Cardano Founder Unveils ADA Recovery Plan After $20M SecondFi Exploit

The ADA price is trying to find its footing after a difficult week for the Cardano ecosystem. An exploit involving the Cardano-based DeFi platform SecondFi shook investor confidence and pushed ADA from about $0.185 down to roughly $0.150, a decline of nearly 19% over the past week.

The selloff came as reports estimated losses at more than $20 million, with about 129 million ADA affected during the exploit. Despite the backdrop, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, claims that the issue was confined to just one application and not the entire Cardano blockchain. Currently, he is trying out a method to help people recover their money.

Hoskinson Says Cardano Was Never Hacked

Hoskinson moved quickly to address concerns surrounding the exploit. He made it clear that “Cardano is not broken” and “Cardano, the network, was not hacked,” explaining that the incident only affected the SecondFi application instead of the Cardano protocol.

Coin Bureau shared that he also revealed that he is experimenting with a recovery smart contract designed to verify ownership of a compromised wallet using a zero-knowledge proof tied to the wallet’s 24-word recovery phrase. If ownership can be verified, the contract would distribute ADA and Cardano native tokens from a recovery pool back to the rightful owner.

Hoskinson also stated that he would be working along with Midnight and other Cardano developers in the process of testing. This system is currently being developed; therefore, it cannot be deployed yet. Nevertheless, this provides a potential way out for users who may be exploited at an application level without altering the core protocol of Cardano.

Read Also: ADA Price at Risk: Cardano’s Breach and This Signal Set Up a Bull Trap

The ADA Price Still Faces Tough Resistance

The recovery plan has created optimism among some investors, but the charts still show plenty of work ahead. We had a look at Ali’s daily ADA chart, and the trend remains pointed lower despite the appearance of a TD Sequential buy signal.

That indicator often points to a short-term bounce, but Martinez warned that traders should remain cautious. His view is that any recovery could stall before turning into another move lower if buyers cannot break through overhead resistance.

The first level worth watching is $0.160. Above that, resistance sits around $0.168, followed by $0.176. Martinez identified $0.176 as the level that could determine whether this recovery has enough strength to continue. For now, ADA is trading around $0.1453, with $0.144 acting as the initial support level. Below this level lies $0.135 and $0.125 as the other two significant support levels. 

Can the Recovery Effort Help Restore Confidence?

The exploit created fresh uncertainty, but Hoskinson’s response has shifted part of the conversation toward recovery instead of damage control. By stressing that Cardano itself remained secure and is working on a recovery mechanism for affected users, the development team is attempting to rebuild trust inside the ecosystem.

That alone may not be enough to change the direction of the ADA price but the market still needs buyers to push through resistance between $0.160 and $0.176, and support around $0.144 still needs to hold.

Even so, the recovery proposal gives investors something concrete to follow beyond the recent exploit. For now, traders will continue watching whether ADA can stabilize above support and whether buyers have enough strength to reclaim the first resistance levels.

FAQs

Was the Cardano blockchain hacked

No. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said the Cardano network was not hacked. He explained that the exploit was limited to the SecondFi application and did not expose a vulnerability in Cardano’s base protocol.

Is Cardano considered a secure blockchain

Cardano is widely regarded as one of the more research-driven blockchain networks. In the case of the SecondFi exploit, developers emphasized that the issue was isolated to a third-party application rather than the Cardano protocol itself.