] cardano-node GitHub accessed 2026-10-07
  8. [8] Cardano governance overview accessed 2026-10-07
  9. [9] Cardano monetary policy accessed 2026-10-07
  10. [10] Tweag audits accessed 2026-10-07
  11. [11] Essential Cardano independent verification accessed 2026-10-07
  12. [12] Capital.com Cardano holders accessed 2026-10-07
  13. [13] Cardano Foundation Nov 2025 incident accessed 2026-10-07
Questions

Common questions about Cardano

Is Cardano a good investment?

This page does not say, and it is not investment advice. It shows what can be checked. In our pilot check, Cardano shows strong evidence, score 100 out of 100, with 84% of the evidence verified. Price and market value are context, not a valuation. Use the key facts and sources above and decide for yourself.

Who controls Cardano?

Control risk: No privileged key. Details and sources are in the key facts above.

Has Cardano been independently audited?

Independent audit: Published. Details and sources are in the key facts above.

How much new ADA supply is coming in the next 12 months?

New supply in the next 12 months: Not verified of the current supply. Details and sources are in the key facts above.

Does Cardano have revenue we can check?

Revenue evidence: Checkable on-chain. Details and sources are in the key facts above.