STORM Partners

STORM Partners votes NO on Cardano at TOKEN2049 Singapore 2026: Top-Up ‘Title’ Sponsorship Upgrade.

We support the baseline TOKEN2049 presence, but we do not believe the incremental upgrade is justified under the current NCL pressure. The baseline proposal already gives Cardano a serious presence: a large booth, builder stage, event tickets, lead scanning, brand visibility, and coordinated support for ecosystem projects.

The top-up adds premium exposure, including a mainstage keynote, expanded booth size, lanyard branding, media introductions, and additional event access. These are valuable, but they are marginal benefits rather than essential adoption infrastructure.

Given the constrained NCL and the number of competing proposals, we believe the additional ₳1.77M is better preserved for direct adoption, ecosystem usage, or higher-priority funding needs. We vote NO on the top-up while supporting the baseline.

STORM Partners votes NO on the Tweag Core Cardano Infrastructure proposal.
We recognize Tweag’s long-standing contributions to Cardano and the relevance of Peras for faster finality. The proposal includes important work across Peras, resilience, testing, observability, and developer tooling.
However, the ask is too large at this stage. At nearly ₳39.8M over two years, this would consume a major share of the current Net Change Limit, while also funding continuation of work that appears partly connected to prior infrastructure commitments. Under current budget pressure, we believe Cardano should prioritize the most essential protocol and adoption-enabling proposals first.
This is not a rejection of Tweag’s technical credibility. It is a prioritization decision. We vote NO due to cost, timing, and NCL constraints.

STORM Partners votes YES on Cardano at TOKEN2049 Singapore 2026: Baseline ‘Platinum’ Sponsorship Proposal.

We previously had concerns with the combined Summit and TOKEN2049 proposal, particularly around total cost and bundling. This revised baseline proposal is narrower, more disciplined, and more directly focused on giving Cardano builders visibility at one of the most important crypto events globally.

We also acknowledge EMURGO’s public clarification that it will waive the 15% management fee and return it to the treasury, and that future unified event proposals in this budget cycle will exclude a management fee. That materially improves the cost profile and addresses part of the community concern around economic alignment.

Cardano needs more than infrastructure funding. It needs credible visibility, institutional conversations, builder showcases, and adoption-facing activity. This proposal is not a complete adoption strategy, but it is a bounded and measurable step in that direction. We vote YES while expecting clear post-event reporting on leads, builder participation, partnerships, media outcomes, and any surplus returned to the treasury.

STORM Partners votes NO on OriLife × TonFarm.
We appreciate the real-world adoption angle, but we do not see enough strategic priority or traction to justify this proposal under the current NCL constraints.

STORM Partners votes YES on the Revised Cardano Summit 2026 Singapore proposal.

We appreciate that the Cardano Foundation revised the proposal in response to community feedback. Decoupling the Summit from the TOKEN2049 sponsorship, reducing the budget by 22%, narrowing the scope, and increasing the Foundation’s internal contribution are all positive signs. This shows that treasury governance can work as an iterative process where DReps, proposers, and the community challenge assumptions and improve proposals before final voting.

We also see strategic value in hosting the Summit in Singapore, especially around TOKEN2049. If Cardano wants to compete for institutional attention, liquidity, enterprise integrations, and regional adoption in Asia, it needs credible presence in the places where those conversations already happen. The proposal’s KPIs around enterprise leads, strategic meetings, developer participation, demos, and media reach provide a reasonable basis for post-event accountability.

Our support comes with expectations. The Summit should showcase the strongest Cardano-native and Cardano-adjacent products, integrations, and adoption stories, including projects with real market traction and credible user-facing outcomes. It should not become a narrow institutional showcase or a venue for low-impact promotion. We expect transparent reporting after the event, including budget reconciliation, KPI performance, sponsor revenue, and concrete follow-up outcomes.

STORM Partners votes YES on 5am.earth Trust Layer Targeting Vision 2030 KPIs.

This is one of the clearest adoption-oriented proposals in the current treasury batch. It targets a real-world problem, has live mainnet evidence through Project Swaminathan, and is built around a concrete use case: verified agricultural identity, farm data, traceability, finance, and trusted records for smallholder farmers.

The proposal is especially strong because it connects Cardano infrastructure to practical outcomes outside the existing crypto audience. Better farmer records, lower verification costs, improved access to credit, traceability workflows, and stablecoin-based payment rails are all credible paths toward real usage. The proposal also has named partners, existing field distribution, and a milestone structure tied to measurable adoption.

The ask is meaningful at ₳10M, but it is aligned with the type of adoption the treasury should make room for under the Net Change Limit. Cardano needs more proposals that can turn infrastructure into transactions, users, financial activity, and real-world value. This proposal has enough evidence, ambition, and KPI linkage to justify support.

We recognize the strategic importance of maintaining Circle USDCx, LayerZero, Pyth, Dune and institutional custody infrastructure for Cardano. However, the original ₳70M Critical Integrations Budget already included integration, licensing, maintenance fees and related infrastructure costs. The V2 request introduces a further ₳23M for Year 2 costs, maintenance, tooling and Fireblocks, but does not sufficiently separate prior commitments from new incremental costs. Without a clear reconciliation of V1 funds committed, disbursed, remaining, and the vendor-level composition of the V2 maintenance line, we cannot confidently assess whether this is prudent lifecycle funding or a structurally under-specified follow-on budget. Therefore, we abstain pending stronger financial transparency and delivery evidence.

STORM Partners votes YES on Eternl: Path to Sustainability.

Eternl is one of Cardano’s most important user-facing applications. It has been building for years, supports payments, staking, governance, DApp interaction, mobile access, browser extension access, and power-user workflows. Wallets are not abstract infrastructure; they are one of the main ways users actually experience Cardano.

We are generally cautious about treasury support for for-profit products, but this proposal makes a stronger case by presenting a path toward sustainability. The planned Pro model, public monitoring of funds, revenue reporting, and treasury repayment mechanism are important commitments. They help distinguish this from an indefinite subsidy and move the project toward a more durable business model.

Given Eternl’s usage, history, and role in governance and DApp access, maintaining its stability is valuable for the ecosystem. We support this proposal as a bridge toward self-sustainability, with the expectation that future treasury reliance decreases as paid plans and other revenue sources mature.

STORM Partners votes NO on Scalus: Cardano’s Application Platform for Building, Launching, and Scaling.

We recognize the technical strength of the proposal and the credibility of the Lantr team. Scalus addresses a real problem in Cardano: application delivery remains too complex, and builders often need to assemble too many fragmented tools before they can ship serious products. The JVM focus is also strategically relevant, especially for enterprise and financial software teams.

That said, the requested amount is significant at ₳8.5M, and the roadmap is broad across smart contracts, node infrastructure, application runtime, L2 integration, formal verification, and production operations. While these are valuable areas, the proposal still reads more like a platform expansion than a near-term adoption driver with clear usage already pulling it forward.

Given the current Net Change Limit constraints and the volume of infrastructure-related proposals competing for treasury capacity, we believe the treasury should prioritize proposals with more direct, measurable, and near-term adoption impact. This is a respectful NO based on prioritization, not a rejection of the team or the long-term value of the work.

STORM Partners abstains on the Cardano dOSPO and OMF Program.

We respect Christian Taylor and recognize the significant effort behind this proposal. The problem it addresses is real: Cardano depends on open-source infrastructure, and long-term maintainer support remains underdeveloped across the ecosystem.

That said, the proposal asks for ₳12M over 36 months at a time when the NCL is highly constrained and many infrastructure-related proposals are already competing for treasury capacity (e.g. Tooling DAO, Open Source Committee, IO Maintenance proposals, etc.).

Our abstain is not a rejection of the mission or the proposer. It reflects prioritization. In this funding round, we believe the treasury must preserve room for adoption-led proposals that can more directly support usage, transactions, users, and ecosystem growth.

STORM Partners votes YES on Pebble & Ecosystem Maintenance.
This proposal is focused, practical, and directly relevant to Cardano’s developer adoption problem. Pebble offers a more familiar smart contract development path for TypeScript and JavaScript developers, while the maintenance work supports TypeScript tooling already used across the ecosystem. The proposal separates Pebble and tooling maintenance from the Gerolamo node, with a total ask of ₳4.6M.
We support this because Cardano needs more accessible builder pathways, not only stronger core infrastructure. The ask is proportionate, the scope is clear, and the work can reduce friction for developers who would otherwise avoid Cardano’s learning curve.
We vote YES and expect clear reporting on real developer usage, not only technical completion.

We recognize the main criticism of this proposal: Cardano has historically been stronger at producing rigorous research than at consistently translating that research into deployed products, adoption, liquidity, and visible network activity. IO Research itself acknowledges this challenge, noting that around 20% of its 250+ peer-reviewed papers have been implemented in Cardano. That conversion rate needs to improve.
That said, we do not believe Cardano can afford to abandon one of its clearest competitive advantages. Ethereum also invests heavily in R&D: the Ethereum Foundation spent $32.1M on L1 R&D in 2022 and $34.7M in 2023, representing roughly a quarter to a third of its annual spending. Serious L1s fund deep protocol research because long-term competitiveness depends on it.
The key question is not whether research matters. It does. The question is whether research is being connected more tightly to implementation. This proposal explicitly moves in that direction through a more structured pipeline linking research, applied engineering, and product alignment. We support it on that basis.
Our YES vote comes with a clear expectation: future research funding should show stronger evidence of translation into deployable capabilities, ecosystem adoption, and measurable network outcomes. Cardano should protect its research edge, but it must convert more of that edge into real-world usage, or will in the long-term fail to sustain its own R&D departments.

STORM Partners votes YES on IO & VacuumLabs: Enhancing Plutus.
Plutus remains the core smart contract infrastructure for Cardano. Improving performance, safety, and developer usability directly affects the ecosystem’s ability to support production-grade applications.
We also view the collaboration with VacuumLabs positively, as critical infrastructure should not depend too heavily on a single organization. We support this proposal while expecting clear reporting on how the work improves the actual developer experience and application readiness.

STORM Partners votes YES on the IO & Ensurable Systems Cardano Maintenance Initiative.
This is a large ask and creates real pressure on the Net Change Limit. That should not be ignored. However, core maintenance is not optional for a production blockchain. Every user, SPO, developer, and future protocol upgrade depends on reliable releases, bug fixing, security, monitoring, and operational continuity.
We support this proposal because the cost of under-maintaining the core platform would be higher than the cost of funding it. That said, the size of the request raises the reporting bar. We expect clear public updates, strong accountability on delivery, and disciplined handling of unused funds.

STORM Partners votes YES on the IO Consensus Initiative.
Scaling remains one of Cardano’s clearest strategic bottlenecks, and Leios is a core path to addressing it. If Cardano wants to compete for higher-volume use cases across DeFi, payments, gaming, and enterprise applications, base-layer throughput needs to improve.
The proposal is expensive and does not by itself guarantee mainnet activation. Still, the work is necessary to move Cardano closer to credible high-throughput infrastructure. We support it while expecting transparent reporting on testnet progress, risk findings, and readiness for future governance decisions.

STORM Partners votes YES on IO: Cardano Upgrades.
This proposal addresses concrete adoption friction rather than abstract research. Improving fee flexibility, treasury asset capabilities, and transaction usability can make Cardano easier to use for stablecoins, BTC-related use cases, wallets, and enterprise applications.
Some outputs depend on broader protocol work, so this should not be presented as an immediate UX fix. But the direction is commercially relevant and strategically sound. We support this proposal as a practical step toward making Cardano more usable and competitive.

STORM Partners votes YES on the IO Developer Experience Initiative.
Cardano’s adoption challenge is not only technical capacity. It is also developer onboarding, usability, and the ability for new teams to build without excessive friction. This proposal is practical, relatively modest in size, and focused on reducing barriers for builders.
Our caveat is attribution. Developer growth will depend on more than this proposal alone. Still, improving the developer experience is necessary if Cardano wants more applications, users, and transaction volume. We support the proposal and expect success to be measured by real developer usage, not documentation output alone.

STORM Partners votes YES on “Increase Transaction and Block Memory Units (Part 1 of 2)”.

This proposal is a conservative, guardrail-compliant increase to Plutus memory limits per transaction and per block, designed to reduce current bottlenecks for smart contract developers and improve real dApp usability without changing the cost model or requesting treasury funds. It aligns with our DRep objectives to enhance ecosystem efficiency and drive scalable adoption, by removing avoidable execution constraints that force inefficient workarounds and limit what can be done per block. The change follows a staged approach, with testnet deployment and benchmarking referenced, and it preserves network safety constraints while enabling more useful work to fit into a block. We support Part 1 as a measured scaling step. This YES vote does not pre-approve Part 2, which should be assessed after observing mainnet outcomes.

As a minor process note, we support making key technical references for governance actions more durable over time. Links and external websites can change or disappear, so preserving critical benchmarking and rationale artifacts in more immutable formats strengthens long-term auditability and credibility.

STORM Partners votes YES in “Cardano DeFi Liquidity Budget - Withdrawal 1”.

We vote YES because this is a bounded setup withdrawal that funds the minimum legal, smart contract admin tooling, and security audit needed to run the Stablecoin DeFi Liquidity Budget with real controls, before any large liquidity deployment happens. This aligns with our priorities to strengthen Cardano’s resource flywheel, improve how the ecosystem allocates capital, sharpen institutional credibility through auditable governance, and unlock scalable adoption through safer market infrastructure. The proposed custody model (5-of-9 approvals, contract-based administration, milestone-gated disbursements) reduces execution and misuse risk versus ad hoc spending, and it creates a clear accountability surface for future withdrawals. This is a small tranche relative to the program’s implied scope, so a YES here keeps momentum while preserving the option to vote NO on later withdrawals if governance, constitutional compliance, reporting quality, or cost discipline does not meet the bar.

STORM Partners votes YES to establish a Net Change Limit of 350M ADA, covering the period from February 2026 to July 2027. We support this ceiling as a necessary framework to ensure operational continuity and accommodate key strategic commitments, specifically the previously approved 50M ADA Stablecoin Liquidity initiative. This allocation aligns directly with our mandate to enhance ecosystem efficiency and attract capital, prioritizing growth mechanisms that can ultimately drive treasury inflows.
We acknowledge the valid concerns raised by other delegates that a high limit could inadvertently become a spending target rather than a maximum cap. However, the NCL is merely a safety valve, not a mandate to spend; the true responsibility lies with DReps to exercise fiscal discipline during the specific budget application stages. By approving this limit, we empower the governance system to function effectively, reserving our scrutiny for the merit and ROI of individual withdrawal requests rather than restricting the network's capacity to invest in its own growth.

STORM Partners votes NO on the DeltaDeFi Budget Info Action. We recognize the high caliber of the SIDAN Lab team, whose delivery capabilities we have validated through our ongoing impact analysis of their prior grants. Furthermore, we view the maturation of Hydra-based infrastructure as a strategic imperative for Cardano’s scaling roadmap and fully support initiatives that advance Layer 2 viability. Our decision to oppose this proposal is not a reflection on the team’s technical competence, but rather a principled stance on fiscal discipline, market strategy, and the appropriate use of Treasury resources for commercial ventures.

Our primary objection lies in the financial structure of the request. Providing a non-dilutive grant of ₳1.5M to a single commercial exchange for core product development creates a risk of competitive distortion, effectively asking the Treasury to "pick winners" in a dynamic market. For projects with clear profit potential, we believe Treasury support must evolve beyond pure subsidies toward more sustainable financial instruments, such as loans or revenue-sharing agreements, a standard recently established by the governance ecosystem in the SNEK proposal, which we voted in favour of. Additionally, we view the allocation of 20% of the budget to a proprietary KPI measurement program as an inefficient use of capital, given that neutral ecosystem reporting tools are already sufficient to track these metrics without this dedicated project funding.

From a business perspective, the proposal focuses heavily on engineering delivery while neglecting the commercial realities required for a successful exchange. The strategy relies on an assumption that infrastructure alone will drive adoption, yet it lacks a concrete plan for bootstrapping liquidity or incentivizing market makers, which are the primary drivers of any DEX’s success. Furthermore, the current "managed" Hydra topology introduces custodial trust assumptions that, without a clear and binding roadmap to decentralization, present a governance risk. We encourage the team to refine the proposal by addressing these commercial gaps and restructuring the financial request to separate open-source common goods from private commercial advancement.

STORM Partners votes YES on the Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Constitution v2.4. This update makes the constitution more enforceable and easier to operate by removing non-binding language and eliminating the Budget Info Action mechanism, while keeping and clarifying treasury safeguards directly inside Treasury Withdrawal standards, including audit and oversight requirements. We also support the immutability requirement for proposal documents because it reduces the risk of post-submission bait-and-switch and strengthens governance integrity.

STORM Partners votes YES on the Cardano 2030: Vision, Mission, Strategy Framework and KPIs Info Action. We have followed this work firsthand through our participation in the process and have seen the volume and quality of community input across multiple workshops and feedback cycles. Cardano is entering heavier governance and treasury decision cycles, and doing so without a shared direction and a baseline set of KPIs creates a real coordination and fragmentation risk. We agree with critics that the KPI layer is still light and some definitions are too loose, making parts of it vulnerable to vanity metrics, but that is a reason to harden v1, not to block it. This is an Info Action, not a spend authorization, so approving an imperfect first version has limited downside in our view, while the upside is immediate by giving the wider community a common reference to pressure-test proposals for strategic fit starting now.
We also view the proposed high-value verticals as illustrative and non-exclusive signals of current focus, not as fixed or permanent constraints on innovation or future opportunity for Cardano. They should be treated as hypotheses that can evolve with data, market feedback, and changing conditions, rather than hard boundaries. We will treat this framework as one input, not a gatekeeping tool or checklist for all governance decision-making, and we expect follow-on updates, from both the Product Committee’s newly elected members and the wider Cardano community, to add clearer definitions, baselines, and higher-signal metrics around delivery quality, accountability, and sustainability.

STORM Partners votes YES on this Constitutional Committee update.
This action strengthens governance continuity by adding a buffer above the minimum committee size, reducing the risk of disruption if a member steps down or becomes inactive. While expanding the committee from seven to eight members increases the absolute two-thirds approval threshold, we consider this a reasonable tradeoff in light of past governance precedents, with the Atlantic Council CC stepping down and temporarily stalling decision-making.
We had the honour to meet Christina in person during the Cardano Summit in Berlin, and we are confident in her expertise, judgment, and ability to contribute constructively to the Constitutional Committee’s work. Her experience aligns well with the responsibilities of the role, and we thank her, as well as Cardano Curia and all candidates, for stepping forward during the recent Constitutional Committee elections.

Overall, this is a low-risk action that improves institutional resilience and helps ensure Cardano’s governance remains functional and credible throughout the current mandate.

STORM Partners votes YES on the Protocol Version 11 hard fork. Beyond the technical advancements this upgrade brings to the network, we strongly support the decision to name this milestone in honor of Pieter van Rossem. Although we did not have the privilege of meeting Pieter in person, we recognize his reputation as a valuable and enthusiastic builder whose passion helped shape the ecosystem. We are proud to cast this vote as a tribute to his legacy, ensuring his dedication is memorialized within the protocol’s history.

STORM Partners is voting YES to support CF’s proposal to secure the .ada and .cardano domains for the ecosystem. The initiative aligns with CF’s stewardship of the Cardano trademark and strengthens the network’s digital identity. It could enable meaningful integrations between Web2 and Web3 by bridging traditional DNS infrastructure with projects such as Handshake, ADA Handle, and other emerging identity or decentralized naming solutions. CF is well-positioned to manage these domains responsibly and ensure they serve the ecosystem’s collective interests. By bringing this initiative on-chain, CF seeks community input that reinforces its legitimacy and increases the likelihood of successfully securing the registrations through ICANN.

STORM Partners is voting NO on the CC Compensation proposal. We recognize the importance of fairly compensating governance contributors, including CC members, and agree that sustainability requires moving beyond purely voluntary participation. However, this proposal lacks the necessary transparency, consultation, and strategic framing expected of a treasury withdrawal of this scale. There was no prior public debate with DReps or the community, and the ₳1,000,000 allocation, while not excessive, was defined without clear benchmarking, scope definition, or performance expectations.

Our position is not against compensation but against premature institutionalization. Governance funding should evolve through an open, data-driven process that defines how all bodies - CC, DReps, and others - are compensated within a lean and sustainable governance system. As emerging AI-assisted constitutional analysis workflows demonstrate, efficiency and automation can reduce manual overhead and cost over time.

We therefore oppose this proposal in its current form while encouraging a revised, community-endorsed compensation framework that balances fairness, accountability, and long-term fiscal responsibility.

STORM Partners is voting YES on the ₳5,000,000 loan because the structure offers a responsible way to deploy treasury capital with repayment, oversight, and enforceability built in. The loan terms, auditing, and milestone-controlled disbursements provide enough protection to justify the risk, given the scale of potential liquidity and visibility gains for Cardano.

We support Snek Foundation as the executor because they have already proven they can deliver Tier 1 listings and have real revenue capacity to repay the loan while improving Cardano’s liquidity and visibility. Risks around concentration and partial opacity remain, but the safeguards, milestone-based disbursements, and audits make this a reasonable test case for loan-based treasury instruments.

STORM Partners supports this governance action to reimburse the lost deposit from the symbolic “Ikigai” Info Action. The proposer acted in good faith during the early rollout of on-chain governance and was penalized due to a technical bug outside their control. Approving this reimbursement demonstrates integrity in Cardano’s governance system and honors early community participation that helped test and stabilize the process after the Chang upgrade. The requested amount is modest, constitutionally compliant, and poses no fiscal or governance risk. Restoring these funds reinforces accountability and fairness within the ecosystem’s foundational governance phase.

STORM Partners votes YES on the adoption of the Cardano Constitution v2.3.
This version continues the clean-up and refinement work started in v2.0, strengthening Cardano’s governance foundation with clearer definitions, consistent terminology, and immutability requirements for all governance docs. It also extends treasury accountability measures that were previously limited to large withdrawals, applying them universally to reinforce transparency and trust.

The removal of non-binding “expectations” and the formal CC Code of Conduct requirement makes sense. These elements are better governed through community norms and social consensus rather than constitutional enforcement. What matters is that the Constitution remains concise, enforceable, and focused on verifiable obligations, and v2.3 delivers on that principle.

We see this as a continuation of Cardano’s shift toward a governance model that is more practical, accountable, and institutionally credible. It removes unnecessary friction while preserving integrity.

We vote YES on this proposal because it pioneers a repayable treasury instrument that could transform how Cardano funds high-impact initiatives, turning one-time grants into revolving capital that grows with the ecosystem. The proposal is expected to strengthen Cardano’s liquidity position, expand Cardano’s top-of-funnel retail discovery, and produce reusable legal and integration playbooks that lower future CNT listing friction.

The Snek team has already delivered three Tier-1 listings, proving their ability to execute and their commitment to Cardano. They carry significant reputational risk with this proposal, which further aligns their incentives to deliver and repay as promised.

We recognize real concerns about on-chain conversion, repayment sensitivity to market cycles, concentration risk in a single meme asset, and advisor role optics. Because this is the first treasury loan, it will set a precedent for future lending. We therefore support strengthening what is already proposed with clear milestone-based disbursements, quarterly progress and repayment reporting (rather than only bi-annual), advisor confirmation statements, and public availability of the legally binding loan agreement between Intersect and the Snek Foundation to clarify remedies in the event of default.

Our YES is a vote of confidence in a proven team, but also a call to raise the bar on accountability and knowledge-sharing as Cardano experiments with revolving treasury capital.

We see strong strategic value in this proposal. It lays out a credible, milestone-gated plan to expand Cardano’s presence in Oceania, build BD capacity, and run meaningful pilots. The team is competent with deep roots in Cardano, and the design is transparent, which lowers execution risk.

However, this request lands late in the 2025 budget cycle and somewhat overlaps with ecosystem activation initiatives that were just funded. Committing another 778k now could dilute focus and compress treasury runway, particularly when higher-impact funding (e.g., liquidity injection for DeFi growth) is imminent.

We are abstaining to signal support for the concept but recommend resubmission for the 2026 budget cycle, ideally after broader community discussion and early pilot results (potentially via Catalyst). This would allow the community to socialise the plan, prioritise alongside other regions, and scale with stronger evidence of ROI.

As a candidate in the election ourselves, STORM Partners recognizes the integrity and transparency of the process, and we fully endorse both its outcome and the individuals and councils stepping into this critical governance role. The staggered terms ensure continuity, and the committee's composition reflects a broad and global representation of the Cardano community.

The Constitutional Committee is essential to the checks and balances of Cardano’s on-chain governance system. We trust in the capabilities of the elected members and commend their commitment to serve the ecosystem.

We also extend our appreciation to Intersect and the election working group for successfully facilitating this complex yet vital transition. Their work has helped reinforce legitimacy and community confidence in Cardano’s governance framework.

We support the adoption of the Cardano Constitution v2.0.

While the changes appear largely structural (improving clarity, fixing typos, and removing redundancy) one modification carries real governance implications: eliminating the requirement to submit a Budget Information Governance Action (BIA) prior to any treasury withdrawal.

We believe this is a positive change. The BIA mechanism was a well-intentioned but ultimately redundant safeguard. Its removal does not eliminate treasury oversight. Removing this bottleneck improves operational agility for builders without compromising systemic integrity.

We encourage fellow DReps, SPOs, and ecosystem participants to self-organize and maintain off-chain codes of conduct and community norms, which can be upheld through social consensus and delegation behavior, and that ultimately represent what we consider best-practices for on-chain governance participants.
We believe v2.0 is a net-positive step toward a more legible and functional governance framework. We vote YES.

We recognize the Snek team as one of the most committed and impactful teams in the Cardano ecosystem. Their execution track record, self-funded T1 listings, and contribution to broader CNT adoption are clear. The momentum around $SNEK has brought visibility, cultural traction, and on-chain usage that no other Cardano-native token has matched to date.

However, we are voting NO on this treasury withdrawal in its current form.
We believe exchange listings can play a role in Cardano’s growth. But we draw the line at direct treasury funding for listing fees unless there's a clear path to ROI or ecosystem-wide benefit. Funding a single-token listing without any form of repayment or collective infrastructure outcome sets a precedent that is difficult to sustain long term.

We encourage the Snek team to return with a revised proposal. Specifically, one that:

• Outlines a more detailed and transparent budget;

• Includes a mechanism to repay the Treasury, such as a bond or revenue share based on Snek Network activity;

• Or alternatively, builds a shared roadmap for CNT listings/infrastructure that can benefit the ecosystem as a whole.

The Snek team has already delivered value and earned community trust. It’s arguably the project that gave back the most to the treasury, and with a more sustainable structure and alignment with our treasury principles, we would be open to supporting a future version of this initiative.

We recognize the Snek team as one of the most committed and impactful teams in the Cardano ecosystem. Their execution track record, self-funded T1 listings, and contribution to broader CNT adoption are clear. The momentum around $SNEK has brought visibility, cultural traction, and on-chain usage that no other Cardano-native token has matched to date.

However, we are voting NO on this treasury withdrawal in its current form.
We believe exchange listings can play a role in Cardano’s growth. But we draw the line at direct treasury funding for listing fees unless there's a clear path to ROI or ecosystem-wide benefit. Funding a single-token listing without any form of repayment or collective infrastructure outcome sets a precedent that is difficult to sustain long term.

We encourage the Snek team to return with a revised proposal. Specifically, one that:

• Outlines a more detailed and transparent budget;

• Includes a mechanism to repay the Treasury, such as a bond or revenue share based on Snek Network activity;

• Or alternatively, builds a shared roadmap for CNT listings/infrastructure that can benefit the ecosystem as a whole.

The Snek team has already delivered value and earned community trust. It’s arguably the project that gave back the most to the treasury, and with a more sustainable structure and alignment with our treasury principles, we would be open to supporting a future version of this initiative.

After a closer review of the Haus proposal and deeper alignment with Cardano’s long-term strategic goals, we’ve decided to change our vote from Abstain to Yes. While initial concerns centred on execution risk, further analysis revealed key differentiators: over 30,000 users on the waitlist and a clear path to unlocking $4.1B in tokenizable equity. This positions Haus not just as a technical deployment, but as a catalytic opportunity to elevate Cardano into the top tier of real-world asset ecosystems—at a time when credible RWA traction is still rare across chains.

Equally important, the funding structure is milestone-gated, auditable, and profit-aligned with the treasury—mitigating delivery risk while reinforcing Cardano’s public-good ethos. In our view, this proposal now represents a strategic fit with Cardano’s vision as reliable infrastructure for high-assurance financial applications. We believe supporting it sends the proper signal to other institutional-grade builders exploring the ecosystem.

We initially voted NO on this proposal, but after having an honest and open discussion with the project we decided to change our vote. It wasn’t about the team or their track record–zkFold has consistently delivered what they promised in the ecosystem.

Our reasoning for the initial vote was that more L2s, especially rollups, on Cardano would decrease the amount of fees that go to the treasury. We understand now that there are additional conversations in progress with enterprises who view this as a pre-requisite to work on Cardano, and that this is also something that has been observed as a market trend and an enabler for certain kinds of transactions. Having several channels and models for high-throughput and privacy on the chain also increases the resilience of the network.

We note that in order for the value of this project to be realized to the fullest, it will have to be coordinated with enterprise adoption efforts, which will also need support, funding, and skilled teams. With that being said, we wholeheartedly support the project and invite anyone else to reach out to us on votes or issues within the Cardano ecosystem as we found the dialogue to be constructive and useful in our decision making processes.

This proposal offers strategic upside by positioning Cardano as a smart contract hub for Bitcoin, an ambition that aligns with STORM Partners’ mission to enhance Cardano’s market position, liquidity access, and institutional appeal. Maestro has proven its ability to deliver infrastructure at scale, and the outlined integrations could directly benefit DeFi, wallets, and L2s. In our point of view, the scope, timing, and strategic leverage justify treasury support at this stage.

This proposal directly aligns with STORM Partners’ DRep principles: it enhances ecosystem efficiency and promotes governance adoption by operationalizing post-MVG feedback loops. Given the importance of building a sustainable, self-improving governance process for the upcoming years, this is a timely and essential investment.

STORM Partners supports this as critical research work that will expand Cardano’s future capabilities in privacy and authentication. The team at MLabs is strong and well-suited for the task, and the budget ask is modest relative to the scope. We vote YES.

The proposal offers ecosystem benefits and aligns with STORM Partners’ goals to lower dev friction. However, the service is closed-source and vendor-controlled, making it a centralized dependency without community ownership. In our view, the funds should prioritize shared, open, forkable infrastructure, not subsidize vendor-based platforms and proprietary SaaS models.

PyCardano is a critical, open-source library with real-world usage within the ecosystem. It enables transaction creation in Python without third-party tooling, directly supporting Cardano’s developer accessibility.
With upcoming protocol updates, continued maintenance is essential. This proposal aligns with STORM Partners’ goals to enhance ecosystem efficiency and attract diverse developer talent. We vote YES.

As demonstrated by SNEK’s Kraken listing, we believe that CNAs can reach tier-1 exchanges through organic traction and strategic execution without treasury intervention. STORM Partners believes treasury funds should be allocated toward reinforcing decentralized infrastructure and on-chain liquidity rather than subsidizing centralized listings with unclear long-term ROI.

STORM Partners votes YES on this initiative to enhance Cardano’s presence at major events. The proposal presents a pragmatic and cost-effective approach, accompanied by clear ROI metrics and a credible team. While we also supported a higher-budget, similar proposal from founding entities, we view both as complementary efforts targeting different segments and execution styles. Going forward, we believe it will be valuable for the community to compare outcomes between the two initiatives to better assess cost-effectiveness, reach, and long-term impact.

This proposal addresses key bottlenecks in Cardano adoption: stablecoin liquidity, fiat ramps, and institutional custody. It delivers critical infrastructure to boost homegrown stablecoins adoption like USDA and USDM.
The vendors commit to reinvesting earnings into Cardano liquidity and adoption incentives. The deliverables directly enhance DeFi participation and enterprise utility. STORM Partners supports this high-leverage, infrastructure-focused initiative.

OpShin lowers the barrier to entry for Cardano development by enabling smart contract creation in Python, one of the most widely used and accessible programming languages. This aligns with STORM Partners’ goals to attract talent, improve infrastructure efficiency, and broaden adoption. As an open-source and bootstrapped project, we believe it deserves treasury support to continue growing and evolving. We vote YES.

Scalus is a technically ambitious proposal with a highly qualified team, and its strategic goal aligns with our objective of enhancing developer efficiency and attracting new talent.
While the proposal is structured and the vendor is credible, we believe innovation-stage tools like Scalus are better suited to Catalyst until product-market fit and/or initial traction are demonstrated. In our view, treasury funds should focus on proven, ecosystem-critical infrastructure with validated usage.

This proposal offers a funding mechanism that complements Catalyst by addressing vote centralization, treasury limitations, and impact tracking. The model is technically sound, Socious team is experienced and committed to Cardano, and 100% of funds go directly to projects. At STORM Partners, we support it as a strategic experiment to evolve funding infrastructure in Cardano.

This proposal advances Cardano’s technical maturity through a combination of high-impact infrastructure initiatives. It aligns with STORM Partners’ mission to back proposals that enhance ecosystem efficiency, developer experience, and long-term resilience.
We believe having several independent contributors to the core development of Cardano beyond IOG is beneficial, as we shift toward a decentralized development model. However, we stress the importance of strong coordination with the TSC to avoid overlapping and duplication of spending.

Cexplorer is a mature, widely used piece of infrastructure with over 50K MAUs, maintained by a proven team. It offers clear value to developers and SPOs and has a history of consistent delivery. The funding request is reasonable, the proposal is well-structured, and there’s ongoing plans of open-sourcing.

Plutarch is a core component of the Cardano smart contract ecosystem and already widely adopted by developers. It enables robust, production-grade contracts and helps keep Cardano competitive for technically advanced builders. Like any foundational tool, it requires sustained maintenance and iterative improvement to remain viable. Supporting this proposal ensures that Plutarch stays current, secure, and aligned with the needs of the community.

Dolos offers a lightweight and reliable alternative for accessing Cardano ledger data, solving a clear pain point for developers without requiring full-node infrastructure. TxPipe has proven capable of delivering and maintaining critical tooling, and the ask is reasonable for the defined FTEs. This proposal supports STORM Partners’ objective to enhance ecosystem efficiency and usability through well-maintained public goods, justifying a YES vote.

AdaStat is a reliable, long-standing, open-source explorer with real usage and uptime since 2019. It strengthens ecosystem resilience through redundancy, aligns with STORM Partners’ goal to support transparent infrastructure, and offers real value to DReps, SPOs, and developers. The team is competent, the scope is reasonable, and the ask funds meaningful improvements over 24 months.

Eternl is a key user-facing infrastructure component of Cardano and remains one of the most widely adopted wallets across platforms. However, the closed-source nature of the product and the absence of long-term sustainability pathways raise red flags for us.

We acknowledge Eternl’s work, and our approach is to abstain on proposals that may have strong community backing but don’t yet present clear strategic value or sufficient delivery confidence. For supporting future treasury requests, we’d like to see either a plan to open-source core components, or a clear long-term sustainability pathway.

Lucid is one of the most widely adopted tools for interacting with Cardano smart contracts, and its long-term maintenance is key to retaining and supporting builders. Anastasia Labs is a proven, reliable team, and the request is modest given the impact. While the budget could benefit from more detail, the open-source nature and ecosystem dependence justify strong support.

STORM Partners votes YES on this proposal to support Cardano’s global visibility through a coordinated events strategy. While we are also backing a leaner, community-led alternative, we believe both approaches offer complementary value. This initiative benefits from experienced execution and broad reach. We encourage a future comparison of outcomes between both proposals to help the community assess cost-effectiveness and refine event strategy moving forward.

STORM Partners believes this is a strategically important step toward aligning the ecosystem around user needs, market opportunities, and a shared product roadmap beyond Voltaire. The proposed methodology is robust, inclusive, and backed by capable contributors. We especially support the emphasis on structured research, stakeholder consultation, and transparent insight-sharing as foundations for a more adaptive and user-centric Cardano.

A ZK bridge framework positions Cardano to interact credibly with external ecosystems while laying the groundwork for future zkRollup infrastructure.
The technical scope is ambitious but justified, and the vendor (Eryx) brings strong ZK expertise with relevant contributions in both the Cardano and Ethereum ecosystems. This aligns with STORM Partners’ mission to support high-leverage infrastructure that attracts capital, talent, and developer adoption while expanding Cardano’s narrative as a privacy and security-first chain.

This proposal addresses a long-standing UX and compatibility issue in one of the most critical Cardano user interfaces: the Ledger HW. Standardizing the app UI improves accessibility, testing, and confidence for end users, which directly supports STORM Partners’ objective to retain and secure ADA holders. Vacuumlabs is highly qualified for this task, and the ask is proportionate for the scope. We vote YES.

This proposal directly aligns with STORM Partners’ objective of retaining and securing Cardano users by ensuring uninterrupted access to the network through HW. Cold wallets are foundational for institutional and retail confidence, and Vacuumlabs has consistently delivered secure integrations for years. While we would prefer a more detailed funding breakdown, the strategic value of this proposal justifies the maintenance allocation.

We vote YES. Supporting client diversity at the node level is a core part of strengthening Cardano’s decentralization and resilience. A lightweight TypeScript node that runs in-browser could unlock significant improvements in dApp UX and eliminate dependence on centralized relays. Harmonic Labs is a serious builder with a history of tackling hard infrastructure problems aligned with Cardano’s values

STORM Partners is abstaining on this proposal. We respect and appreciate the Builders DAO team, and we acknowledge the many members behind the initiative which have delivered real value to the ecosystem. However, our approach is to abstain on proposals that may have strong community backing but don’t yet present clear strategic value or sufficient delivery confidence for us. In this case, concerns remain around the lack of detailed budget breakdowns, internal-only governance structures, and an unproven execution model at this scale. We acknowledge the potential, but we prefer to abstain on this one.

Pallas is a critical Rust toolkit supporting top Cardano projects. Funding its maintenance directly strengthens developer infrastructure and aligns with STORM Partners’ goal to retain technical talent. TxPipe has a solid delivery history, and the tool’s impact is well established. Despite minor budget opacity, the need is clear and the benefits high.

Intersect is central to Cardano’s transition into Voltaire. Despite past missteps, the organization is adapting, decentralizing leadership, and improving transparency. As STORM Partners, we value structured governance, ecosystem-wide coordination, and long-term scalability. Intersect is not perfect, but it’s necessary, and it’s evolving in the right direction. This is a strategic, not sentimental, yes.

Pallas is a critical Rust toolkit supporting top Cardano projects. Funding its maintenance directly strengthens developer infrastructure and aligns with STORM Partners’ goal to retain technical talent. TxPipe has a solid delivery history, and the tool’s impact is well established. Despite minor budget opacity, the need is clear and the benefits high.

This proposal directly addresses a systemic weakness in Cardano’s development lifecycle: the lack of structured, recurring support for open-source infrastructure. By operationalizing a Paid Open Source Model, it creates a scalable path to retain talent and maintain core tools. While the budget is significant, the strategic value and the end goal - supporting Cardano’s open-source path - justify the price.

STORM Partners supports this proposal as it maintains open-source infrastructure for Cardano’s Java developer ecosystem. While the ask is modest and the tools serve real utility, we believe that long-term maintenance of small libraries is better handled through broader umbrella programs like the OSC’s open-source budget model. Such structures would improve prioritization and reduce overhead moving forward. With that being said, until those frameworks are fully operational, we consider this a justified use of treasury funds and vote YES.

This initiative is aligned with STORM Partners’ DRep mandate: it attracts capital and talent, amplifies Cardano’s global presence, and promotes ecosystem collaboration.

The proposal also introduces forward-looking sustainability, with the end goal of making the Cardano Summit a self-sustaining event.

STORM Partners' direct experience with previous summits affirms the value of having a Cardano-only anchor event that unifies messaging, showcases achievements, and attracts talent, regulators, enterprises, and builders alike.

Blockfrost is a proven infrastructure provider that has meaningfully contributed to developer adoption on Cardano. This proposal aligns strongly with STORM Partners’ objectives by enhancing ecosystem efficiency and decentralizing access to critical APIs. The move to open-source and integrate SPOs through the Icebreaker program directly supports decentralization and reduces single-point-of-failure risks. We support this continuation of core infrastructure decentralization efforts.

IOG has delivered much of Cardano’s foundational architecture through rigorous, peer-reviewed research. This proposal extends that work, funding 20 research streams and 6 technology validations in areas critical to Cardano’s evolution.
While the omnibus format includes streams of varying impact and a somewhat elevated FTE, Cardano’s research-first approach is a core differentiator, and continued investment in long-horizon R&D is essential to maintain its narrative and positioning in the L1 landscape. At STORM Partners, we support this as a strategic reinforcement of that vision.

Catalyst has been Cardano’s primary engine for community-led innovation since 2020. While imperfect and sometimes criticized, it remains the single most important mechanism for bottom-up experimentation and enterprise/builder onboarding.

Moreover, the funds will alow the team to improve its decentralized backend, and do some necessary improvements to the voting UI, among other interesting initiatives, like RPGF and voting improvements.

With ₳61M allocated for upcoming rounds (F14–F16), this initiative sustains momentum while evolving towards a more evolved, resilient and decentralized innovation mechanism.

IOG has delivered the foundational infrastructure of Cardano with high engineering standards throughout the years. This proposal builds directly upon that, with essential upgrades like Leios, Hydra, and enhanced dev tooling. The proposal impact is clear: this is necessary work to scale Cardano for the next cycle.

Midgard’s proposal directly aligns with STORM Partners’ objective to make Cardano more efficient and strengthen its technical capabilities. We consider Midgard a cornerstone project for realizing the scaling ambitions of the Basho era. It is poised to demonstrate the unique advantages of Cardano's eUTxO model for rollups, representing the ecosystem's best opportunity for a truly native Layer 2 solution. The team is highly capable and committed to Cardano's success, and we believe the proposed budget is entirely reasonable for the immense value it will deliver.

While the budget lacks granularity and milestone details are not public, the request is modest and comes from a deeply committed team with a solid delivery track record. Cardano.nix is an essential tool for reproducible infrastructure deployment, and its ongoing maintenance serves a broad range of ecosystem actors. We support this as a show of trust in MLabs and to ensure continuity of key infra work. That said, we encourage future proposals to bundle under the OSC or Catalyst to streamline oversight, or have a more detailed breakdown of budget allocations.

STORM Partners initially registered as a DRep via Tempo.vote, so we recognize the project’s importance and value to the ecosystem.

That said, despite our support for its mission, we are voting No on this proposal for the following reasons: it lacks detailed budget justification, defined milestones, and on-chain accountability mechanisms. The absence of transparency, delivery guarantees, and alignment with Cardano’s constitutional guardrails undermines its legitimacy.

As one of the first governance actions, we believe it is essential to set a strong precedent. We expect a higher level of transparency, depth, and justification in future governance actions, even for “temp check” info actions.

STORM Partners is voting “YES” on the Cardano GovTool Budget Info Action.
GovTool plays a critical role in enabling decentralized on-chain governance. As the main interface for governance participation across Cardano, it has become an absolute necessity for the ecosystem.

We appreciate that the team went back to the drawing board, listened to community input, and reduced the original request from 2M to 1.15M ADA. That shows responsiveness, maturity, and willingness to adapt according to community needs.

While we still consider the revised budget relatively high for the number of FTEs involved, the impact and reach of GovTool - especially the number of governance tools and platforms that rely on its APIs - justify continued support at this early stage.

This proposal helps sustain the backbone of Cardano’s governance, while keeping the door open for improvement. With a commitment to open-source code, transparent communication, a dedicated Intersect WG, and an incentivized contribution model, the community can actively shape GovTool’s future and improve on its weaknesses to create an accessible and open platform for everyone to build upon.

We are voting YES. Amaru's proposal provides essential client diversity for the Cardano network, backed by exemplary on-chain financial governance and a group of proven ecosystem builders.

This vote is a direct application of our core principles: supporting initiatives that deliver systemic strength, high accountability assurance, and strategically positions Cardano for long-term adoption.

1. Proposal benefits:
   Decentralization at the node-level is vital for Cardano’s future. Amaru delivers this critical client diversity, mitigating a key systemic risk and enhancing network resilience. Its Rust-based implementation is also a strategic asset which lowers the barrier for a new generation of developers to contribute to Cardano's core. This supports our objective of strengthening the ecosystem's foundation and attracting high-value talent.

2. On-chain accountability:
   The proposal's fund administration sets a high bar for future treasury withdrawal gov. actions. Funds are locked in smart contracts requiring multiple signers for any spending (3-of-4), and major changes to this contract (in case of key loss, departure, death) require consensus from all five PRAGMA members (5-of-5). This, plus the addition of metadata to smart contracts transactions for auditing, is the level of transparency we expect for any treasury withdrawal.
   The team also offered a constitutionality self-assessment, which is good to see.

3. Strategic Use of Treasury:
   Funding Amaru is a direct investment in a non-commercial, public good. The PRAGMA includes some of Cardano's most experienced teams working on foundational infrastructure. Using the treasury for this purpose is its ideal function: funding essential work that is difficult to monetize but which generates immense downstream value and utility for the entire network.

We vote YES on "Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Budget - 275 M ADA administered by Intersect" Governance Info Action.

Although we acknowledge the voting process was far from perfect, we believe the proposal reflects the community’s will and received robust input through signaling on Ekklesia voting.

By entrusting Intersect with multi-sig smart-contract oversight, KYC/KYB checks and milestone-based disbursements, this action aligns with our commitment to rigorous stewardship and trustworthy execution.

We see this budget as a statement that Cardano’s growth will be fueled by strategic collaboration, measurable outcomes and ongoing community feedback.

While some proposals in this bundle have not met the 67 % threshold we’d expect for a Treasury Withdrawal GA, since the 39 proposals will most likely be submitted as individual GA, we believe it’s appropriate to tentatively back the info action and keep the momentum going.