Register of governance votes · cardano
The Ledger
112 of 112 positions · newest first · changed positions shown in full — including both rationales
e644NOGlobal Order Book connect Cardano DeFi to increase transaction3.3M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Dano Finance asked for 3,333,000 ADA. 3.3M for delivery plus a 1% admin fee. To push their "DeFi Kernel" as an open standard for shared liquidity and order-book coordination, improve the defikernel.org registry, and ship two new protocols (a Spot Leverage Order Book and American Options pools) plus an SDK. Minswap Labs was named as budget administrator.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The DeFi Kernel would need to already be winning adoption on its own merits. Standards aren't something you buy into existence. They get adopted because builders pick them up, and then the ecosystem funds what's already working. Right now this is one team's spec, and the treasury was being asked to fund the spec, the registry, two brand-new trading protocols, and the tooling all in one shot.
What specifically concerns me
The bundle. Cardano DeFi being fragmented is a real problem. The proposal isn't wrong about that. But a "standard" with a leverage order book and an options protocol stapled to it is really a product launch wearing a standards costume. Let's be real about it: if the two protocols are worth building, they can compete for funding on their own. And funding a discovery registry before there's meaningful adoption to discover is backwards.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It expired without reaching threshold, which tells you where the Dreps landed. If this comes back: split it. Show organic adoption of the Kernel spec first. Even three protocols using it voluntarily changes the picture. Then ask for registry and SDK money separately from the trading products. I'd look hard at a narrower version.
e644NORevised Cardano dOSPO and OMF Program Proposal4.1M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
4,094,000 ADA to stand up an independent entity managing open-source sustainability funds for Cardano. One person directly managing the fund for a year, with a two-council model alongside LFDT, and a public charity to be formed by a law firm after the money arrives. Dreps could remove the manager or sunset the program via Info Action if 15 or more Dreps request it.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Open-source sustainability is a real problem. The proposal's own citations are right that most maintainers work unpaid and critical infrastructure runs on a handful of contributors. For this structure to be the answer, the legal entity would need to exist before the treasury wires millions to it, and the program would need clean separation from the funding programs we already pay for.
What specifically concerns me
Sequence and concentration. The charity "cannot be completed without initial capital". Meaning the accountability structure gets built after the withdrawal, not before. That's backwards. One individual directly managing ecosystem funds for a year, with removal requiring coordinated Drep action, is a lot of trust to extend up front. And we already fund open-source maintenance through the Intersect budget process. The TxPipe maintainers, MLabs tooling, hardware wallet support all just came through that pipe. The overlap this proposal says it will avoid isn't spelled out enough for me.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It's still active, so my no stands as cast. If it's revised again: form the entity first, name the councils, publish the charter, and show exactly which funding gaps the existing programs leave. The mission is right. The structure isn't there yet.
e644YESScalus 2026: Maintenance, Dijkstra Readiness, Interoperability & Application Runtime2.5M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Lantr Engineering asked for 2,464,844 ADA over 9 months to maintain Scalus. Their JVM-native Cardano development platform. Get it ready for the Dijkstra hard fork, deepen JVM and JavaScript interoperability, and take a first scoped step toward an application runtime.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The tooling has to actually be load-bearing, and it is. Scalus components are reused inside MeshJS, Evolution SDK, Lucid Evolution, Cardano Client Lib, and YaciDevKit. Plenty of teams depend on it without ever touching it directly. Protecting infrastructure that other funded work sits on top of is exactly what maintenance money is for.
What specifically concerns me
Honestly, less than the first time around. The previous Scalus ask was 8,503,000 ADA over 12 months and Dreps said it was too big. This one cut the ask to under 2.5M, dropped from 8.25 FTEs to 2.25, priced at a conservative $0.16/ADA reference, removed the contested L1 node work, and carries zero contingency. That's a team that heard the feedback and answered it line by line instead of arguing. Milestone escrow through SundaeSwap treasury contracts with an independent oversight board handles the delivery risk.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It expired without enactment this round, which stings for work of this quality. My yes stands on the record. If resubmitted, keep the discipline: same scope, same milestone structure, and keep publishing the delivery record. Three years of on-time milestones is the argument, so keep making it.
e644YESBifrost: Unlocking Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano — Road to Mainnet (Phase 1 of 2)12.3M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
FluidTokens and Lantr Engineering asked for 12,332,031 ADA (about $1.97M at $0.16/ADA, including a 10% refundable contingency) for Phase 1 of Bifrost: taking their Bitcoin-Cardano bridge from working testnet to launch-ready. Hardening, security audits, formal verification, and the stewardship and economic foundations. With public rollout deliberately split into a separate Phase 2 proposal.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The strategic read has to be right, and I think it is. Bitcoin is roughly $1.6 trillion of capital and only about 1% of BTC supply is in DeFi anywhere. Because holders don't trust the rails. A bridge secured by Cardano's existing SPO ecosystem instead of a fresh federation is a genuinely different security story, and it gives SPOs a new economic role at the same time.
What specifically concerns me
The size. Twelve million ADA is real money, and bridges are where crypto goes to get hacked. Every catastrophic bridge failure you can name came from cutting corners on exactly the work this phase funds: audits, formal verification, economic hardening. So the ask being weighted toward security before public launch is the right shape, not a red flag. The phasing matters too: Phase 2 only comes after the bridge proves itself on-chain under controlled access. That's how you're supposed to do this.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It expired this round without reaching threshold. My yes stands. If it returns: same phase discipline, publish the audit results in full when they land, and name the SPO custody participants early. Cardano competing for Bitcoin liquidity is worth funding. Carefully, in this order.
e644NOAlchemy by Sundial x Charms: Cardano-Native Bitcoin Treasury Protocol10.0M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Sundial Protocol and Charms asked for 10,000,000 ADA (~$2M at their $0.20 reference) for a Bitcoin treasury protocol: half as treasury-supported launch liquidity for their FIRE (BTC+) and ICE (BTC-) structured assets, half for delivery, audits, integrations, and go-to-market. Intersect proposed as interim administrator.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
I'd need to believe the treasury should be seeding launch liquidity for leveraged structured products. That's the core of it. Pool 1 is a million dollars of community money taking a market position in a brand-new synthetic exposure system so the product has depth at launch. Returns flow back quarterly if it works. And the community eats it if it doesn't.
What specifically concerns me
The treasury as market maker. I said no on this one and I call it as I see it, folks: BTCfi on Cardano is a direction I actually want. I voted yes on Bifrost's bridge the same week. The difference is Bifrost asked for money to build and audit neutral infrastructure; Alchemy asked the treasury to bankroll launch liquidity and a go-to-market budget for one team's leveraged product. FIRE and ICE are clever mechanism design, genuinely. But clever mechanisms with 5x initial reserve targets are still leveraged exposure, and community funds don't belong on that table as the house stake.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped, so the point is settled for now. If Alchemy comes back: fund the liquidity privately. The rollover clause in the proposal shows outside investment was already contemplated. And ask the treasury only for what's a public good: open-source contracts, audits, integration standards. I'd read that version with an open mind.
e644NOWithdraw 4,969,231 ada for Cardano Enterprise Adoption: Ticketing Platform5.0M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Sellout.io and Anvil asked for 4,969,231 ADA (~$1.09M at $0.22/ADA) for Phase 2 of a Cardano-native ticketing platform: secondary marketplace with royalty enforcement, anti-scalping controls, wallet onboarding for their 200,000 existing users, an audit, and a launch campaign anchored by a contracted 2026 concert series. Intersect as administrator, with a commitment to repay $1,093,231 through a revenue share.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Real-world adoption is the thing I bang the drum about constantly. A 200,000-user Web2 platform moving operations on-chain is exactly the story Cardano needs. For treasury funding to be the right vehicle, though, the output has to be ecosystem property, not one company's product. Phase 1 was funded by Sellout themselves ($130k+), which I respect. Phase 2 asks the community to fund the commercial buildout.
What specifically concerns me
The treasury buying equity-shaped exposure with none of the equity. A revenue-share repayment commitment is a loan dressed casual. If the platform thrives, we get our money back at best; if it doesn't, it was a grant to a private business. It is what it is. Meanwhile the hard assets. The platform, the users, the Yellowstone contract. Stay with the operating entity. I want this ticketing play to exist. I don't think the treasury is the right investor for it, and the Dreps dropping it suggests I wasn't alone.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. If it returns: bring private capital for the commercial layer, and scope a treasury ask around what's genuinely public. Open-source CIP-68 ticketing contracts, the anti-scalping primitives, reference integrations any venue could pick up. That version helps every builder, not one cap table.
e644ABSTAINSe7en Labs: Daedalus Wallet Maintenance and Improvements 2026-20271.8M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Se7en Labs asked for 1,785,333 ADA for twelve months of Daedalus maintenance: node upgrades and hard-fork readiness (Leios, Peras, Nested Transactions), Keystone and Flex hardware wallet support, a CIP-30 dApp connector, Japanese localisation, and user support. Pure open-source under Apache 2.0. No monetization, no captured IP.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Client diversity has to be worth the price. Daedalus is Cardano's only full-node desktop wallet. Every install is a full node deriving everything from chain with no trusted backend. That's not a nostalgia project; it's the most sovereign way a non-technical person can hold ADA, and letting it rot would be a real loss.
What specifically concerns me
The denominator. Opt-in telemetry shows roughly 4,000 monthly active users. The proposal argues fairly that privacy-minded full-node users are the least likely to opt in. True. But I'm being asked to weigh a seven-figure ADA commitment against a user count nobody can actually verify in either direction. I couldn't get to a confident yes on the cost-per-user math, and I wasn't willing to vote no against the only full-node wallet we have and the client diversity it represents. So I abstained, and I'm saying plainly that it was a genuine coin-flip of conviction, not a dodge. I'm always right sometimes; this one I didn't trust myself to call.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It passed and was enacted. What I want from Se7en Labs over the funded year: publish better usage evidence. Even privacy-preserving aggregate counts would move me. And land the hard-fork compatibility releases two weeks ahead of mainnet like the proposal commits. Do that, and my vote next cycle gets a lot easier.
e644YESWithdraw 1,162,746 ada for MLabs Core Tool Maintenance & Enhancement: Plutarc...1.2M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
1,162,746 ADA, submitted by Intersect on behalf of MLabs, for a year of maintenance and enhancement of Plutarch and Ply. The Haskell eDSL for writing efficient Cardano smart contracts and the tooling that protects the on-chain/off-chain boundary around them.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The tools have to be genuinely relied on, and the numbers have to be sane. MLabs counted at least 26 teams building with Plutarch and Ply in a recent internal audit, and their public cross-language benchmarks show Plutarch scripts among the smallest and cheapest in the suite. Production teams depending on tooling that must track protocol evolution. That's the definition of maintenance the treasury should carry.
What specifically concerns me
Not much, honestly. This came through the Intersect budget process and cleared the 67% Hydra vote threshold before it ever reached the chain, so it's been through a filter already. The one thing I keep an eye on across all of these maintenance grants is scope creep. "maintenance and enhancement" can quietly become new-product development. The Dijkstra-era compatibility work named in the proposal is exactly what I want this money doing.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep the benchmarks public and current. That's the receipt that the efficiency story stays true. And when the 26 dependent teams becomes 30 or becomes 20, say so either way. Honest dependency counts are what make next year's ask an easy vote instead of an argument.
e644YESWithdraw 25,400,000 ada for Intersect: Governance coordination and technical ...25.4M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
25,400,000 ADA funding Intersect's core operating model from June 2026 to June 2027: the member organization, governance coordination, and. The part that matters most to me. Technical stewardship of the core Haskell repositories, network upgrade coordination, incident response, and release management.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Somebody has to hold the pager. Cardano has now run multiple network upgrades coordinated by Intersect, with a third in preparation, and incident response for a mission-critical chain is not a volunteer hobby. For an ask this size, the trajectory also matters: this year's request is down from $7.875M to $6.35M while keeping the continuity functions. Shrinking asks with sharpened scope is the direction I want every recurring line item moving.
What specifically concerns me
It's the biggest single number I voted yes on this cycle, so let's be real about it: Intersect has taken plenty of fair criticism about speed and bureaucracy, some of it from me on stream. I voted yes anyway because the alternative to imperfect coordination isn't better coordination. It's nobody coordinating hard forks and security response while we argue about it. You don't fire the fire department because the paperwork is slow.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. My asks: keep publishing what the reduced budget actually buys, quarter by quarter. Keep the technical stewardship visibly separated from the committee machinery so the community can judge each on its own. And keep the trend line pointing down. The third consecutive reduced ask will say more than any report.
e644YESWithdraw 3,810,423 ada for Mithril Protocol3.8M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
3,810,423 ADA, submitted through the Intersect budget process, to continue development of Mithril. The stake-based threshold signature protocol that certifies Cardano state so nodes and applications can verify the chain quickly without trusting a middleman.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The problem has to be real, and it is: full node sync is slow, and the shortcut everybody takes instead. Centralized indexers and hosted APIs. Quietly rebuilds the trusted third parties this whole industry exists to remove. Mithril is the honest fix: rapid verification that inherits security from Cardano's own stake distribution rather than from whoever runs the server.
What specifically concerns me
Little, on the merits. Mithril already feeds real infrastructure. It's one of the data sources tools like Oura support, and faster trustless sync lowers the barrier for every wallet, exchange, and monitoring tool that would otherwise lean on a hosted API. My general watch-item with protocol R&D funding is the gap between research elegance and shipped adoption; the ask cleared the Intersect Hydra vote at the 67% threshold, and the direction of travel. More consumers of Mithril certificates each cycle. Is the metric that matters.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Report adoption, not just releases: how many wallets, clients, and services actually verify through Mithril by this time next year. Decentralization you can't measure is decentralization you don't have.
e643YESWithdraw 540,750 ada for UTxO RPC by TxPipe: Maintaining Cardano’s Integratio...541K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
540,750 ADA (420,000 plus a 105,000 contingency) to fund a part-time maintainer for UTxO RPC for twelve months at $105,000 a year. Continuing maintenance of the open interface specification that standardizes how tools talk to UTxO chains, with SDKs in Rust, Go, Node.js, .NET, Haskell, and Python.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Adoption by things that matter. UTxO RPC is used by Amaru, Dingo, and the Haskell Cardano node itself as a query interface. When alternative node implementations and the reference node all speak the same interface, that's a standard doing its job. Ten-plus repositories of spec, SDKs, and docs, all Apache 2.0.
What specifically concerns me
Honestly? A part-time maintainer at a market-rate salary keeping a cross-ecosystem integration standard alive is what a boring, correct treasury grant looks like. My only structural note. And it applies to this whole TxPipe batch I voted yes on the same day. Is concentration: one company maintaining several critical pieces at once. The mitigation is that everything is open-source with outside contributors, so the bus factor is a risk, not a hostage situation.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep the contributor base growing beyond TxPipe's own people. That's the real insurance policy. And keep the spec's adopters list public and current so next year's renewal takes five minutes to evaluate.
e643YESWithdraw 1,310,960 ada for Hardware Wallet Maintenance 20261.3M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
1,310,960 ADA for twelve months of production maintenance of Cardano's hardware wallet stack: Ledger and Trezor compatibility updates, the interoperability libraries and cardano-hw-cli underneath them, developer support for integrators, and vendor-required audits when firmware changes trigger them.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Simple: cold storage has to keep working. Every protocol upgrade on our side and every firmware cycle on Ledger's or Trezor's side is a chance for the signing path to break. And when hardware wallet flows break, the most security-conscious holders in the ecosystem are the ones locked out. The proposal's own framing is right: paying for continuity is cheaper and less disruptive than waiting for breakage and scrambling.
What specifically concerns me
Nearly nothing, which is worth saying out loud. This is a continuity grant for a proven access layer, scoped explicitly to compatibility and security. Not a request to build a new wallet product. It cleared the Intersect budget process at the 67% threshold. I tell people constantly to self-custody and use cold storage; voting to keep that path maintained is the least I can do to back the advice up. Hardware wallets are the seatbelts of this industry. You don't skip maintenance on seatbelts.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. The single commitment I care about: compatible releases before mainnet hard forks, every time, with enough lead for integrators to test. A hard fork where Ledger users can't sign for a week would undo years of "your keys, your coins" preaching. From me and everybody else.
e643YESWithdraw 1,193,000 ada for Intersect Technical Steering Committee Support1.2M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
1,193,000 ADA ($298,250) for twelve months of Intersect Technical Steering Committee work: sending technical experts to major ecosystem events and commissioning technical reports, funding the Parameter Committee, CIP editors, and Hard Fork Working Group, and standing up a pilot independent technical review program for 2027.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The unglamorous machinery has to actually gate real decisions. It does. Parameter changes, CIP editing, and hard fork coordination are where protocol evolution actually happens. And the proposal's structural detail I weight heaviest is independence: parameter advice gathered independently of node vendors, and the review program carrying formal conflict-of-interest provisions with published recusals. Independent review with recorded recusals is exactly the standard I hold myself to as a Drep, so I'm not going to vote against funding it for the protocol.
What specifically concerns me
Committee funding is where ecosystems can quietly grow bureaucracy, so the thing to watch is output per dollar: reports commissioned that nobody reads versus parameter recommendations that actually shape upgrades. The three working groups funded here have visible track records. CIP editing alone is a real, thankless public good that every proposal author in the ecosystem leans on.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish the work product. Reports, parameter rationales, review findings. Where Dreps can actually use it, because informed Drep votes are the stated purpose. And when the 2027 independent review pilot runs, publish the recusal log with it. Show the machinery working and next year's renewal argues for itself.
e643YESWithdraw 540,750 ada for Oura by TxPipe: Maintaining Cardano’s Event Pipeline541K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
540,750 ADA (420,000 plus a 105,000 contingency) for a part-time maintainer for Oura for twelve months at $105,000 a year. Oura is TxPipe's Rust-native event pipeline: it watches the chain and routes events to wherever infrastructure needs them. Kafka, Elasticsearch, AWS, Redis, SQL databases, webhooks.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Real infrastructure operators have to actually run it. The signals say they do: most-starred project in the TxPipe portfolio, 288 stars, 58 contributors, previously funded twice through Catalyst (Fund 9 and Fund 13) for feature development. This ask moves it from episodic feature grants to sustained maintenance. Which is the correct lifecycle for a tool that indexers, monitors, and analytics stacks now depend on daily.
What specifically concerns me
The distinction worth naming: Catalyst money built it, and this is the ecosystem deciding it's now load-bearing enough to keep permanently maintained. I'd rather we make that promotion explicitly. Like this. Than let popular tools die of neglect between grant rounds, which is how open source usually starves. Tidelift's own research says most maintainers work unpaid and the majority have considered quitting. Paying the maintainer is the fix. It is what it is.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Same asks as its siblings: grow contributors beyond the company, keep the source/sink integrations tracking what operators actually deploy, and surface real usage in the renewal so the vote stays easy.
e643YESWithdraw 540,750 ada for Pallas by TxPipe: Maintaining Cardano's Core Rust Li...541K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
540,750 ADA (420,000 plus a 105,000 contingency) to fund a part-time maintainer for Pallas for twelve months at $105,000 a year. Pallas is the collection of Rust crates re-implementing Cardano's core primitives. CBOR, crypto, mini-protocol networking, multi-era ledger traversal, transaction building.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Everything downstream has to actually sit on it. It does: Aiken, Dolos, Lucid, Oura, Mithril, Amaru and more build on Pallas rather than re-implementing blockchain primitives themselves. The stats are real open-source stats. 649 pull requests, 60 contributors, 214,446 downloads on crates.io. This is the foundation layer of the entire Rust side of Cardano.
What specifically concerns me
Very little. Here's the picture I'd give anyone who thinks half a million ADA for one part-time maintainer sounds odd: Pallas is the concrete slab under a whole neighborhood of houses. Aiken smart contracts, the Amaru node effort, half the indexing tools people use daily. You never see the slab. You'd notice fast if it cracked. Paying one competent person a normal salary to keep it sound is the cheapest insurance in the ecosystem. Same concentration note as the rest of the TxPipe batch: one org, several critical crates. Offset by 60 contributors and full Apache 2.0 openness.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep compatibility tracking the ledger eras as they land. Dijkstra especially. And keep welcoming outside contributors, because the day Pallas needs a second maintainer, I want the candidate already in the commit history.
e643YESWithdraw 1,684,050 ada for Tx3 by TxPipe: Open API Layer for Cardano's dApp P...1.7M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
1,684,050 ADA (1,308,000 plus a 327,000 contingency) for TxPipe to build Tx3 over 12 months: an open, standardized interface layer across Cardano's major on-chain protocols, so any developer. Or any AI agent. Can discover, integrate, and compose them through one consistent surface. Strike Finance, Indigo, VyFinance, Bodega, and Fluid Tokens are already accessible through it.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The integration problem has to be real and the agent thesis has to be right. It is, and it is. Today every integrator reverse-engineers every protocol separately. That cost lands on every single team. And I've been saying on stream for a year that the world is moving to agentic workflows: the next wave of on-chain activity comes from AI agents executing intents. The proposal names the danger honestly. A hallucinated transaction moves real assets irreversibly. And its answer is the right one: deterministic transactions behind auditable intents, with MCP servers and LLM-structured docs so agents integrate safely.
What specifically concerns me
Standards funded before adoption is usually my objection. I voted no on a different "standard" proposal this same cycle on exactly that ground. Tx3 clears the bar the other one didn't: five named protocols already integrated, shipped SDKs, live RPC endpoints. This is funding the expansion of something working, not the wish for something to exist.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish the protocol coverage count as it grows, keep the agent-facing tooling open-source, and get the intent-audit flow in front of wallet teams early. If Cardano is going to catch the agent wave. And it should. This layer is what catches it.
e643YESBlockfrost's transformation to not-for-profit9.8M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
9,832,979 ADA ($1.87M at $0.19) to transition Blockfrost. Source code, trademarks, and domains. Out of private hands into an independent, community-governed not-for-profit, funding an 18-month transition and operations. A five-seat board: four for open-source Cardano infrastructure entities, one open community seat, elections targeted by end of year.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The dependency has to be real. It is: the Cardano Foundation's own developer surveys show Blockfrost as the number-one hosted platform developers use, climbing from 39.3% in 2022 to 56.5% in 2023 and still growing. Half the ecosystem reaches the chain through this one door. Founded by Five Binaries, absorbed into IOG in 2024 with decentralization as the stated goal. This proposal is that goal actually happening instead of staying a slide.
What specifically concerns me
Nine-point-eight million ADA is a serious ask, and "not-for-profit transition" can hide a lot of payroll. What got me to yes: single-vendor dependency on infrastructure this central is a standing risk. If Blockfrost's owner ever pivots, half the dApp ecosystem scrambles. Community ownership of the front door beats renting it. The governance design is concrete rather than hand-wavy: named preliminary board, defined seats, election timeline, PRAGMA under consideration as the structural home.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped this round, so the transition stays unfunded for now. My yes is on the record. If it returns: tighten the 18-month operations budget line-by-line, name the board election date on-chain, and show the free-tier commitment in writing. The direction is right. Make the next version impossible to argue with.
e643YESEternl: Path to Sustainability - v22.4M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
2,350,000 ADA (~$420,000 at $0.1787) for twelve months of Eternl operations: frontend and backend maintenance, infrastructure, support, and audits. This is the v2. The previous version drew Constitutional Committee no-votes over audit clarity, and this resubmission adds exactly that clarification, plus the detail that Eternl's own Drep abstains on it.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The wallet has to matter and the price has to be honest. Both check out. Eternl carries roughly 100,000 browser extension installs plus 30,000 mobile, and by its own numbers handles 10-18% of mainnet transactions. The pricing is the part I want other proposers to study: $70,000 per FTE where other proposals in this ecosystem have exceeded $200,000 per FTE. Six FTEs spread across ten mostly-part-time contributors. That's a team billing like builders, not like consultants.
What specifically concerns me
Sustainability theater is common. Everybody promises revenue someday. Eternl put a number on it: a Pro plan at $8/month, where about 5,500 subscribers fully replaces the $420k annual cost, with basic Eternl staying free. A bridge grant with a measurable exit off the treasury, plus a team that answered CC feedback directly instead of relitigating it, plus their own Drep abstaining on their own money. That's how this process is supposed to work.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Report the Pro conversion numbers honestly as they come. If 4.2% of installs really converts, this is the last treasury ask Eternl ever needs, and I want that story told loudly as the template. If it doesn't convert, say that too, and we recalibrate with real data.
e643YESWithdraw 3,961,538 ada for Bringing Real-World Payments to Cardano with Wirex4.0M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
3,961,538 ADA for Wirex to build open-source, full-stack payments infrastructure on Cardano: smart-contract settlement, account abstraction, stablecoin-connected banking rails, self-custody wallet integration, and Visa card issuance tied directly to on-chain balances.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The team has to be able to actually ship regulated payments. That's the graveyard where crypto payment dreams usually go. Wirex isn't a whitepaper team: 7 million users, over $20 billion processed, more than 1.5 million cards issued, and Visa Principal Member status. When I talk about Cardano needing real-world utility instead of announcements, spending ADA at millions of merchants through a Visa card is precisely the thing I mean.
What specifically concerns me
Corporate partnerships funded from the treasury deserve suspicion. I voted no on other private-benefit asks this same cycle. What separates this one: the deliverables are specified as open-source public goods. Settlement contracts, account abstraction, the API layer. Reusable by any wallet, fintech, or stablecoin issuer, not locked in Wirex's product. The treasury funds the rails; Wirex brings the regulatory licenses and distribution no grant can buy. That's a trade worth making.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped this round. My yes is on the record, and honestly this is one where I think the ecosystem got it wrong. Payments is a named high-value vertical in the 2030 strategy for a reason. If Wirex resubmits: publish the open-source repos and license terms up front, name the delivery milestones against card issuance, and make the public-good boundary so explicit nobody can call it a private subsidy.
e642YESWithdraw 120,000,000 ada for AlphaGrowth’s Cardano PRIME120.0M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
120,000,000 ADA. The largest ask I've voted on. For Cardano PRIME: a 12-month program run by AlphaGrowth under an Operating Group's oversight to get DeFi protocols ready, activate incentives, and grow durable liquidity. Intersect holds the funds as Constitutional Administrator in a separate auditable account, releases are milestone-gated with a Month 4 go/no-go gate on the deployment phase, 2,000,000 ADA is carved out for independent audit, and six defined triggers return unused or unearned funds to the treasury.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The diagnosis has to be right, and it's the one I've been shouting for years. Cardano built the tech and skipped the distribution: roughly $90M in DeFi TVL and $45M in stablecoin supply as of June 2026, absurdly small next to comparable ecosystems, while USDCx, LayerZero, Pyth, and Dune sit integrated and under-used. You can cure cancer tomorrow, but if you have no vehicle to distribute that message, you've got nothing. I've said it a million times and this proposal is the first treasury action sized to actually act on it.
What specifically concerns me
The size, obviously. Let's be real about it: 120 million ADA to a growth firm is the kind of line item that goes horribly wrong when it's structured as trust. It isn't. AlphaGrowth recommends; the Operating Group can veto; Intersect custodies; nothing deploys past Month 4 without an affirmative gate decision; the performance fee only pays on verified TVL growth with ADA price effects stripped out. My no-vote on incentive programs elsewhere has always been about missing guardrails, not the concept. These are the guardrails.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It's still active as I write this. If it enacts: the Phase 1 public audit of current state needs to be brutal and honest, the Month 4 gate needs to be a real decision and not a rubber stamp, and every disbursement memo needs to land publicly on schedule. Prove liquidity can be grown without being rented. Subsidized TVL that leaves when the incentives stop is the failure mode, and everyone will be watching for it. Including me.
e641YESReduce the committeeMinSize parameter from 7 to 5ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
A protocol parameter change reducing committeeMinSize from 7 to 5, so on-chain governance can keep functioning when the Constitutional Committee is short-handed.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
No treasury funds involved. The test here is different: does this keep governance operating without quietly weakening the checks that make a Constitutional Committee worth having?
What specifically concerns me
Lowering a quorum threshold always deserves suspicion, because the easy fix for "we cannot reach quorum" is usually "lower the quorum," and that ratchet only turns one direction. What got me to yes is the practical reality. A governance system that halts because it cannot seat enough members is not more decentralized, it is just broken. Five is still a real committee.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. My ask going forward is that this stays a floor and not a trend. If the next proposal is 5 to 3, I am voting no, and I am saying so now so nobody is surprised.
e641YESNet Change Limit: Cardano Treasury (Epochs 613-713)DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action setting the Net Change Limit at 500,000,000 ADA for epochs 613 to 713, a fixed cap on total treasury outflows for that window.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The NCL is the ceiling that makes everything else disciplined. Without a hard cap, every budget conversation becomes unbounded. A number has to exist, and it has to be enforced.
What specifically concerns me
500 million is not small, and I voted yes on a competing 300 million version earlier at epoch 617 because I lean toward the tighter cap. My position is not that a big number is automatically wrong, it is that the cap only means something if we then hold the line on individual proposals. The limit does not spend the money. Dreps do.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It expired. Either way my position stands: set the cap, publish outflows against it continuously, and let the community watch the meter run. A limit nobody can track is not a limit.
e641NOStrike Finance Liquidity Deployment9.0M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Strike Finance asked for a 12-month deployment of 9,000,000 ADA of treasury-owned capital into their V2 perpetual futures liquidity infrastructure. Framed explicitly as a deployment rather than a grant, with yield returning to the treasury. They cite over 1.13 billion USD cumulative volume and 968,000+ trades.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
I would have to believe the community treasury belongs in a leveraged derivatives liquidity position. The traction numbers are real and I want to say that plainly, because Strike has built something people actually use, which is more than most proposals can claim.
What specifically concerns me
The treasury as market maker. This is the same line I drew on the Alchemy proposal and I am drawing it in the same place here. Deploying community funds as launch liquidity into perpetual futures is not funding infrastructure, it is taking a market position with money that belongs to everyone. Yield flows back if it works. The community eats it if it does not. Strike has the traction to raise this capital privately, and a business with 1.13 billion in volume should be able to.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. If Strike returns: raise the liquidity privately and bring the treasury a proposal for what is genuinely public, open contracts, integration standards, audits. I would read that with real interest.
e641NOCardano Builder DAO20.0M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
The Cardano Builder DAO asked for 20,000,000 ADA to run a smart-contract-governed funding mechanism allocating capital to builders against Vision 2030 KPIs: monthly active users, on-chain transactions, TVL.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The first round would have to have worked. I voted YES on Cardano Builder DAO at 12,000,000 ADA back in epoch 571, through the first Intersect budget process. So this is not a stranger asking. This is a repeat ask, nearly double the size, and the standard for a repeat ask is simple: show me what the first 12 million produced.
What specifically concerns me
I could not point to the KPI movement that would justify going from 12 million to 20 million. Let's be real about it: a funding mechanism that allocates capital to other builders is a layer of overhead between the treasury and the actual work. That layer has to earn its existence with results, not with a restated mission. Putting new money after money that has not yet proven itself is how treasuries bleed out. I am not opposed to the model. I am opposed to scaling it before it is proven.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. If it comes back: publish what the first 12 million funded, which projects survived, and what happened to MAU, transactions, and TVL as a result. Real numbers, not a portfolio slide. That version gets a fair read from me.
e638YES5am.earth Trust Layer Targeting Vision 2030 KPIs10.0M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
5am.earth asked for 10,000,000 ADA to build a trust layer targeting the Vision 2030 KPIs.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The work would need to move the metrics Cardano actually needs moved, adoption and real usage rather than another framework nobody integrates. I have said for years that Cardano's problem is not the tech, it is that the tech does not reach anyone. Proposals aimed squarely at adoption get a more sympathetic read from me than proposals aimed at more plumbing.
What specifically concerns me
Ten million is real money for an outcome measured in KPIs that are notoriously easy to claim credit for and hard to attribute. Trust layers are also the kind of infrastructure that either gets adopted immediately or never at all.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Report attribution honestly. If MAU and transactions move, show which portion this actually caused rather than what merely happened at the same time. Cardano has too much history of funded work claiming credit for chain-wide trends.
e637YESHard Fork to Protocol Version 11 ('van Rossem' Hard Fork)ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
The hard fork to Protocol Version 11, the van Rossem upgrade. Intra-era, ledger stays in Conway, adds new Plutus primitives defined in CIP-0109, CIP-0132, CIP-0133, CIP-0138 and CIP-0153.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
No funds involved. The question is readiness: is the work tested, are the CIPs through process, are node implementations and wallets prepared.
What specifically concerns me
Nothing that would make me vote no. Protocol upgrades that expand what developers can build on chain are the whole point of the academic, peer-reviewed approach that brought me to Cardano in 2017. Consistent availability of Plutus built-ins across versions removes a class of developer pain that has cost this ecosystem real builders.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep hard fork coordination boring. Wallets and tooling compatible ahead of mainnet, every time. The upgrade nobody notices is the upgrade done right.
e637YESEternl: Path to Sustainability (2026-2027)position changed1.7M ₳DROPPED¶
Previously voted NO in epoch 631 — changed 2026-06-15
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Eternl: Path to Sustainability 2026-2027. This entry records a NO that I later replaced with a YES on the revised proposal.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Eternl carries a large share of Cardano's daily transactions, so its continuity is infrastructure whatever its business model. The question was never whether Eternl matters. It was whether the ask was accountable.
What specifically concerns me
My first vote was no, alongside Constitutional Committee no-votes over audit clarity. The team came back with the clarification the CC asked for, updated their conversion assumptions, and had their own Drep abstain on their own funding. I moved to yes. Nothing about my standard changed, they simply met it. This is the pattern I want every proposer in this ecosystem to internalise: answer the objection directly instead of relitigating it, and the votes follow.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
The revised version was enacted. My ask stands: report Pro plan conversion honestly. A wallet that funds itself off treasury dependence is the template every other maintenance recipient should be copying, and if it works I will point at it every chance I get.
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Eternl asked for 1,684,050 ADA toward sustainability of the Cardano light wallet, an earlier version of the proposal that later returned with audit clarifications and was enacted.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
A wallet carrying 10 to 18 percent of mainnet transactions is infrastructure, whatever its business model says. If Eternl breaks, a large share of the ecosystem's daily activity breaks with it.
What specifically concerns me
This version drew Constitutional Committee no-votes over audit clarity, and the CC was right to press. My yes was on the substance: Eternl prices its team at a fraction of what other proposals in this ecosystem charge per FTE, and it published an actual path off treasury dependence rather than an open-ended ask.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped and returned as a clarified v2 that passed, which is exactly how this process should work. Answer the objection, resubmit, get funded. My ask stands from the v2 vote: report Pro plan conversion honestly, because a wallet that funds itself is the template every other maintenance proposal should be copying.
e637YESTweag Core Cardano Infrastructure: Treasury Withdrawal 2026–202718.3M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Tweag by Modus Create asked for 18,260,000 ADA for core Cardano infrastructure work, the resubmitted and substantially reduced version of a 2026 to 2028 program.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The team has to be able to deliver protocol-level work, and the ask has to be proportionate. Tweag has been in Cardano's core engineering for years. Peras and finality improvements are exactly the kind of foundational work that will never be funded by private capital, because there is no product to sell at the end of it. That is precisely what a treasury is for.
What specifically concerns me
I voted NO on the 39,787,316 ADA version of this at epoch 631. Not because the work was wrong, but because nearly 40 million ADA across a three-year horizon was too much scope committed too far out on a treasury this size. This version cut the ask by more than half. That is a team that listened rather than argued, and I reward that. Let's be real about it: the second ask being smaller is the single most persuasive thing a proposer can do.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Ship Peras to mainnet and publish finality metrics against the promise. Faster finality is measurable, so measure it publicly. Hold the reduced scope and the next renewal is easy.
e636YESIO: Hydra5.1M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Input Output asked for 5,100,000 ADA for continued Hydra development, Cardano's layer 2 head protocol.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Scaling work has to eventually reach users. Hydra has been in development a long time and has taken fair criticism for the distance between the research and anything a normal person can use.
What specifically concerns me
That distance is exactly my concern, and it is my broader concern with Cardano overall. We fund brilliant engineering and then struggle to convert it into applications people touch. Throughput and interoperability decide which chains survive long term, so I am not going to vote against scaling infrastructure. But the value only lands when something is built on it.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Show me applications running on Hydra in production, not benchmarks. The measure of a layer 2 is what runs on it, and that is the number I will be looking at next cycle.
e633YESRevised Cardano Summit 2026 Singaporeposition changed7.8M ₳DROPPED¶
Previously voted NO in epoch 630 — changed 2026-05-29
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
The revised Cardano Summit 2026 in Singapore. This entry records a NO that I later replaced with a YES after the proposal was revised.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Cardano's marketing weakness is my most repeated criticism of this ecosystem, so events are not automatically waste to me. But a summit budget has to be proportionate and it has to arrive with some accounting for what it produces.
What specifically concerns me
I voted no on the earlier shape of this and yes on the revision, and I want that visible rather than tidied away. The original ask did not convince me that the spend matched the outcome. The revision tightened it. That is exactly the behaviour I am trying to reward across every proposal I touch: come back smaller, or come back clearer, and I will move. A Drep who never changes position under new information is not principled, they are just not reading.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
The revised version was dropped in the end. Whoever brings the next summit proposal: attach outcome measurement. Partnerships opened, developers onboarded, media reach against cost. Cardano needs the marketing. It needs marketing that can prove it worked even more.
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
7,800,000 ADA for a revised Cardano Summit 2026 in Singapore.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Marketing and presence are where Cardano is weakest, and I will say that as loudly as anyone. Best tech in the world means nothing without brand awareness and adoption. So events are not automatically frivolous to me the way they are to some Dreps.
What specifically concerns me
Events are also where treasuries waste the most money with the least accountability, because attendance photos are easy and attributable outcomes are hard. Nearly 8 million ADA is a lot of marketing budget for a few days.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Whoever brings the next summit proposal should bring outcome measurement with it: partnerships signed, developers onboarded, integrations announced, media reach. Cardano needs marketing badly. It needs marketing that can prove it worked even more.
e631NOCardano dOSPO and OMF Program12.0M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
The Cardano dOSPO and OMF Program asked for 12,000,000 ADA to establish a community-governed open source sustainment program, citing research that 96 percent of commercial codebases depend on OSS maintained by fewer than 10 contributors.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The problem is real and the citations are right. Critical protocol libraries and tooling do run on single maintainers with no succession plan. I voted yes on many individual maintenance grants precisely because I believe this.
What specifically concerns me
The structure and the size. Twelve million ADA to create a new funding body that then distributes to maintainers puts an administrative layer between the treasury and the actual maintainers, and we already fund open source maintenance directly through the budget process. I voted no again on the revised 4,094,000 version at epoch 644 for the same core reason: the entity gets built after the money arrives rather than before.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. The mission deserves to exist. Form the entity first, publish the charter, name the councils, and show precisely which maintainers fall through the gaps of the programs we already pay for. That proposal I would take seriously.
e631YESBlockfrost: Maintenance and Next Generation Indexing7.9M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Blockfrost asked for 7,920,000 ADA for maintenance and next generation indexing.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Blockfrost is the number one hosted platform Cardano developers use by the Cardano Foundation's own survey data, climbing every year. Half this ecosystem reaches the chain through it. Infrastructure that central is worth funding.
What specifically concerns me
Single-vendor dependency on the ecosystem's main API door is a standing risk, which is why I later voted yes on the proposal to transition Blockfrost into a community-governed not-for-profit. Funding maintenance is fine. Funding maintenance forever without changing the ownership structure just deepens the dependency.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. My position is consistent across both Blockfrost proposals: I want this infrastructure maintained and I want it community-owned. Bring those two things together and I am an easy yes.
e631YESIO & Ensurable Systems: Cardano Maintenance Initiative62.1M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
IO and Ensurable Systems asked for 62,130,000 ADA for the Cardano Maintenance Initiative, continuous core maintenance and operational support across nine functional areas from Q3 2026 through Q1 2027.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Somebody has to keep the platform running. Every feature and upgrade anyone proposes depends on a stable, maintained base underneath, and maintenance is not discretionary work that can wait for a better market.
What specifically concerns me
Sixty-two million ADA is one of the largest single line items I have ever voted on, and concentration of core maintenance in one vendor is a real long-term risk to decentralization. I voted yes because the alternative to imperfect, expensive maintenance is not cheaper maintenance, it is degradation of the thing everything else stands on. But the size means the reporting bar is high.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish what the nine functional areas actually delivered, quarter by quarter, in terms the community can check. And keep working toward more client diversity so this line item is not permanently sole-sourced.
e631YESThe first node in the browser; a Cardano USP4.6M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
4,600,000 ADA for the first Cardano node in the browser, pitched as a unique selling point for the chain.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Genuine differentiation matters. Cardano competes for developers and users against chains with far better marketing, so capabilities nobody else has are worth something, provided they are real and reachable.
What specifically concerns me
A browser node is technically impressive and its practical value depends entirely on whether anything is built with it. That is the recurring Cardano pattern that frustrates me most: we build the impressive thing and then nobody ships on it.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. If it returns, lead with the applications. Show me who has committed to using a browser node and what it lets them do that they cannot do now. The capability is not the product.
e631YESIO: Cardano High Assurance Technical Collaboration13.1M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Input Output asked for 13,080,000 ADA for the Cardano High Assurance Technical Collaboration.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Formal methods and high assurance engineering are the reason I have backed this chain since 2017. The academic, peer-reviewed approach is Cardano's actual differentiator against chains that ship fast and get exploited.
What specifically concerns me
High assurance work is expensive and its payoff is invisible when it works. Nobody throws a parade for the exploit that never happened. That makes it easy to underfund and easy to overspend on, and hard to audit either way.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish what the assurance work covers and what it found. Verification results that stay internal are worth a fraction of verification results the ecosystem can point to when someone asks why Cardano is different.
e631YESIO & VacuumLabs: Enhancing Plutus - Performance, Correctness, and Usability11.9M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
IO and VacuumLabs asked for 11,880,000 ADA to enhance Plutus across performance and correctness.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Plutus is where smart contracts live. If it is slow or awkward, developers leave for chains where it is not, and no amount of marketing fixes that.
What specifically concerns me
Plutus improvement has been funded repeatedly across cycles. At some point continuous enhancement needs to show up as developers choosing Cardano who otherwise would not have. That is the metric, not internal benchmark improvements.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Tie the next ask to developer adoption numbers. How many teams shipped on Plutus this year versus last. That converts an engineering line item into an argument anyone can follow.
e631YESPebble & Ecosystem maintenance: TypeScript core of Cardano4.6M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
4,600,000 ADA for Pebble and ecosystem maintenance, the TypeScript core of Cardano tooling.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
TypeScript is where most web developers actually live. If Cardano wants builders who are not Haskell specialists, the TypeScript path has to be first class and maintained.
What specifically concerns me
Nothing serious. This is maintenance of a developer on-ramp, which is exactly the category I believe treasury money is for. My general watch item on all tooling grants applies: keep it maintenance, not quiet new product development under a maintenance label.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish downstream dependency counts. Tooling that other funded work sits on top of is the easiest renewal to justify, so make that case with numbers.
e631YESCardano at TOKEN2049 Singapore 2026: Top-Up ‘Title’ Sponsorship Upgradeposition changed1.8M ₳DROPPED¶
Previously voted YES in epoch 631 — changed 2026-05-17
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
This is a superseded vote record on the same governance action, kept visible because this platform never deletes anything from the chain history.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The reasoning is unchanged from the vote that replaced it. My published rationale on the live vote for this action is the substantive one, and it stands for both.
What specifically concerns me
Nothing beyond what I wrote on the live vote. This entry exists because the vote was re-cast on chain without my position changing. Cardano lets a Drep replace a vote while the action is still open, and every prior entry stays on chain permanently. I would rather explain a duplicate than quietly hide one.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
Nothing additional. See the rationale attached to the current vote on this action for the reasoning that actually decided it.
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
1,770,000 ADA as a top-up for Title sponsorship at TOKEN2049 Singapore 2026, on top of a baseline Platinum sponsorship proposal.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Cardano is chronically under-marketed and under-present at the venues where capital and partnerships actually get decided. I am more willing than most Dreps to spend on presence.
What specifically concerns me
Top-up proposals for a bigger sponsorship tier are where marketing budgets quietly inflate. Going from Platinum to Title is a real jump in cost for a difference in banner placement that is hard to tie to outcomes.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped while the baseline passed, which is a reasonable outcome. If the ecosystem funds Title tier in future, bring back what the tier bought: meetings taken, deals opened, integrations that trace to the event.
e631YESCardano at TOKEN2049 Singapore 2026: Baseline ‘Platinum' Sponsorship Proposal3.3M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
3,300,000 ADA for the baseline Platinum sponsorship of Cardano at TOKEN2049 Singapore 2026.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Presence at the largest events in the industry is table stakes for an ecosystem trying to attract enterprises and capital. Cardano's absence is noticed and it costs us.
What specifically concerns me
Sponsorship money is the easiest treasury money to waste and the hardest to attribute. My yes is on presence being necessary, not on any belief that a booth converts by itself. Showing up is the floor, not the strategy.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish outcomes: qualified conversations, partnerships progressed, developer signups. Cardano needs marketing more than almost anything else, which is exactly why our marketing spend needs to be the most accountable spend we have.
e631YESIO: Developer Experience Initiative3.6M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Input Output asked for 3,600,000 ADA for the Developer Experience Initiative.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Developer experience is a genuine Cardano weakness and always has been. Every friction point in getting started is a builder who goes elsewhere and never comes back.
What specifically concerns me
DX initiatives are easy to fund and hard to measure. Documentation and tooling improvements can absorb budget indefinitely without ever moving the number that matters, which is how many teams ship.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Measure time to first working contract for a new developer, and report it. If that number does not fall, the initiative did not work, whatever else was produced.
e631YESIO: Consensus Initiative27.7M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Input Output asked for 27,710,000 ADA for the Consensus Initiative, work on Cardano's core consensus layer.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Consensus is the chain. Ouroboros and its ongoing evolution are the foundation everything else rests on, and this is the deepest infrastructure category there is.
What specifically concerns me
The size, and the concentration of consensus work in a single organization. That is a decentralization question as much as a budget question. I voted yes because consensus work cannot be crowd-sourced or deferred, and because throughput and finality decide long-term survival among competing chains.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Support alternative node implementations reaching consensus parity, so this expertise stops being concentrated in one place. Funding the incumbent and funding client diversity are not in conflict, and I want both.
e631YESCardano Vision 2026: Human Centred, Scalable, Post Quantum Secure - IO Research32.9M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
32,920,000 ADA for Cardano Vision 2026, IO's structured research-to-deployment pipeline covering human centred design, scalability, and post quantum security, building on CV25 which the proposal states exceeded delivery targets by 20 percent.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Research is why I am here. The academic approach is Cardano's real differentiator and post quantum work in particular is the kind of thing that looks premature right up until the day it is far too late.
What specifically concerns me
Research programs can run indefinitely without producing anything deployable, which is the standard critique and a fair one. What moved me is that CV26 is explicitly a pipeline from research into deployed capability with prior-year delivery data attached. A track record, even a self-reported one, beats a promise.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish the conversion rate: research streams started, capabilities actually shipped to mainnet. That single ratio would settle the perpetual argument about whether Cardano research pays for itself.
e631NO[OriLife × TonFarm] Identifying 180 Million Durians Without Physical Labels2.4M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
OriLife Alliance asked for 2,400,000 ADA to deploy tamper-evident traceability across 12,000 hectares of durian farming in Dak Lak, Vietnam, ahead of a December 2026 regulatory deadline, with a live demo and Preprod verification.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Real world asset traceability is a legitimate blockchain use case, the regulatory deadline is real, and I will give them credit for having a working proof of concept rather than a slide deck.
What specifically concerns me
This is a commercial venture serving a specific supply chain in a specific country, with paying customers at the end of it. That is exactly the profile that should raise private capital, not treasury capital. Agricultural traceability has a business model. Let's be real about it: if the durian industry needs this before a December deadline, the durian industry can fund it. Treasury money should go where no commercial return exists to attract private money.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Build it with private or industry capital, prove the volume on Cardano mainnet, then come back for marketing support to tell that story. That sequence I would support.
e631NOTweag Core Cardano Infrastructure: Treasury Withdrawal 2026–202839.8M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Tweag by Modus Create asked for 39,787,316 ADA, roughly 9.9 million USD, for 17 work packages across 9 core infrastructure areas spanning 2026 to 2028, centered on mainnet deployment of Peras for faster finality.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The work itself is legitimate and Tweag are real core engineers. Peras finality going from about 12 minutes to about 2 minutes is a meaningful improvement to a chain where throughput and settlement speed decide competitiveness.
What specifically concerns me
Scope and duration. Nearly 40 million ADA committed across a three year horizon, from a treasury operating under a Net Change Limit, in a market where ADA's value has moved dramatically. Multi-year commitments at this size lock future Dreps into decisions they had no part in making. I would rather fund a year at a time and renew on delivery.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped, and Tweag returned at epoch 637 with 18,260,000 ADA. I voted yes on that one. That is the system working exactly as intended: too big gets refused, right-sized gets funded, and the team that adjusts gets rewarded.
e629YESPogun: Capital Without Compromise12.3M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Pogun asked for 12,290,000 ADA under the banner of capital without compromise.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Capital formation tools that keep builders from surrendering control to outside investors serve the ecosystem, if they work and if the terms are genuinely better than what exists.
What specifically concerns me
Financial infrastructure proposals at this size need a demonstrated user base, and my standing concern applies: capital deployment vehicles are commercial by nature and usually have private funding available to them.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. The bar for anything that touches capital allocation should be a track record of allocating capital successfully. Bring that and the conversation changes.
e629YESIO: Cardano Upgradesposition changed13.1M ₳ENACTED¶
Previously voted YES in epoch 629 — changed 2026-05-09
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
This is a superseded vote record on the same governance action, kept visible because this platform never deletes anything from the chain history.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The reasoning is unchanged from the vote that replaced it. My published rationale on the live vote for this action is the substantive one, and it stands for both.
What specifically concerns me
Nothing beyond what I wrote on the live vote. This entry exists because the vote was re-cast on chain without my position changing. Cardano lets a Drep replace a vote while the action is still open, and every prior entry stays on chain permanently. I would rather explain a duplicate than quietly hide one.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
Nothing additional. See the rationale attached to the current vote on this action for the reasoning that actually decided it.
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Input Output asked for 13,100,000 ADA for Cardano Upgrades, the work of shipping protocol upgrades to mainnet.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Upgrades have to land safely. This is the least glamorous and most necessary category of spending there is, and the cost of getting it wrong is measured in outages and lost trust.
What specifically concerns me
Little on the merits. My consistent note on IO line items is concentration rather than quality: too much of Cardano's critical path runs through one organization, and every cycle we fund that pattern without funding alternatives makes it harder to change.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep upgrade coordination boring and public, and keep bringing alternative implementations into the process so upgrade capability spreads beyond one team.
e629YESIO & Midgard Labs: L2 Scalability Initiative10.4M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
IO and Midgard Labs asked for 10,430,000 ADA for the L2 Scalability Initiative.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Layer 2 scalability is a survival question. Throughput determines which chains handle real usage and which ones become academic exercises, and I have been consistent that interoperability and throughput are the long-term differentiators.
What specifically concerns me
Cardano has funded multiple parallel layer 2 efforts. At some point the ecosystem needs to consolidate behind what is working rather than funding every promising direction simultaneously, because fragmented scaling is barely better than no scaling.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. My ask for the whole L2 category: show adoption, not architecture. Which applications moved real volume onto your layer 2. That is the only comparison that should decide future funding between competing approaches.
e624YESPebble + Gerolamo - HLabs 2026 Budget8.0M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
8,040,000 ADA for the Pebble and Gerolamo HLabs 2026 budget, covering TypeScript tooling and the TypeScript Cardano node.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Client diversity and a real TypeScript path both matter. A second node implementation in a language most developers already know is genuine decentralization work rather than decentralization talk.
What specifically concerns me
Annual budgets bundling several projects make it harder to judge each piece on its own merits. I would rather see the node and the tooling stand or fall separately.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Split future asks by project with delivery milestones each. Gerolamo reaching block production parity is a genuinely important milestone for this ecosystem and it deserves its own case.
e624YESApprove Cardano Foundation as New Managing Entity of Project CatalystDROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action approving the Cardano Foundation as the new managing entity of Project Catalyst.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Catalyst needs competent stewardship. It has funded a lot of work and burned a lot of goodwill, and whoever runs it needs both operational capability and community trust.
What specifically concerns me
I will be direct, because my record on this should be clear rather than diplomatic. I do not trust the Cardano Foundation. My long-held view is that CF has operated in its own interest more often than in Cardano's, and its years of friction with Charles have not made it more accountable to this community. My yes here was a vote for Catalyst having any credible managing entity over continued drift, not an endorsement of CF's track record.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Whoever ends up managing Catalyst: publish funding outcomes, completion rates, and failure rates openly. Catalyst's credibility problem is an accountability problem, and no change of management fixes it without published numbers.
e624YESCardano Summit 2026 and TOKEN2049 Singapore14.1M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
14,080,000 ADA covering Cardano Summit 2026 and TOKEN2049 Singapore together.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Cardano's marketing weakness is my most repeated criticism of this ecosystem. Events are part of fixing it. I am not going to demand better marketing and then vote against every marketing budget.
What specifically concerns me
Bundling two major event budgets into one action makes it impossible to fund one and refuse the other. Fourteen million ADA deserves line-item scrutiny, not a package vote.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped and the components later came back separately, which is the right structure. Bring event proposals individually with outcome reporting attached, and my read on each one gets easier.
e622YESCardano x Draper Dragon: Orion Fund50.0M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Draper Dragon asked for up to 50,000,000 ADA for the Orion Fund, a multi-year tranche-based venture fund investing in Cardano-native and Cardano-integrated companies, structured so treasury exposure is incremental, capped, and governed, with capital returning to the treasury over time.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Cardano does not have a capital problem in its protocol, it has a capital problem in its application layer. Builders leave for ecosystems where funding exists. A real venture fund with a real firm attached, run by people who do this professionally, addresses the gap I complain about constantly: great tech, no applications, no users.
What specifically concerns me
Fifty million ADA is enormous and handing treasury money to a venture fund is exactly the kind of thing that goes badly when structured on trust. What earned my yes is the structure. Tranche-based rather than lump sum, capped exposure, governed release, and capital returning to the treasury over time. I have said repeatedly that I favor proposals which return their raise to the treasury once profitable, and this is the largest one built that way.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish the portfolio and the returns, honestly, including the failures. A venture fund spending community money owes the community the same reporting a limited partner would demand. And do not let tranche gates become rubber stamps.
e617YESDingo: a Production-Grade Block Producer in Go by Blink Labs6.9M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Blink Labs asked for 6,900,000 ADA for Dingo, a production-grade Cardano block producer written in Go.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Client diversity is real decentralization work. A chain with one node implementation has a single point of failure no amount of stake distribution fixes. Go is also a language a large pool of infrastructure engineers already know, which widens who can contribute.
What specifically concerns me
Alternative node implementations have to actually reach production and get run by real operators. A second client that nobody deploys is a research project with extra steps.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Report block production on mainnet and how many SPOs are running it. Adoption by operators is the only proof that client diversity moved from theory to fact.
e617YESCardano Budget Process Framework (facilitated by Intersect)DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action establishing the Cardano Budget Process Framework, facilitated by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Treasury spending needs a repeatable process or every cycle turns into chaos and lobbying. A framework that filters proposals before they hit the chain saves Dreps from evaluating hundreds of unvetted asks.
What specifically concerns me
Process frameworks concentrate influence in whoever runs the process, and I have been openly critical of how much of Cardano's governance machinery routes through a small number of organizations. A filter is only as good as its independence.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Whatever framework the ecosystem lands on: publish the filtering criteria, publish what got rejected and why, and keep the path open for proposals that go direct to chain without the process. Governance that only works through one door is not decentralized governance.
e617YESNet Change Limit of 300 Million ADA for Epochs 613–713DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action proposing a Net Change Limit of 300,000,000 ADA for epochs 613 to 713.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
A hard cap on treasury outflow is fundamental discipline. Without it there is no ceiling and every proposal competes against nothing but the next proposal.
What specifically concerns me
Nothing about the cap itself. I supported this 300 million version and I also supported a later 500 million version, and someone could reasonably ask which one I actually believe in. The honest answer: I want a cap agreed and enforced, and I lean toward the tighter number. A treasury that spends faster than it earns is a countdown clock, and this community should be able to see the clock.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. My ask is the same regardless of which number wins: publish cumulative outflow against the limit continuously, so every Drep can see how much room is left before voting on the next big ask.
e617YESCardano Defi Liquidity Budget - Withdrawal 1800K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
800,000 ADA as the first withdrawal under the Cardano DeFi Liquidity Budget.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Cardano DeFi is small compared to comparable ecosystems and thin liquidity keeps it that way. Users will not trade where slippage is punishing, and builders will not build where users are not.
What specifically concerns me
I have voted no on individual protocols asking the treasury to fund their launch liquidity, and I want the distinction on the record: I am against the treasury taking a market position in one company's leveraged product, and open to ecosystem-wide liquidity programs with oversight. This was the smaller, first tranche of a governed program rather than a bet on a single venue.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Report whether the liquidity stayed after incentives ended. Rented liquidity that leaves the moment the program stops is the failure mode of every DeFi incentive scheme ever run, and it is the number that decides whether the rest of the budget deserves to flow.
e617YESAmaru Treasury Withdrawal 202610.1M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
10,140,000 ADA for the Amaru Treasury Withdrawal 2026, continuing development of the Amaru node implementation.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Same principle as Dingo, at larger scale. Amaru is a serious effort at an alternative Cardano node, and I voted yes on its earlier 1,500,000 ADA withdrawal at epoch 567 as well. Consistent support for the same team as it scaled.
What specifically concerns me
The step from 1.5 million to 10.1 million is significant and it is the kind of scaling I usually push back on. The difference here is that this is a repeat proposer with visible delivery between the two asks, and node implementation work has a clear, checkable milestone: does it validate the chain.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish conformance results against the reference node. Client diversity is only real when the alternative client can be trusted to produce blocks on mainnet, so show that milestone plainly when it lands.
e600YESWithdraw ₳70,000,000 for Cardano Critical Integrations Budget70.0M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
70,000,000 ADA for the Cardano Critical Integrations Budget, a strategic integration fund for onboarding tier-one stablecoins, institutional digital asset infrastructure, and similar critical integrations. Conditional on the corresponding Budget Info Action being approved.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
This is the single biggest gap in Cardano and has been for years. No serious stablecoin presence, thin institutional rails, and integrations that other chains got years ago. You can have the best technology in the world, and if the assets and rails people actually use are not there, none of it matters. This is the marketing and adoption problem expressed as infrastructure.
What specifically concerns me
Seventy million ADA on integrations that depend on third parties agreeing to integrate. Payment does not guarantee delivery when the counterparty is an external company with its own priorities. That is a real execution risk and it is not fully in Cardano's control.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish which integrations landed, which did not, and what the money bought in each case. If tier-one stablecoin liquidity arrives on Cardano because of this, it will be the best 70 million this treasury ever spent. If it does not, the community deserves to know exactly where it went.
e600YESAdd Constitutional Committee MemberENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Adding a Constitutional Committee member selected through the Intersect-hosted snap election, bringing the committee up to the committeeMinSize threshold so on-chain governance can resume in full.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
No funds involved. The question is whether governance should be able to function. A committee below minimum size means governance stalls entirely.
What specifically concerns me
That we ended up here at all. My longstanding view is that decentralized governance was released to the public before this ecosystem was ready to operate it, and a committee falling below its own quorum is a symptom of exactly that. The fix was necessary, the underlying fragility is the real story.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Build enough bench depth that quorum is never in question again. Governance that pauses because it cannot seat people is governance nobody outside this ecosystem will take seriously.
e598YES2025 Net Change Limit ExtensionDROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action extending the 2025 Net Change Limit.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Continuity. When a limit lapses without a successor, the constraint disappears at the exact moment it matters most, which is while proposals are already in flight.
What specifically concerns me
Extensions are how temporary arrangements become permanent without anybody deciding they should. I prefer a fresh number debated on its merits over an extension nobody examines.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Set limits with clear end dates and start the next debate well before they lapse, so the ecosystem is choosing a number rather than avoiding a gap.
e598YESCardano Critical Integrations BudgetDROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
The Info Action authorizing the Cardano Critical Integrations Budget, the companion to the 70,000,000 ADA withdrawal.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Same reasoning as the withdrawal itself. Cardano's integration gap is a genuine competitive disadvantage, not a cosmetic one, and closing it is worth serious money.
What specifically concerns me
Info Action then withdrawal is a two-step structure that can create the impression of double approval for a single decision. The community should read them as one commitment, because that is what they are.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped while the associated withdrawal was later enacted. My ask stands: report integration outcomes publicly and specifically. This is the category where Cardano most needs wins and most needs to prove it can buy them.
e584NOWithdraw ₳1,150,000 for GovTool 12 months active maintenance and development1.1M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
1,150,000 ADA for 12 months of active maintenance and development of GovTool, the open-source governance tooling maintained by the GovTool Consortium of ByronNetwork, WeDeliver, LidoNation and Dquadrant.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
GovTool is how ordinary ADA holders register, delegate, and vote. If it does not work, participation drops and governance concentrates among people with the technical ability to route around it. That matters and I want to be fair about it.
What specifically concerns me
I voted no here and also no on the companion Info Action, and I want the reasoning on the record because voting against governance tooling looks bad without it. My objection is not the mission, it is the arrangement: a consortium formed around a funding stream, seeking a full year of active development funding, for a tool whose actual usage numbers have never justified the spend to me. Governance participation on Cardano is low and it is not low because the interface is missing features. Adding development budget does not fix a demand problem.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
Both were dropped. What would change my vote: publish real usage. Monthly active users, registrations completed, votes cast through the tool. If those numbers are strong, I will say so publicly and vote yes. If they are weak, then the money belongs in getting people to participate, not in building more tool for the few who already do.
e584YESStablecoin DeFi Liquidity BudgetDROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action authorizing a Stablecoin DeFi Liquidity Budget.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Stablecoins are the missing piece. Cardano DeFi without deep stablecoin liquidity is a car without fuel, and every serious user and institution starts by asking what stables are available and how deep the books are.
What specifically concerns me
Liquidity programs are notoriously good at renting activity and notoriously bad at keeping it. The number that matters is what remains after incentives stop.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Any stablecoin liquidity program that comes back should publish retention: liquidity present 90 days after incentives end. That single metric separates real market development from paid-for statistics.
e580YESBudget: ₳5M Loan for Cardano's Global Listing Expansion - Powered by SnekDROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action for a 5,000,000 ADA loan supporting Cardano's global exchange listing expansion.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Listings and market access are distribution, and distribution is Cardano's chronic weakness. A loan structure rather than a grant is also the shape I prefer, because it returns capital rather than consuming it.
What specifically concerns me
Exchange listing costs are opaque by nature and the counterparties rarely allow public terms. Spending community money where the terms cannot be published creates an accountability hole even when the spending is sensible.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Publish whatever can be published: which venues, what volume followed, and the repayment schedule. Loans that return capital to the treasury are a structure I want to see more of, so make the first ones exemplary.
e580YESCARDANO BLOCKCHAIN ECOSYSTEM CONSTITUTION v2.0DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Adopting the Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Constitution v2.0, with wording improvements, new defined terms, simplified Article II, and removal of the Budget Info Action requirement for treasury withdrawals.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
No funds involved. The question is whether the changes make governance clearer and more workable without weakening protection of the treasury.
What specifically concerns me
Removing the Budget Info Action requirement for treasury withdrawals is a genuine loosening, and I want to be honest that it cuts against my instinct for more friction on spending rather than less. What tipped me toward yes was that the two-step structure had produced confusion and duplicated votes without adding much real scrutiny. Clarity in the founding document has its own value.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. If constitutional revisions return: change one thing at a time where possible. Bundling wording cleanups with substantive removals of spending checks makes it impossible to support the first without accepting the second.
e573YESReplace Interim Constitutional CommitteeENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Replacing the Interim Constitutional Committee with the committee selected by participating Dreps in the Intersect-hosted election held May through July 2025.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
No funds involved. The interim committee was always meant to be temporary, and honoring an election result is the minimum requirement for governance to mean anything.
What specifically concerns me
Election turnout and the concentration of the process in a single facilitating organization. Both are real, and both are symptoms of a governance system this ecosystem started operating before it was ready. But refusing to seat an elected committee because the election was imperfect would be worse than seating it.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish committee votes and reasoning consistently. A Constitutional Committee whose reasoning is invisible will be assumed to be political, fairly or not, and this ecosystem has enough of that already.
e573YESWithdraw ₳657,692 for Scalus - DApps Development Platform658K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
657,692 ADA for Scalus, the JVM-native Cardano DApp development platform by Lantr Engineering, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
JVM developers are another large pool Cardano does not reach by default. Scalus components are reused inside widely used Cardano tooling, so plenty of teams depend on it without knowing they do.
What specifically concerns me
Nothing at this size. Worth noting for the record: I supported Scalus here at roughly 658,000 ADA, and later voted yes again on their reduced 2,464,844 ADA resubmission at epoch 644 after refusing to reward the oversized 8.5 million version. Consistent support for a team with a delivery record, at a size proportionate to the work.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep publishing the delivery record. Three years of milestones met on time is Lantr's strongest argument, and it is why their name carries weight with me now.
e573NOCardano GovTool Budget - 12 months full active maintenance and developmentposition changedDROPPED¶
Previously voted ABSTAIN in epoch 571 — changed 2025-07-31
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
The Cardano GovTool Budget for 12 months of active maintenance and development. This entry records an ABSTAIN that I later replaced with a NO.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
GovTool would need usage numbers that justify a full year of active development funding. Governance tooling matters, and I do not dispute that ordinary holders need a working way to register, delegate, and vote.
What specifically concerns me
I abstained first because I did not want to be the Drep voting against governance tooling, which is an uncomfortable position to hold in public. Then I decided that abstaining to avoid discomfort is not a position, it is an evasion. Let's be real about it: if I think a proposal has not justified its size, the honest thing is to vote no and explain why, not to hide behind a neutral flag. Cardano's governance participation problem is not caused by missing features in the interface, and more development budget does not fix a demand problem.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped, and I voted no again on the later withdrawal at epoch 584. What changes my vote is data: monthly active users, registrations completed, votes actually cast through the tool. Strong numbers and I will say so publicly and fund it.
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
The Info Action for the Cardano GovTool Budget, 12 months of full active maintenance and development, from the newly formed GovTool Consortium.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The tooling that lets ordinary holders participate in governance has to work. I do not dispute that.
What specifically concerns me
Same objection as the withdrawal I voted no on at epoch 584, and I am consistent across both. A consortium assembling around a funding stream, asking for a full year of active development, without usage numbers that justify the scale. Cardano's governance participation problem is not a feature problem. Let's be real about it: people are not staying away from governance because the interface lacks polish, they are staying away because most of them do not believe their vote changes anything. More development budget does not touch that.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Bring participation numbers. If GovTool usage is growing and the bottleneck is genuinely capacity, I will change my vote and say so publicly.
e573YESWithdraw ₳199,911 for OpShin - Python Smart Contracts for Cardano200K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
199,911 ADA for OpShin, Python smart contracts for Cardano, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Python is one of the most widely known languages on earth. A working Python path onto Cardano lowers the barrier for an enormous pool of developers who will never learn Haskell.
What specifically concerns me
Very little at this size. Under 200,000 ADA to maintain a language on-ramp is the cheapest developer acquisition spending in the budget. My standing note applies: keep it maintained rather than letting it drift into abandonware after the grant ends.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Report how many projects ship using OpShin. If a Python path brings teams who would otherwise have built elsewhere, that case makes itself every renewal.
e572YESWithdraw ₳6,000,000 for Cardano Summit 2025 and regional tech events6.0M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
6,000,000 ADA for Cardano Summit 2025 and regional events.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Presence and community gathering have value in an ecosystem whose weakest muscle is telling its own story. I have complained about Cardano's marketing for years and I am not going to vote against every attempt to do some.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Events specifically are where I want the tightest outcome reporting, because summits are the easiest line item to justify emotionally and the hardest to justify with numbers.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Report attendance, partnerships progressed, and developer signups against cost. Do that once and every future events proposal has a benchmark to be measured against.
e572YESWithdraw ₳6,000,000 for Unveiling the First Unified Global Events Marketing S...6.0M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
6,000,000 ADA for unveiling the first unified global Cardano brand and marketing effort.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
This is the category I have been demanding for years. Cardano has never been good at marketing and it has cost us adoption we should have had. A unified brand instead of a dozen disconnected voices is overdue.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. On this item specifically, my concern is the opposite of most Dreps: not that we are spending on marketing, but that six million buys a brand exercise rather than actual reach. Brand guidelines do not acquire users.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Show reach and conversion, not deliverables. New developers, new users, new integrations that trace back to the campaign. Cardano can have the best technology in the world, and without distribution it means nothing.
e572YESWithdraw ₳605,000 for A free Native Asset CDN for Cardano Developers605K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
605,000 ADA for a free native asset CDN for Cardano.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Shared infrastructure that every wallet, marketplace, and explorer can use is a textbook public good. Nobody funds it privately because nobody can charge for it, which is exactly why a treasury should.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. At this size and in this category, my concerns are minimal.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep it free and keep it maintained. Public infrastructure that quietly develops a paywall later is the failure mode to avoid here.
e572YESWithdraw ₳600,000 for Complete Web3 developer stack to make Cardano the smart...600K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
600,000 ADA for a complete Web3 developer stack for Cardano.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Developers arriving from other chains expect a familiar stack. Every missing piece is a reason to build somewhere else, and Cardano loses builders to friction more than to disagreement.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. On this item, my usual caution about tooling applies: stacks funded once and abandoned are worse than no stack, because developers build on them and get stranded.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish adoption. A developer stack nobody adopts is a maintenance liability we will be asked to fund again next year.
e572YESWithdraw ₳592,780 for Beyond Minimum Viable Governance: Iteratively Improvin....593K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
592,780 ADA for Beyond Minimum Viable Governance, work on Cardano's governance capability.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Governance was shipped to the public before this ecosystem was ready for it, which is my honest long-held view. Work that closes that readiness gap has real value.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. My reservation on governance-about-governance spending generally: it can become an industry unto itself, funding people to study participation rather than creating any.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Measure the outcome in participation, not publications. More Dreps voting, more delegators choosing actively. That is what beyond minimum viable actually means.
e572YESWithdraw ₳3,126,000 for Ecosystem Exchange Listing and Market Making service...3.1M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
3,126,000 ADA for ecosystem exchange listing and market making support.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Market access and liquidity depth affect whether anyone can practically use Cardano assets. Thin books drive users to other chains regardless of technical merit.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Market making is also the least transparent category in any treasury, since terms are usually confidential and results are hard to attribute. That combination deserves scrutiny even when the spending is justified.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish whatever the agreements permit: venues, depth achieved, spread improvements. Opaque spending erodes trust faster than no spending at all.
e572YESWithdraw ₳314,800 for PyCardano administered by Intersect315K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
314,800 ADA for PyCardano, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
PyCardano is the Python library a lot of developers and researchers use to touch Cardano without writing Haskell. Maintaining language bindings is cheap, unglamorous, and disproportionately valuable.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. At this size, nothing material.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Track the ledger eras as they change so nobody's tooling breaks silently. That is the entire job and it is worth every ADA when it is done well.
e572YESWithdraw ₳104,347 for MLabs Research towards Tooling for Elliptical Curves...104K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
104,347 ADA for MLabs research toward Cardano tooling.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Small research grants that feed directly into tooling used by production teams are among the most efficient spending in any budget.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Nothing specific at roughly a hundred thousand ADA.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Ship the research into the tools. Research that stays in a document helps nobody build anything.
e572YESWithdraw ₳750,000 for Cardano Product Committee: Community-driven 2030 Carda...750K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
750,000 ADA for the Cardano Product Committee and community coordination.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Product direction across a decentralized ecosystem is genuinely hard, and somebody thinking about coherence rather than individual features has value.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Committees are where ecosystems quietly accumulate overhead, and Cardano already has a lot of committee surface relative to shipped product.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Show decisions the committee shaped and outcomes that followed. If the output is meeting minutes, this is overhead. If it is a coherent roadmap the ecosystem actually follows, it is cheap.
e572YESWithdraw ₳130,903 for Lucid Evolution Maintenance administered by Intersect131K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
130,903 ADA for Lucid Evolution maintenance, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Lucid Evolution is one of the most used transaction-building libraries in Cardano. A large share of DApps depend on it whether their teams think about it or not.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. At roughly 130,000 ADA for a library this widely depended on, my only real concern is bus factor: heavily used tooling with few maintainers is a systemic risk.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Grow the contributor base beyond the current maintainers. The insurance policy for critical tooling is people, not budget.
e572YESWithdraw ₳300,000 for Ledger App Rewrite administered by Intersect300K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
300,000 ADA for the Ledger app rewrite, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Hardware wallet support is the security floor of this ecosystem. I tell people constantly to self-custody and use cold storage, and voting to keep that path working is the least I can do to back the advice.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Nothing at this size. Hardware wallet work is closer to a seatbelt than a feature: you do not skip maintenance on it.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Compatible releases ahead of every protocol change, without exception. A hard fork where Ledger users cannot sign would undo years of self-custody advocacy in a week.
e572YESWithdraw ₳15,750,000 for a MBO for the Cardano ecosystem: Intersect15.8M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
15,750,000 ADA for a Member Based Organization for the Cardano ecosystem.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Somebody has to coordinate technical stewardship, hard fork coordination, and incident response. Those functions are not optional for a chain that wants to be taken seriously by institutions.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. On this item, size and concentration are the real issues. Fifteen million is a lot of coordination, and Cardano routes an uncomfortable amount of its governance machinery through a small number of organizations. I have voted yes on the MBO's later, reduced asks as well, and the direction I want is exactly what happened there: the ask shrinking while continuity functions stay intact.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep publishing what the money buys, and keep the number trending down as the ecosystem matures. A coordination body whose budget grows every year is a coordination body that has stopped being coordination.
e572YESWithdraw ₳424,800 for Hardware Wallets Maintenance administered by Intersect425K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
424,800 ADA for hardware wallet maintenance, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Ledger and Trezor support has to survive every protocol change on our side and every firmware cycle on theirs. When that breaks, the most security-conscious holders in the ecosystem lose access to their own funds.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Nothing specific to this item. Continuity funding for a security-critical access layer is cheaper than the breakage it prevents.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted, and I have voted yes on hardware wallet maintenance again in later cycles. Same ask each time: compatible releases before mainnet hard forks, with enough lead for integrators to test.
e572YESWithdraw ₳220,914 for UTxO RPC: Sustaining Cardano Blockchain Integration221K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
220,914 ADA for UTxO RPC, the open interface standard for interacting with UTxO chains.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Standards that alternative node implementations and the reference node all speak are how an ecosystem avoids fragmenting into incompatible islands.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Nothing material here. I have voted yes on UTxO RPC maintenance again in later cycles, so this is consistent support for infrastructure that keeps proving itself.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep the adopter list public. Standards justify their funding by who uses them, and that list is the whole argument.
e571YESWithdraw ₳4,000,000 for Expanding Stablecoin / Cardano Native Asset Support...position changed4.0M ₳ENACTED¶
Previously voted YES in epoch 571 — changed 2025-07-23
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
This is a superseded vote record on the same governance action, kept visible because this platform never deletes anything from the chain history.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The reasoning is unchanged from the vote that replaced it. My published rationale on the live vote for this action is the substantive one, and it stands for both.
What specifically concerns me
Nothing beyond what I wrote on the live vote. This entry exists because the vote was re-cast on chain without my position changing. Cardano lets a Drep replace a vote while the action is still open, and every prior entry stays on chain permanently. I would rather explain a duplicate than quietly hide one.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
Nothing additional. See the rationale attached to the current vote on this action for the reasoning that actually decided it.
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
4,000,000 ADA for expanding stablecoin presence on Cardano.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Stablecoins are the entry point for nearly all real economic activity on a chain. Cardano's thin stablecoin presence is one of the clearest reasons users and institutions choose elsewhere, and it is a distribution failure more than a technology failure.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Stablecoin expansion depends on issuers agreeing to be here, which is partly outside our control no matter how much we spend.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Report supply and depth over time. Stablecoin supply on Cardano is a number the whole ecosystem should be watching monthly, because it tracks whether we are becoming a place where business happens.
e571YESWithdraw ₳11,070,323 for TWEAG's Proposals for multiple core budget project...11.1M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
11,070,323 ADA for Tweag's proposals across multiple core infrastructure work packages.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Tweag are genuine core engineers doing protocol-level work that no private capital will ever fund, because there is no product to sell at the end of it.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Worth recording the full arc, because it shows how I actually treat repeat proposers: yes here at 11 million, no at epoch 631 when the ask jumped to 39.8 million across three years, then yes again at epoch 637 when it came back at 18.3 million. Same team, three different answers, driven entirely by whether the size fit the work and the treasury.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep asks annual and proportionate, and keep shipping measurable protocol improvements. That pattern earns renewals from me indefinitely.
e571YESWithdraw ₳12,000,000 for Cardano Builder DAO administered by Intersect12.0M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
12,000,000 ADA for the Cardano Builder DAO, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Getting capital to builders is the gap that keeps Cardano's application layer thin. A mechanism dedicated to that is worth trying, and in the first budget cycle I was willing to fund the attempt.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. This is the vote that later shaped my no at epoch 641, when Builder DAO returned asking for 20 million. Funding a first attempt is reasonable. Nearly doubling it before the first round has demonstrated results is not, and I am not inclined to put new money after money that has not proven itself yet.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish what the 12 million funded and what survived. That reporting is exactly what was missing when the 20 million ask arrived, and it is what would have changed my vote.
e571YESWithdraw ₳5,885,000 for OSC Budget Proposal - Paid Open Source Model...5.9M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
5,885,000 ADA for the Open Source Committee budget, paid open source development.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Open source maintainers working unpaid is the quiet risk under every blockchain. Most maintainers of critical libraries are volunteers, and volunteers quit.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. My consistent position across this whole category: I support paying maintainers directly, and I am skeptical of new administrative bodies created to distribute that money. I voted no on the dOSPO program twice for exactly that reason while voting yes on direct maintenance grants repeatedly.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep the money flowing to maintainers rather than to the machinery around them. Overhead ratio is the number worth publishing here.
e571YESWithdraw ₳583,000 for Eternl Maintenance administered by Intersect583K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
583,000 ADA for Eternl maintenance, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Eternl carries a large share of Cardano's daily transactions. Maintenance of a wallet at that scale is infrastructure spending regardless of the business model behind it.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Nothing material here. Worth noting I have supported Eternl consistently across cycles, including their later sustainability proposal, because they price their team honestly and published an actual path off treasury dependence.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep moving toward self-funding. A wallet that eventually pays for itself is the template I want every maintenance recipient to follow.
e571YESWithdraw ₳243,478 for MLabs Core Tool Maintenance & Enhancement: Plutarch243K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
243,478 ADA for MLabs core tool maintenance and enhancement.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Plutarch and the surrounding tooling are used by dozens of teams building production smart contracts. Tooling that must track protocol evolution is exactly what maintenance funding is for.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Nothing specific. I have voted yes on MLabs maintenance repeatedly across cycles because the dependency is real and the asks stay proportionate.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep publishing the benchmarks and the dependent team count. Those two numbers make every renewal a short conversation.
e571YESWithdraw ₳578,571 for Gerolamo - Cardano node in typescript579K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
578,571 ADA for Gerolamo, a Cardano node written in TypeScript.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Client diversity in a mainstream language is real decentralization work. A node most web developers could read and contribute to widens the pool of people who can keep this chain alive.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Alternative node implementations have a long road from prototype to something SPOs will run in production, and many never arrive.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Report conformance progress against the reference node. Client diversity only counts when the alternative can actually be trusted with blocks.
e571YESWithdraw ₳3,000,000 for High-yield RWA Asset for Cardano: Tokenized Real Estate3.0M ₳DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
3,000,000 ADA for a high-yield real world asset product for Cardano.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Real world assets are one of the few categories bringing genuinely non-speculative activity on chain, and Cardano is behind on them.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. On this item my framework pushes the other way: yield products are commercial ventures with obvious private funding paths, and the treasury should not be seeding financial products that can raise capital elsewhere. If I were voting this one in isolation today, with the framework I apply now, I would want to see private capital first.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. RWA proposals returning to the treasury should come after private capital has built and proven the product, seeking distribution support rather than construction money.
e571YESWithdraw ₳212,000 for AdaStat.net Cardano blockchain explorer212K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
212,000 ADA for AdaStat.net, a Cardano blockchain explorer.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Explorers are how people verify what happened on chain. They are public infrastructure in the plainest sense, and no explorer has a business model that justifies its cost.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Nothing at this size.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep it free, keep it accurate, and keep governance data visible in it. Explorers that surface governance activity make Dreps like me easier to audit, which is exactly what I want.
e571YESWithdraw ₳69,459,000 for Catalyst 2025 Proposal by Input Output: Advancing De...69.5M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
69,459,000 ADA for Catalyst 2025 by Input Output, covering interface development for diversified funding streams and infrastructure upgrades to the community innovation funding program.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Catalyst is the largest community funding experiment in crypto and it has produced real projects alongside a great deal of waste. At this scale it needs to be either fixed properly or wound down, not left to drift.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Nearly 70 million ADA is one of the biggest single line items I have ever voted on, and Catalyst's completion and delivery rates have been a legitimate community grievance for years. Funding the machinery that distributes funding demands the highest accountability standard in the entire budget, and Catalyst has historically not met it.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish completion rates, failure rates, and what funded projects are still alive years later. Catalyst's problem has never been a shortage of ideas. It is the absence of published outcomes, and no interface upgrade fixes that.
e571YESWithdraw ₳700,000 for ZK Bridge administered by Intersect700K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
700,000 ADA for a ZK bridge, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Interoperability is one of my core beliefs about long-term survival. Chains that cannot move value and messages to other chains become islands, and islands lose. Zero knowledge bridging is among the more defensible approaches to that problem.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Bridges are also where crypto suffers its largest losses. Any bridge work has to be audited to a standard well beyond ordinary application code.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish audits before any mainnet value flows. On bridges, security reporting is not optional and speed is not a virtue.
e571YESWithdraw ₳220,914 for Pallas: Sustaining Critical Rust Tooling for Cardano221K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
220,914 ADA for Pallas, the Rust crates re-implementing Cardano's core primitives.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Pallas is the foundation under the entire Rust side of Cardano. Aiken, Dolos, Oura, Mithril, Amaru and others build on it rather than reimplementing protocol primitives themselves.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Nothing material. This is the concrete slab under a whole neighborhood of houses. Nobody sees it, everybody would notice if it cracked, and one competent maintainer on a normal salary is the cheapest insurance in the budget.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted, and I have voted yes on Pallas maintenance again since. Keep tracking ledger eras and keep growing contributors beyond the core team.
e571YESWithdraw ₳26,840,000 for Input Output Research (IOR): Cardano Vision - Wor...26.8M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
26,840,000 ADA for Input Output Research, the Cardano Vision Work Program 2025, covering 20 research streams and 6 technology validation streams within a five year program.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Peer-reviewed research is the reason I chose this chain in 2017 and it remains Cardano's genuine differentiator. Nobody else in this industry does foundational research at this level, and that is a moat as long as it converts into shipped capability.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. The perpetual research critique is fair: streams can run for years without producing anything deployable. At nearly 27 million ADA the conversion question is the whole question.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish the conversion rate from research streams to mainnet capability. That single number would end the recurring argument about whether Cardano research pays for itself, and I suspect the answer is better than critics assume.
e571YESWithdraw ₳1,161,000 for zkFold ZK Rollup administered by Intersect1.2M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
1,161,000 ADA for the zkFold ZK rollup, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Zero knowledge rollups are a leading approach to scaling and Cardano needs credible scaling paths. Throughput decides which chains survive contact with real usage.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Cardano funds several parallel scaling efforts, and eventually the ecosystem has to consolidate behind whichever ones attract actual applications rather than funding every direction forever.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Show applications and volume, not just proofs and benchmarks. Adoption is the only metric that should decide which scaling approach gets funded next.
e571YESWithdraw ₳1,300,000 for Blockfrost Platform community budget proposal1.3M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
1,300,000 ADA for the Blockfrost Platform community build.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Blockfrost is the number one hosted platform Cardano developers use. A community-oriented build of it reduces the single-vendor dependency that comes with that position.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. My position across every Blockfrost proposal is consistent: maintain it, and move it toward community ownership. Funding maintenance forever without changing who owns the front door just deepens the dependency.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted, and I later voted yes on transitioning Blockfrost into a community-governed not-for-profit. That direction is the point. Keep going.
e571YESWithdraw ₳96,817,080 for 2025 Input Output Engineering Core Development Proposal96.8M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
96,817,080 ADA for the 2025 Input Output Engineering Core Development Proposal, covering formal verification tooling, Ouroboros Leios, node architecture refresh, Hydra, Mithril, UTXO-HD and related core engineering.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
This is the core engineering of the chain itself. Leios, node architecture, formal verification and the storage layer are the deepest work in the ecosystem, and none of it has a commercial funding path.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. This is the single largest treasury item I have ever voted on, and I want to be honest about the tension: nearly 97 million ADA to one organization is a concentration risk for a chain that talks constantly about decentralization. I voted yes because the work is genuinely load-bearing and because refusing to fund core engineering would not decentralize anything, it would just stop the chain improving. But the size is exactly why alternative implementations matter so much to me.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Publish delivery against each named workstream, and actively support the alternative node teams so this expertise stops living in one building. Funding the incumbent and funding independence are not opposites, and this ecosystem needs both.
e571YESWithdraw ₳45,217 for MLabs Core Tool Maintenance & Enhancement: Cardano.nix45K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
45,217 ADA for MLabs core tool maintenance and enhancement, a small companion item to their larger maintenance work.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Small maintenance items on tooling that production teams depend on are the highest efficiency spending in any treasury.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. At forty-five thousand ADA, nothing.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep the tooling current with protocol evolution. That is the whole job.
e571YESWithdraw ₳266,667 for Cexplorer.io -- Developer-Focused Blockchain Explorer...267K ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
266,667 ADA for Cexplorer.io, a developer-focused Cardano explorer.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Multiple independent explorers matter for the same reason multiple node implementations matter. If one view of the chain is the only view, that is a centralization no one voted for.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Nothing at this size.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep the data free and the API open. Explorers are how the community fact-checks everyone, including Dreps like me.
e571YESWithdraw ₳2,162,096 for Midgard - Optimistic Rollups administered by Intersect2.2M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
2,162,096 ADA for Midgard, optimistic rollups for Cardano, administered by Intersect.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Optimistic rollups are a proven scaling pattern elsewhere and Cardano needs working layer 2 options that developers can actually deploy on.
What specifically concerns me
This was part of the 2025 Intersect budget slate, which I voted as a slate. I am saying that plainly rather than pretending each line got its own week of deliberation. The slate came through a community budget process with a support threshold before it ever reached the chain, and my judgment was that the process outcome deserved backing in Cardano's first real treasury cycle. Same note as the other scaling items: Cardano funds several parallel L2 approaches, and the ecosystem eventually needs to back the ones attracting real applications rather than sustaining every direction indefinitely.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Report applications deployed and volume settled. Architecture comparisons do not matter. Usage does.
e567YESAmaru Treasury Withdrawal 20251.5M ₳ENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
1,500,000 ADA for the Amaru Treasury Withdrawal 2025, funding the alternative Cardano node implementation.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
A second full node implementation is the most concrete decentralization work available to this ecosystem. One client means one point of catastrophic failure, no matter how well distributed the stake is.
What specifically concerns me
Alternative implementations are hard and many never reach production. At 1.5 million this was a reasonable bet on an early stage effort, and I backed the same team again at epoch 631 for 10.14 million once there was progress to point at. That is the pattern I want proposers to understand: modest first ask, delivery, then scale.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Get to conformance and get SPOs running it. Client diversity claimed is worth nothing. Client diversity running on mainnet is worth a great deal.
e561YESCardano Blockchain Ecosystem Budget: Amaru Node Development 2025DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action for the Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Budget covering Amaru node development.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Same reasoning as every Amaru vote I have cast. Client diversity is foundational and this ecosystem should fund it consistently rather than in fits.
What specifically concerns me
Info Actions that signal intent without binding anything can create a false sense that a decision has been made. The real decision comes at the withdrawal.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped, though Amaru went on to be funded through direct withdrawals. Keep node diversity funded through clear, checkable milestones rather than open-ended programs.
e554YES2025 Cardano NCLDROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action on the 2025 Cardano Net Change Limit.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The treasury needs an agreed spending ceiling before the spending starts, not after. That is basic discipline and I have voted for it consistently at every opportunity.
What specifically concerns me
Multiple competing NCL proposals circulating at once creates confusion about which limit is actually binding. That ambiguity is worse than either number.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Settle one limit, publish outflow against it continuously, and make the remaining headroom visible to every Drep before they vote on the next large withdrawal.
e553YES2025 Net Change Limitposition changedDROPPED¶
Previously voted YES in epoch 553 — changed 2025-04-24
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
This is a superseded vote record on the same governance action, kept visible because this platform never deletes anything from the chain history.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The reasoning is unchanged from the vote that replaced it. My published rationale on the live vote for this action is the substantive one, and it stands for both.
What specifically concerns me
Nothing beyond what I wrote on the live vote. This entry exists because the vote was re-cast on chain without my position changing. Cardano lets a Drep replace a vote while the action is still open, and every prior entry stays on chain permanently. I would rather explain a duplicate than quietly hide one.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
Nothing additional. See the rationale attached to the current vote on this action for the reasoning that actually decided it.
Previously voted NO in epoch 553 — changed 2025-04-24
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
The 2025 Net Change Limit, the constitutionally required cap on treasury withdrawals for the year. This entry records a NO that I later replaced with a YES on the same action.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
A cap has to exist and it has to be a number the treasury can actually survive. My hesitation was never about whether to have a limit. It was about whether this particular limit had been reasoned through or simply proposed.
What specifically concerns me
I changed my vote, and the honest reason is that I was voting against the process rather than the number. Cardano's first NCL debate was messy, with competing proposals and no clear method behind any of the figures, and my initial no was a protest at being asked to ratify a number nobody had justified. On reflection that was the wrong instrument. Voting down the cap does not produce a better cap, it produces no cap at all, and no cap is strictly worse for a treasury than an imperfect one.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. My ask for every NCL since: show the method. Treasury balance, projected inflow, committed spend, and the runway each candidate number produces. Give Dreps arithmetic and the vote gets easy.
Previously voted YES in epoch 553 — changed 2025-04-24
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
This is a superseded vote record on the same governance action, kept visible because this platform never deletes anything from the chain history.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The reasoning is unchanged from the vote that replaced it. My published rationale on the live vote for this action is the substantive one, and it stands for both.
What specifically concerns me
Nothing beyond what I wrote on the live vote. This entry exists because the vote was re-cast on chain without my position changing. Cardano lets a Drep replace a vote while the action is still open, and every prior entry stays on chain permanently. I would rather explain a duplicate than quietly hide one.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
Nothing additional. See the rationale attached to the current vote on this action for the reasoning that actually decided it.
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action establishing the 2025 Net Change Limit, the constitutionally required cap on treasury withdrawals for the period, enabling a yearly budget cycle.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The Constitution requires an NCL and the ecosystem needs an annual budget rhythm. Without a cap and a cycle, treasury spending becomes a continuous negotiation with no boundaries.
What specifically concerns me
This was early in Cardano's governance life and the process for setting the number was still finding its shape. My broader view applies: this system went live before the ecosystem was ready to operate it, and the first NCL debates showed that clearly.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. Make the annual cycle predictable. Proposers should know when the window opens and Dreps should know the ceiling before proposals arrive, not while they are voting.
e542YESDecrease Treasury Tax from 20% to 10%DROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
A parameter change decreasing the treasury tax from 20 percent to 10 percent, intended to increase staking rewards and improve decentralization incentives.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Staking rewards affect whether people delegate at all, and delegation is what secures the chain. There is a real argument that a 20 percent treasury cut is high when rewards are already thin in a down market.
What specifically concerns me
Cutting treasury inflow by half while the ecosystem is trying to fund core development, marketing, and integrations is a hard tradeoff, and I want to be honest that this vote sits in tension with my support for large infrastructure budgets. My reasoning was that returning more to stakers strengthens the base of the network, and that a treasury with less money is also a treasury forced to be more selective. I stand by the instinct even though it cuts against spending I have supported.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped. If treasury tax comes up again, the debate needs actual modeling: treasury runway at each rate against committed spending. That is a numbers question and it deserves numbers, not slogans.
e538YESCardano Constitution to Replace the Interim ConstitutionENACTED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Adopting the Cardano Constitution to replace the Interim Constitution, the product of extensive community consultation through 2024, as required by the Interim Constitution's own ratification appendix.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
No funds involved. This is the foundational document. It needed to exist, it needed to come from community consultation rather than being handed down, and the interim version was always meant to be temporary.
What specifically concerns me
I have said openly that decentralized governance came to Cardano before this ecosystem was ready to carry it, and adopting a constitution does not by itself make people ready. A document is only as good as the willingness to abide by it when it becomes inconvenient.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Hold the Constitutional Committee to publishing its reasoning, every time. A constitution enforced in private is a constitution nobody can trust.
e528YESRename the Chang 2 Hard Fork to the Plomin Hard ForkDROPPED¶
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
An Info Action renaming the Chang 2 hard fork to the Plomin hard fork, honoring Matthew Plomin.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
No funds involved. This is the ecosystem choosing to recognize someone who contributed to it.
What specifically concerns me
Nothing, and I want to explain why I bothered voting at all on something with no money attached. Governance does not have to be adversarial every single time. A community that only ever votes on budgets and never on recognizing its own people is a community with no culture worth defending, and culture is part of what keeps builders here through bear markets.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was dropped as an Info Action, though the name carried in practice anyway, which tells you something about how much of this ecosystem runs on convention rather than on chain. Nothing further asked of anyone here.