A forecast has emerged that Cardano could rise to $10 over the long term. It said this would require Cardano to rebuild its presence in the cryptocurrency market and prove clear use cases that can lead to real adoption.

On April 20 (local time), blockchain outlet The Crypto Basic reported that market analyst Jack Humphries (잭 험프리스) outlined Cardano's weak performance and the conditions needed for a rebound in a recent commentary.

Cardano has recently tried to rebound but remains in a downtrend. It is down 81.8 percent from its December 2024 high of $1.32 and down 76 percent from its August 2025 high of $1.019. During the decline it retested the previous cycle low. After falling to $0.220 on Feb. 6 to mark its lowest level since June 2023, it is now moving sideways around levels that overlap with the late-2022 and 2023 low zones.

Humphries described the move as "somewhat disappointing" compared with his expectations for Cardano. He said Cardano has grown sharply compared with the early period when it traded around $0.01, but has not reached the price levels he expected given how long the project has been in the market.

He said the technical foundation has not completely broken down. Cardano is holding above a key demand zone, leaving room for a rebound. Humphries said that if a recovery begins in this zone, Cardano could surge to high levels.

His target range is $5 to $10. That is similar to a forecast by another market analyst, Dan Gambardello (댄 감바델로). The range would set a new all-time high for Cardano, implying gains of 1,983 percent to 4,066 percent from current levels.

The issue is the inflow of funds needed to support the target, rather than the target itself. Humphries said Cardano would need to attract enough liquidity to move to higher prices, but newer blockchains have recently threatened adoption of the Cardano ecosystem. He said Cardano must offer users clear differentiation.

He said Cardano needs to more firmly cement its position in the market and added that it "needs to have an identity". He also said it must present specific use cases with the potential for large-scale real-world adoption. Given its strength as a high-security network, he cited possible uses such as putting public records on-chain, including U.S. voting systems or birth certificates.

The Cardano ecosystem is also pushing to expand use cases. Its current focus, however, is on decentralised finance (DeFi) and real-world assets (RWA). Last year it pledged to deploy an eight-digit amount of ADA tokens to strengthen stablecoin liquidity, and it also carried out the first issuance of x402 on the Cardano network to expand tokenisation.

As a result, Cardano's next direction is expected to depend less on a simple price rebound than on whether it can secure services that create real demand and attract capital inflows. Critics say the $5 to $10 outlook is also unlikely to be realised if Cardano fails to establish a flagship use case the market can accept, whether in public-sector applications built on security or in expanding DeFi and RWA tokenisation.