Each quarter compounds its three months — the coarsest grain that still shows a cycle turning inside a single year.
This page compresses Cardano (ADA)'s history into four cells per year — Q1 through Q4 — coarse enough to watch a cycle turn inside a single year. ADA's grid strings together consecutive negative quarters more readily than most large caps — the compounding of shallow losses that defines its post-peak era. The Q3 2021 cell, its peak quarter, is the hinge the rest of the grid turns around.
Each quarter compounds its three calendar months from UTC daily closes, so a cell is what a position held through those months would actually have returned. ADA's data starts at its perpetual listing in early 2020. The run into the September 2021 peak gave way to one of the most persistent bleed patterns among large caps.
Cardano is up 2.9% quarter-to-date in Q4 2026, compounding October through the daily close of 10 October 2026 (UTC). The figure keeps moving until the quarter closes.
Cardano returned +71.0% in Q3 2026, its most recent completed quarter, compounding that quarter's three monthly returns. The median Q3 return on record is −4.9%, so it came in above the norm.
Cardano's 2026 quarters so far: Q1 −27.5%, Q2 −40.3%, Q3 +71.0%, Q4 +2.9% (in progress). Compounded together they put Cardano down 23.9% year-to-date.
2025: Q1 −21.7%, Q2 −13.5%, Q3 +41.1%, Q4 −58.7%. The strongest quarter was Q3 at +41.1% and the weakest Q4 at −58.7%; the full year compounded to −60.6%.
Across 9 completed Q4s on record, the median Q4 return for Cardano is −15.5%. The best Q4 was 2017 at +3,220%, the worst 2025 at −58.7%, and 4 of 9 closed positive. The current Q4 is excluded until it closes.
By median return across all completed years, Q3 has been Cardano's strongest quarter at −4.9% and Q4 its weakest at −15.5%. Q1 −7.4%, Q2 −13.5%, Q3 −4.9%, Q4 −15.5% are the four medians; they shift as each new year is added.
Across 36 completed quarters, Cardano's best was Q4 2017 at +3,220% and its worst Q1 2018 at −78.3%. 15 of 36 quarters closed positive.
It compounds viciously. Four quarters of moderate losses multiply into a yearly figure that needs a triple-digit rally to reclaim — arithmetic the yearly tab lays bare for ADA's bleed years.
ADA's history here begins at its first daily perpetual-futures candle on Binance in early 2020, so the grid starts with the first quarter completed after that date. All medians are computed from that point on.
Because returns compound. A +10% month followed by a −10% month leaves −1%, not 0%. The quarterly figure multiplies the monthly factors together, which is the return a held position would actually see.