TriangleForces

I'm not really comfortable putting money into a title sponsorship of this size without solid evidence that the extra benefits for Cardano outweigh what Rare Evo would offer on its own. Remember, as the proposal states, the event is going to happen whether we support it or not.

I keep saying this: the Treasury should focus on funding public goods and filling strategic gaps, not act as the premium events and marketing department for the ecosystem or as a bank for loans that never get paid back (like $SNEK!).

**I appreciate what Rare Evo is doing, but I don't think spending ₳2.75M on sponsorship-heavy visibility is a wise use of Treasury funds. **Cardano needs clear signals, but we definitely don't need fancy setups with a blockchain logo right now.

**I don’t really get the technical details of Plutus cost modeling, and I’m not going to pretend that I do. **As a serious DRep, I know there’s a big difference between being diligent and just acting like an expert for show. So, I expect capable technical teams to handle the hard work on this kind of proposal. That’s why I take seriously the fact that this protocol change was suggested by Intersect’s Parameter Committee and validated by the Technical Steering Committee after thorough testing. That process is important to me.

That said, I’m not oblivious to any potential concerns and want to point out that some numbers seem off. **There are negative values even though the proposal states that the cost model follows the non-negative guardrail. Either the story is unclear, the figures shown aren’t accurate, or something's not right. **None of those scenarios is great. Trust takes time to build but can be lost in an instant. I trust the experts for now, but I don’t put them on a pedestal.

Maybe someone with more experience could take a look at this prefix issue?

Agriculture is a real use case, and if we could create a Cardano-based identity, farm data, oracle, and credit system for smallholders, it could actually have real benefits. Provided it’s designed as neutral infrastructure instead of just a way for a private group to bring in customers.

But that’s a big “if,” because there’s a huge credibility gap between the current proof and what's asked for in this proposal. The claim is that there are 10k Mainnet farm registrations and that 10M ADA is needed to scale up to 500k farmers across three countries via three different application paths. That’s a mix of several businesses, a public-good initiative, a development finance program, and a governance experiment all bundled together.

With the little info available, it’s tough to justify the budget figure. What I’d really like to see is clearer proof that Cardano is creating lasting value, not just generating feel-good transaction numbers and flashy slides at conferences. The projections for 2030, especially the $900M TVL and around 16M-20M ADA in annual protocol revenue seem way too optimistic and not well-supported.

Cardano could have a solid use case in agriculture, but the Treasury shouldn’t back a big consortium until the economics for public good are solidly substantiated.

There’s a good point at the heart of this, but overall, this proposal is clouded by too much institutional jargon. Keeping live integrations up and running is just basic upkeep. I understand that. Circle, LayerZero, Pyth, and Fireblocks are serious tools, not toys. If Cardano wants to be seen as a serious piece of infrastructure, regular maintenance is just part of the deal. That much is reasonable.

What’s concerning is that this is **another ₳23M request AFTER the ecosystem already took on ₳70M for CCI V1 **. That’s an incredibly pricey way to say “just keep things running.” The proposal talks about necessity, but it lacks solid reasons for the budget without detailed vendor pricing, comparisons, or proof that these services aren’t being paid at top dollar while the community is just expected to trust the system.

The Fireblocks part is the most justifiable new addition, but I’d still like a clearer explanation of why it needs to be included in the same request instead of being handled separately. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Bundling makes things easier for proposers because it hides weaker aspects within stronger ones.

I believe in the importance of maintaining essential integrations, but this** request is too big, unclear, and too convenient in its bundling.**

Scalus got funded in 2025 to validate a development platform thesis. Now, **less than a year later, the ask jumps to ₳8.5M and the scope balloons. With verification still ongoing and not concluded. We're horizontally expanding the scope, which is unacceptable without concrete evidence. **Finish the validation first, then we talk!

I say if often, but it's worth repeating: The treasury is not a venture fund underwriting platform ambition. The treasury is first and foremost risk capital for demonstrated ecosystem demand. And the numbers here do not support this leap. JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Haskell, Aiken… there's the pull. has real pull. Scalus, by their own metrics, is early and narrow.

What the wizkids on Cardano still don't understand in their coding dorms is that **enterprises do not adopt blockchains because the runtime feels familiar. Institutional adoption happens when users, liquidity, and revenue already exist. **Platforms follow traction, not the other way around!

Furthermore, adding another application‑centric node stack without clear necessity risks fragmentation, duplication, and governance fatigue. Infrastructure gravity is already heavy. What we lack and dearly need is usage.

Cardano is built on a delicate open-source software foundation, and its current governance can approve funds but struggles to maintain consistent operations. I get the point, and I understand the problem.

What concerns me is that this proposal subtly shifts the focus from “governance funding outcomes” to “governance funding an operator that decides outcomes.” That's not acceptable! We’re talking about two councils, dashboards, rubrics, attestations, and audits. Each of these ideas makes sense on its own, but together they create a separate institutional setup that relies on the treasury and has a lasting influence. Whether you can change the operator or not, this could become a permanent layer of coordination unless governance steps in to stop it. And history shows that governance doesn’t usually take that step.

There's also a** risk of duplication.** Initiatives from Intersect, IOG, the CF, and SPO tooling efforts, as well as existing support programs, already cover some of this territory. This proposal assumes those frameworks can’t adapt. That’s just an assumption, not a proven fact.

I would back a smaller, more focused pilot that only looks at mapping dependencies and retaining key maintainers… not a complete OSPO-in-a-box funded for 3 years upfront. The treasury should prioritize funding code and minimizing risks, not creating a new management layer that governance will find hard to dismantle.

₳1.68M to keep a wallet alive. That’s the ask. Not to build a new primitive. Not to unlock a missing protocol capability. To keep the lights on. THINK ABOUT IT!

Cardano already has multiple mature wallets: Lace, Yoroi, Nami derivatives. Mobile and desktop. Hardware support is table stakes now, not a moat. Governance UI is nice, but not defensible.

For me, the sustainability story is the weakest part in this lifeline support request. **A Pro plan magically “will” fix things, assuming 4.2% conversion, which isn't even evidence-based or proven! Markets are blamed. Price is blamed. Timing is blamed. Yadda yadda yadda. **

What I'm missing in all this typical Gen-Z blaming is accountability! **A business that has existed for years and still needs treasury life support to bridge to a paid plan has more than a temporary problem. **It has a structural one. Face it.

The payback mechanism is noted. Virtuously described… but it’s conditional, delayed, and priced in fiat while the treasury lives in Ada! That asymmetry matters. Promising future repayment from hypothetical surplus is what I call "narrative risk shifting."

Constitutionally, the treasury exists to fund public goods that cannot sustain themselves, or to bootstrap genuinely new capabilities. Eternl today is a product in a crowded category with a clear path to monetization. That alone disqualifies it from emergency funding in my book.

If a damn wallet needs permanent welfare and life support, Cardano is doing something seriously wrong at ecosystem level. And if Eternl doesn’t need the funds to sustain itself, then this proposal shouldn’t exist in the first place. Nuff said.

Is every proposal following the Cardano bad habit of bundling “important” with “therefore fund everything” now? We're not running a treasury cosplay here.

Peras matters, faster finality is strategically relevant. Tweag has lineage in consensus, ledger, Genesis, and Peras-related work, and several of the streams listed in this proposal are integrated into the Cardano core stack. But the tendency to say “Peras is vital, therefore also fund a wide basket of adjacent infrastructure” has to stop! I for one do not buy basket logic at this ticket size without much harder proof of marginal necessity. Yes, a few items might be mission-critical, but others are more or less beneficial and leave me with this “while we are here, let’s also renovate the basement” impression.

I also can't shake the feeling that the document reads partly like a rescue-financing wrapper around previously underfunded or price-impaired work. We all get the market reality, we really do, but I do not think the treasury should become a retroactive absorber of execution-financing risk just because the work is important. Cardano needs protocol-critical delivery, but more than anything else it needs a procurement spine.

My verdict is therefore "No." I will not vote to approve a ₳40M omnibus infrastructure ask just because the words “Peras” and “resilience” are doing the heavy lifting.

The pitch is undeniably seductive: “a fully validating Cardano node in the browser” sounds like the sort of category-defining differentiator that makes conference stages purr. And yes, Cardano’s eUTxO architecture gives this idea more technical plausibility than most chains can honestly claim. I give the proposal that much. But plausibility is not yet treasury-worthiness, and Cardano governance should not confuse an elegant narrative with a proven necessity.
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Treasury should fund indispensable commons, not merely fascinating engineering. This proposal may indeed produce useful code, research spillovers, and a compelling demo. But “could become foundational” is not the same as “must be treasury-funded now.” If the primary value is strategic optionality, ecosystem signaling, and future bridge/L2 relevance, then I want stronger evidence of demand pull, integration commitments, and why the private sector, partner co-funding, or a narrower scoped ask would not be the more prudent route.**

Harmonic Labs clearly contributes meaningful tooling, but this proposal bundles legitimate infrastructure maintenance with a far more speculative language expansion play, and I do not reward that kind of strategic packaging with a blank cheque.

**Cardano’s treasury is not a venture studio for every technically elegant idea that would like public subsidy to pay overpriced salaries. **If the work is truly essential, it should survive a narrower, cleaner, constitutionally tighter proposal; until then, I vote No.

This "Cardano Vision 2026" is less a bold leap forward than a polished continuation of the same institutional research treadmill we have funded for years. While I strongly believe that research itself must never stop (after all, it's the foundation on which Cardano is built), the ecosystem cannot keep writing blank cheques for papers and prototypes that other chains then commercialise and productise, leaving Cardano to foot the bill without the adoption or revenue that should precede the next round!

The proposal’s three pillars largely recycle themes already advancing through smaller, more accountable channels, all while the treasury plays the role of patient patron rather than disciplined investor. We are essentially asked to fund the architectural drawings indefinitely and hope the tenants eventually arrive, rather than insisting the structure stand on its own commercial merits first. Cardano’s constitution demands treasury resources deliver non-duplicative, ecosystem-strengthening outcomes; this framing risks turning our reserves into an open research subsidy that benefits the broader industry more than our own users and builders.

Enough is enough. Stop subsidising the next wave of papers until the last wave actually builds something users and institutions are willing to pay for!

I voted NO for the base request, I vote NO for the "incremental request."

The idea is understandable but treasury-wise it is deeply unconvincing to spend these funds to buy Cardano a prominent booth and give builders visibility, tickets, stage time, networking access, and media capture. I understand the instinct as somebody who's been in the global media and entertainment markets for 30+ years. Signal matters, presence matters. But what has to be understood here is that treasury governance is not an exercise in buying expensive optics and calling it ecosystem growth. As DReps we're asked to exercise capital discipline, and my central problem is this: the proposal sells exposure as if exposure were impact. It promises visibility, spotlight, institutional access, and “25k+ decision makers,” yet it does not convincingly prove in any way that this event-native marketing spend is the best use of scarce treasury capital versus more targeted builder enablement, developer adoption, regional accelerator support, or measurable GTM programs with lower burn and clearer conversion logic.To me, this is a very costly brand activation dressed up as ecosystem infrastructure with some nice parties and free drinks thrown in.

Cardano already has multiple channels for ecosystem promotion, community events, content distribution, and business development. “Bigger booth, louder signal” is not a feasible adoption strategy. I think the entire proposal shows expensive insecurity in a branded suit.
As such, I don't treasury-efficient value creation. It may be good event marketing, but I certainly do not believe it is good treasury policy nor do I believe it will significantly increase adoption at this crucial stage in the Cardano ecosystem.

The idea is understandable but treasury-wise it is deeply unconvincing to spend 3M ADA to buy Cardano a prominent booth and give builders visibility, tickets, stage time, networking access, and media capture. I understand the instinct as somebody who's been in the global media and entertainment markets for 30+ years. Signal matters, presence matters. But what has to be understood here is that treasury governance is not an exercise in buying expensive optics and calling it ecosystem growth. As DReps we're asked to exercise capital discipline, and my central problem is this: the proposal sells exposure as if exposure were impact. It promises visibility, spotlight, institutional access, and “25k+ decision makers,” yet it does not convincingly prove in any way that this event-native marketing spend is the best use of scarce treasury capital versus more targeted builder enablement, developer adoption, regional accelerator support, or measurable GTM programs with lower burn and clearer conversion logic.To me, this is a very costly brand activation dressed up as ecosystem infrastructure with some nice parties and free drinks thrown in.

Cardano already has multiple channels for ecosystem promotion, community events, content distribution, and business development. “Bigger booth, louder signal” is not a feasible adoption strategy. I think the entire proposal shows expensive insecurity in a branded suit.
As such, I don't treasury-efficient value creation. It may be good event marketing, but I certainly do not believe it is good treasury policy nor do I believe it will significantly increase adoption at this crucial stage in the Cardano ecosystem.

Yet another very expensive exercise in conference theatre courtesy of the treasury?
To me this looks like a weak strategic bet at a scale that is too expensive relative to what is actually proven. Show me hard evidence that this specific event format is the most efficient path to enterprise conversion! In plain English: I want to see a tightly evidenced adoption machine and not another flagship showcase with evening parties.

The budget reduction is noted, but it does not change the key question. A 22% trim is still lipstick on a very large pig if the underlying spend logic remains “we must be there at tier-one level or risk irrelevance.” I do not buy that framing. Cardano does not become institutionally credible because it rents expensive square meters in Singapore. It becomes credible by shipping integrations, onboarding usage, deepening liquidity, improving developer leverage, and funding repeatable adoption infrastructure. The summit may amplify those things; it is not a substitute for them!

The treasury must not bankroll premium event optics when the causal link between conference spend and durable ecosystem adoption is as soft as here. Cardano needs leverage, not pageantry.

**Plutus is the smart-contract execution foundation of Cardano. If Plutus is slow, awkward, under-specified, or difficult to use, Cardano’s application layer pays the tax every day. **This proposal sits close to the engine room by improving execution efficiency, adding missing primitives, strengthening formal conformance, supporting alternative evaluators, and reducing developer friction.

Cardano is known for its scientific rigour as a differentiator, and this proposal is the consequence by asking the treasury to pay for the less glamorous tasks of that claim: specification, testing, compiler work, and hardening. One cannot market “high assurance” on Monday and then refuse to fund assurance engineering on Tuesday.

That said, the requested ₳12M is substantial for what's to be done here. Even accepting the reference value of roughly USD 2.85M, this is a serious treasury withdrawal and must not be waved through because the words “Plutus,” “formal methods,” and “developer experience” appear in the same paragraph. My concern is not that the work is frivolous, but that we're going down a funding hole from which we can't get out anymore once foundational infrastructure proposals become too big to question and too technical for DReps to challenge. **The abstract and rationale justify strategic necessity, but they do not by themselves prove cost efficiency. In the real world, assessing a project's costs, I would want a much stronger contractual acceptance criteria, public work visibility, and independent assurance before disbursement. **Why is this not possible on Cardano? Due diligence and accountability, liability for quality issues, milestone enforcements?

Anyways, I consider the work necessary and strategically central enough to justify support, provided the ecosystem remains vigilant about delivery discipline.

Having read the proposal I get the uncomfortable feeling that **we're looking at the treasury paying for a country-specific export-compliance rollout where the primary beneficiaries are farms, exporters and the project alliance, while Cardano receives a comparatively thin value-capture story. **The proposal’s own rationale admits fee payback is weak and reframes returns as locked ADA, DIDs, transaction activity and reputational upside. Nice, but I do not treat them as hard commercial repayment.

If Vietnam’s law and China’s GACC pressure create non-discretionary demand, then exporters, cooperatives, provincial authorities, insurers, buyers or private investors should have strong incentives to fund this deployment. The better alternative is a smaller Cardano grant for open-source standards, SDKs, audits, interoperability and reference infrastructure, combined with matching capital from the commercial beneficiaries. Nuff said. Next.

Cardano’s developer experience is a strategic bottleneck; after 30+ years in technology-market environments, I also know that **developer growth is not purchased by slogans, coordination workshops, or another branded umbrella.
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We all know that Cardano onboarding remains fragmented, the EUTXO learning curve is real, and the proposal’s own figures — roughly 550 Cardano developers versus Ethereum adding 1940 developers/year and Solana 884/year — describe an adoption gap we cannot ignore. On that basis, my issue is not necessity; my issue is investability. **I can accept that ₳3.6M may be plausible for serious engineering, but I cannot accept that size of ask when the central ROI claim of an overestimated 30%+ developer growth merely rests on asserted causality rather than hard proof and tangible successes. **

Cardano already has the Developer Portal, Intersect programs, Cardano Foundation involvement, TxPipe expertise, and so forth, which makes supporting this proposal a high risk of paying a large prime contractor to integrate what should first be openly mapped, competitively tendered, and funded through targeted maintainer bounties. I also, frankly, worry that whoever owns the “canonical” onboarding path can shape developer defaults, standards, and mindshare. I've been burnt before with similar situations in my professional career, and I'm not comfortable handing that role to any single large incumbent without stronger proof of neutrality, open governance over content, and anti-duplication discipline.

This is a serious proposal. Some ₳13M for highly specialized formal-methods engineering, multi-language smart-contract integration, developer tooling, and ecosystem coordination, is, given present USD exchange rates, a realistic number.

One thing to remember, and I get this out of the way right away: Accessibility DOES NOT automatically create adoption! Cardano already has Aiken, Plinth, Plutarch-style ecosystems, property testing, audits, containers, and other developer tooling patterns. **In my view, the argument that “developers need another toolkit” is weak. **

Why I still like the proposal is that I believe that Cardano currently lacks a broadly accessible, open, formal verification pathway, which I see as a strategic necessity to industrialize Cardano’s scientific advantage through hard openness, auditability, and measurable use. This will give the Cardano ecosystem a public assurance layer for high-value applications where testing and audits alone are not good enough.

This proposal bankrolls the continuation of Layer 1 research and engineering by Input Output. **Work that many, myself included, would argue should've been part of their foundational mandate. **Yet, let's push this argument aside and have a look at the brutal economic reality of the network.

Currently, Cardano processes roughly 800k transactions monthly. **To survive the rapidly diminishing treasury reserves and achieve economic self-sufficiency, Cardano must scale to generate substantial fee revenue. No brainer. **This proposal promises, but doesn't sufficiently validate, a 10 to 65-fold throughput increase, which is a structural necessity if Cardano is to capture serious DeFi volume and enterprise adoption. **Without capacity, the network will choke further growth and starve the ecosystem's economic engine.
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I remain fiercely protective of the treasury, as evidenced by the many NOs I've handed out so far, but starving Layer 1 of its necessary evolutionary leap is false economy. Cardano must invest strategically in its core capabilities to ensure the network stays a tier-one smart contract platform capable of absorbing global demand.

Scalability is strategically necessary for Cardano, but “necessary category” does not automatically mean “this specific withdrawal is justified.”

Cardano needs credible L2 capacity if it wants to compete for DeFi, AI-agent micropayments, gaming, and consumer-scale applications. There’s no question about it. Hydra and Midgard also address different trust models, so the architectural argument is coherent and strong.

However, the value proposition itself is overpackaged and under-proven at the high-level proposal stage. The proposal asks for ₳10M while blending three very different objectives: shared L2 infrastructure, Hydra hardening, and Midgard’s path toward production. In my book, public-good infrastructure, maintenance of prior IO research, and acceleration of a specific rollup venture must not be blurred into one treasury-funded narrative.

**Much of the near-term justification for funding this proposal is anchored to specific adopters and specific teams. **Delta DeFi, Masumi, and Midgard may be important, but treasury funding must not become a rescue mechanism for projects whose business cases depend on subsidized infrastructure. If the market urgently needs this, I expect stronger proof of independent demand, committed adoption, open standards, and non-extractive ecosystem benefit.

I've a strong bias against turning the treasury into a comfort budget. The relevance for maintenance is undeniable. Let's get this straight right away. Furthermore, our constitution explicitly allows budgets for ongoing operation, maintenance, and future development.

And this is where it gets tricky. We must not confuse necessity with value for money. The proposal’s core message is “maintenance is the foundation.” True, and by playing the fear card the proposal gets the label of being immune from scrutiny for most DReps. However, based only on the amount, abstract, motivation, rationale, and supplied support material, I do not see sufficient independent evidence that ₳62M is reasonable. This is a broad bundle, a veggie stew, not a sharpened procurement case, or a tasty recipe.

**This proposal is selling oxygen to DReps afraid of suffocation, especially here and now, with Cardano having dropped out of the top 10 and continuing to fall under increasing sell pressure from the developers we're funding here. We're not yet at a stage where “core maintenance” becomes too important to question. I would rather fund unavoidable critical maintenance through smaller, modular, competitively benchmarked, auditable service contracts, clearly separating safety-critical operations from improvement, documentation, engagement, and ecosystem support, than this behemoth. **

Plus, the question must be addressed why Cardano still can't maintain itself after operating for ten years, and what will happen to the socialist mentality of siphoning funds from the treasury when there's nothing left to extract. That question must be raised, and it must be raised now!

Cardano will need affordable, scalable data infrastructure as throughput grows, and I reckon we can all agree that full-chain indexing can become an economic choke point. Sliced indexing sounds as attractive as sliced bread in this regard. On paper at least.

Unfortunately, the presented core value proposition is rather blurred. We're, yet again, looking at apples and oranges. Two very different things in one package: some ADA 4M for Project Cayley and roughly ADA 3.8M to subsidize Blockfrost’s free tier. Almost half of the ask is operating support for an existing provider. That matters. We must not use scarce treasury funds to backfill a business model simply because a service became popular!

Something else bothers me: We're told that ca. 90% of all free-tier Cardano API traffic flows through Blockfrost. Well done, but I don't think we should look at this as a triumph of sorts. To me, it's a concentration warning. And I'm worried to using treasury funds to subsidize that dominant gateway while being promised that decentralization will improve later. I do not like paying to deepen dependency first and decentralize second. Though I appreciate that the cabal might have a different opinion.

Granted, the proposed architecture enables access across Cardano, Midnight, and Bitcoin presumably through a unified API, which is a good thing. Yet, it's again the cross-ecosystem growth story that's entirely built on hope without offering a sharper line between Cardano treasury and broader COMMERCIAL platform expansion. I just do not see that line here. Sorry. There's little hard evidence behind claims such as “100+ Icebreakers,” “90% of free-tier traffic,” or “projected to save hundreds of thousands of dollars.” We're asked, again, to trust assertions that should have been substantiated. I for one am done with that!

If we want to fund this problem space responsibly, we should rather fund open standards, multiple independent implementations, or a narrower Cardano-only public-good indexing layer than subsidize one incumbent’s operating costs and strategic expansion!

There is strategic relevance in bringing BTC liquidity to Cardano, and the narrative has been bandied around for a while now with some efforts rather going the way of the Dodo and just extracting all liquidity (BitcoinOS, anybody?).

But relevance is not necessity, and ambition is not alignment. I see three speculative businesses wearing one public-goods costume: a non-margin credit market, a yield application, and a custom BitVM bridge. Each one is hard. Each one has different market, compliance, liquidity, and security assumptions. Bundling them together creates a grand narrative, but it also blurs accountability and inflates the ask. In my opinion, Cardano’s treasury shouldn't bankroll an entire integrated Bitcoin DeFi thesis just because the story is elegant. Getting all dreamy about lofty stories… we've been here before, weren't we? Didn't we learn anything? Hope isn't a strategy!

In private markets, a complex cryptography-heavy build certainly costs hard dough. But treasury reasonableness is NOT about whether a team can spend it; it is about whether ADA holders should pay for it. We're asked to "pre-fund" a large commercial platform built around future revenue hopes, institutional adoption assumptions, and a promise that BTC capital will arrive at scale. That is not the same as funding an indispensable ecosystem primitive with imminent commercial value. For this stepping stone, the ADA 12M ask is oversized relative to the evidence of necessity.

I also do not accept the implied scarcity argument. The proposal itself acknowledges that on-chain lending already exists in other forms and that bridge designs already exist, even if the team criticizes them. This proposal therefore is not filling a vacuum, but instead entering an active design space and claiming superiority. We mustn't spend treasury withdrawals merely because a team woke up this morning and believes it can reinvent the wheel with a better architecture. I want proof that Cardano lacks a credible alternative path or that this work is uniquely public, unavoidable, and ecosystem-wide in benefit. None of that is in this proposal.

The promised return of 20% of EBITDA until repayment, followed by 5% perpetual, sounds attractive on first read, but, just pointing out for those not versed in economy aspects: EBITDA is an accounting outcome, not a constitutional safeguard. It depends on future operations, future market adoption, future cost allocations, and future management choices. Don't confuse contingent upside with hard accountability. If the core proposal does not justify the withdrawal on its own merits, a back-ended revenue-sharing promise does not rescue it! Again: Hope is not a strategy!

Let's get this straight: Treasury money is not marketing pocket money, and prestige is not a public good!

Some 14M ADAD are going to be split between the Cardano Summit 2026 and TOKEN2049 sponsorship. In plain terms, the value proposition is: we need to be seen at a very big event because important people will be there. I find that strategically weak. Granted, a premium title sponsorship at TOKEN2049 is a good way to achieve exposure, but that's not enough for me. A large booth, mainstage slot, media mentions, receptions, and branded presence may be impressive, but impressive is not synonymous with treasury-worthy. When the pitch depends this much on foot traffic, audience scale, and industry buzz, I start hearing FOMO dressed up as strategy.

There's also a duplication problem by bundling a standalone Cardano Summit and a large external sponsorship. If the Summit already exists to showcase Cardano’s technology, governance maturity, enterprise use cases, and ecosystem projects, then the proposal must clear a high bar to prove why a second, expensive layer of event visibility is necessary rather than merely additive. I do not think it clears that bar. “More reach” is not the same as “better outcomes.” Treasury spending must be judged by strategic necessity and likely long-term return, not by vanity-scale exposure metrics.

I also see this initiative as a concentrated influence asking the treasury to fund Cardano Foundation's and EMURGO's own strategic agenda. Even if managed cleanly, that should trigger a higher burden of proof, not a lower one.

If this initiative is truly so valuable, there are better alternatives than a treasury ask: a smaller, narrowly targeted delegation; private partner roadshows; bespoke institutional meetings in Singapore; or direct self-funding by the founding entities with later evidence-based review of actual ecosystem impact. I would far rather see precision than spectacle. Treasury discipline must mean something precisely when prestige proposals arrive wearing institutional suits.

If anything, this proposal reeks of kindergarten-level thinking: shouting loudest in the biggest room instead of whispering strategically in the right ears. Cardano’s time and budget deserve better than a scattergun approach masquerading as ambition. It’s time to get serious. Ditch the FOMO-driven “big boys’ club” mindset and focus on razor-sharp precision. Otherwise, we’re just paying to be wallpaper at a party that doesn’t move the needle.

I will not support the withdrawal of a hefty 8M ADA for a package that bundles one clearly defensible need with two much less proven expansion bets. The proposal splits the work into 5 FTEs for Gerolamo, 3.5 FTEs for Pebble, and 1.5 FTEs for hard-fork maintenance, using 10 FTEs at $225k (quite hefty for 1 FTE!!) each plus a 25% contingency. That immediately tells me where the weight of the ask really sits: not in essential ecosystem maintenance, but in building out a browser-capable TypeScript node and pushing a new smart-contract language.

I can see the strategic argument for Gerolamo. A production-ready light node that runs in JavaScript environments and even browsers could improve accessibility, reduce dependency concentration, and broaden integration options. That is serious work, no doubt, but not worth $225k per FTE on average! Seriousness alone does not justify the full price. I have to ask whether the treasury should pay this much, in one motion, for infrastructure that is still proving itself, especially when the proposal itself positions Gerolamo relative to other node implementations rather than as the only viable path.

Pebble is even less convincing to me. It's framed complementary to Aiken, aimed at developers more comfortable with TypeScript, JavaScript, and Solidity-style thinking. I understand the logic. I still do not find it strong enough though. Cardano benefits from better tooling, but it does not automatically benefit from every additional language surface! I said this earlier: New languages create fragmentation risk, documentation burden, maintenance overhead, and long-tail support expectations. The proposal says this expands the developer funnel; I say that claim remains aspirational unless adoption is demonstrated beyond a “more familiar syntax” narrative. Familiarity is not, by itself, a treasury-grade investment thesis.

What makes me most cautious is the packaging. If the real priority is hard-fork readiness for widely used TypeScript libraries, then that should have been presented with much sharper focus. If Gerolamo is the flagship, then it should stand on its own economic and technical merits. If Pebble is the growth bet, then it should compete for funding as a distinct initiative with a much higher burden of proof on adoption. Bundling all three together feels strategically convenient for the proposer, but not disciplined enough for treasury stewardship!

I do not see a convincing case for approving the full ₳8.04M bundle as presented.** I vote No because I refuse to let necessary maintenance be used as the vehicle for funding a much broader and far more speculative expansion agenda.**

The strongest part of the proposal is that it tries to impose order before money moves. It introduces a staged process, requires strategic context before submissions, imposes a minimum request threshold, uses templates and completeness checks, and creates a structured route from collection to review to consolidation to execution. I consider that **directionally necessary in an ecosystem that must protect the treasury from noise, fragmentation, and low-discipline requests.
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If I were being asked whether Intersect has earned broad strategic trust in every future budget interaction, my answer would be "No." **If I am being asked whether this info action provides a constitutionally compatible and practically useful process framework that can be scrutinized again in every later spending decision, my answer is a resounding "Yes." **

Frankly, the proposal reads more like “please prevent a mess” than “here is a compelling, high-performance operating model.” I do not like being presented with that kind of asymmetry. It is a sign of truly weak governance craftsmanship.

I vote "Yes", because I judge this to be a necessary continuity action. I do not find the case elegant, complete, or particularly impressive; I find it under-argued and overly reliant on urgency. But I would rather approve an operationally necessary administrator transition than risk avoidable paralysis in Project Catalyst. My support is pragmatic, not enthusiastic: We are not rewarding excellence here; we are preventing governance failure.

**I voted "No" before, I vote "No" again. **Everything seems to be duplicated in the Cardano ecosystem. Why do it once if you can do it twice?

The necessity case here remains underdeveloped. The proposal argues that DeFi liquidity should be boosted and that this withdrawal is needed to set up the legal and on-chain components. Fine, but I still need proof that this is the best path, not merely a path. I do not see a convincing demonstration here that the ecosystem lacks existing mechanisms, existing committees, existing legal wrappers, or alternative lower-cost structures that could achieve the same preparatory objective. An Amaru multisig and a legal entity may be useful, but usefulness is not necessity!

Sundae Labs asks the treasury to finance pre-deployment overhead before proving constitutional clarity, genuine necessity, and superiority over lower-cost alternatives. Process language is not enough. If a proposal cannot make the case for why this setup must exist, why this structure must be funded now, and why the Constitution is unquestionably satisfied, we should not unlock treasury funds!

I find the Orion Fund proposal strategically interesting but not sufficiently proven, not sufficiently narrow, and not sufficiently constitutionally de-risked for a $15M / 50M ADA treasury withdrawal.

I say this as somebody who's been working on various venture capital schemes and investment structures. There's too much overlap risk,** too much scope creep, too much reliance on projected outcomes, and not enough hard evidence that this is the most necessary, efficient, and Cardano-aligned use of treasury capital**. I vote No.

We should not approve the first considerable tranche of an even larger multi-stage treasury withdrawal simply because it sounds sophisticated. I can imagine better alternatives: a smaller, Cardano-native, tightly scoped co-investment vehicle; a pilot focused only on direct investments into Cardano-native companies, excluding the venture-studio-plus-accelerator-plus-tooling bundle; a staged program run under far more direct community control; or using existing ecosystem structures and approving only narrowly defined capital-gap interventions where duplication is demonstrably absent. Once I can imagine those alternatives, the burden on this Orion Fund rises sharply.

The Dingo proposal demands an exorbitant 6.9 million ADA for a Go-based node that blatantly duplicates our ongoing efforts to achieve client diversity.

Funding critical infrastructure development against unpublished specifications is fiscally irresponsible, highly premature, and severely contradicts the prudent treasury administration mandated by the spirit of our Constitution.

My mandate is to protect this treasury from bloat and poorly timed execution. **We cannot finance every developer's preferred language port simply because they possess the technical capability to write it. **

Cardano is at a stage where the vault needs to be locked and governed with rigorous business strategy, demanding foundational stability and proven necessity before opening it to the whims of developers and so-called builders who don't deliver measurable value at all.

Amaru is not a discretionary application-layer bet. It is load-bearing infrastructure work directed at eliminating Cardano's most dangerous and least discussed systemic risk: the absence of a viable alternative node implementation.

The budget is competitive by market standards, the contingency structure is transparent and return-obligated, the 2025 governance track record is credible. Some concerns around contingency calculations and certain budget items though.

However, the 2025 execution delays are a legitimate concern that must be monitored closely, and the contingency scale deserves continued DRep attention in subsequent withdrawal rounds. But **withholding this vote means accepting a permanent single-client risk for the entire Cardano network. And that risk is not theoretical, is not trivial, and is not compatible with the Constitution's demands on security and decentralization. **This is precisely the kind of compounding investment that makes sure the pyramid we have build does not crumble at the core. Furthermore, it separates strategic treasury stewardship from short-sighted treasury management.

The vote is Yes, with a clear expectation that Q1 and Q2 2026 milestones are delivered on time, and with the firm message to the Amaru team: the relay node must be production-ready this quarter! The community's patience is not infinite, and neither is the treasury's appetite for carrying forward deferred commitments.

The proposal is the very definition of the fiscal discipline we must demand; by capping the NCL at 300M ADA, which puts us strictly below our annualized treasury inflow, **we force the ecosystem to live within its means and reject the "social welfare" mentality by creating a hard ceiling on treasury withdrawals.
**
For me, the NCL isn't just a bureaucratic parameter update, but the fundamental financial firewall for the Cardano ecosystem for the coming year. As a DRep committed to running this protocol with the rigor of a multinational enterprise rather than a loose collective of hobbyists, this specific Governance Action is the mechanism required to enforce the "business-minded approach" I advocate for as a DRep.

In my experience, scarcity breeds quality, and this NCL enforces scarcity. Without this guardrail in place, we leave the door ajar for fiscal irresponsibility. This is not a spending bill; it is a restraint bill that aligns the operational timeline with the mid-year budget season, allowing for logical, data-driven planning rather than ad-hoc chaos.** If we want to stop the treasury from being treated like a bottomless pit, we must first put a lid on it. This proposal is that lid.**

Infrastructure is only as valuable as the utility it can reliably support. Personally, I view the Cardano network not merely as a cryptographic experiment, but as a business-critical platform where stability and scalability are paramount.

**While the proposal pushes strictly to the edge of what is permissible, I believe it remains technically compliant (please do correct me, if I'm wrong). The question I'm not sure about at this point is whether the increase is necessary "greasing of the gears" or reckless acceleration. The motivation cited — alleviating developer pain points and enhancing scalability — is a compelling business argument. If we stifle the capacity of our smart contracts, we stifle the innovation required to make Cardano commercially viable. **However, putting on my strategist helmet, I am slightly wary of changes that max out parameters without a commensurate, visible improvement in utility. The proposal leans heavily on benchmarking results, asserting that block propagation times will remain safe. What worries me, is that we are trusting that these simulations accurately reflect the chaotic reality of the mainnet. Ultimately though, I think this is a low-risk, high-reward lever to pull. Most importantly: It requires no treasury withdrawal, thereby protecting our financial resources, yet can (theoretically and hopefully) unlock greater throughput for DApps. By allowing more memory consumption per transaction and per block, we are essentially widening the lanes of our digital highway, which is a requisite step if we intend to scale. While I generally view "maximum allowed" requests with skepticism… I think we can and should push this lever to 11.

I've a lot of caution and skepticism towards this proposal, which makes sense since I voted against the original Info Action that kicked this off.

From a strategic business perspective, the proposal represents a jarring pivot from decentralized efficiency to expensive, legacy legal structuring. While I understand the intent to create a "legal personality" for liability protection and off-chain contracting, the price tag for this administrative wrapper is exorbitant relative to the value proposition of a decentralized protocol. We are being asked to allocate nearly $166k (at the stated conversion) merely to pay a law firm to file paperwork and retain professional directors? This is not innovation; this is overhead. In the corporate world, we establish foreign entities when the revenue projections justify the OpEx. Here, we are burning half a million ADA on setup costs before a single unit of liquidity has actually served the ecosystem.

Furthermore, the reliance on a Cayman Islands Foundation Company introduces a centralization vector that I find strategically unsound for a blockchain ecosystem. By concentrating authority in a 5-of-9 multisig committee overseen by Cayman-based directors, we are re-creating the very intermediaries we sought to disrupt. Spending 400k ADA on legal fees and "transaction document review" to facilitate a liquidity program that could likely be managed via trustless smart contracts or more lightweight DAO structures is, in my professional assessment, an unreasonable use of finite treasury resources.

**I am deeply uncomfortable with the precedent of using the Treasury to fund high-end legal retainers **that insulate a select committee rather than funding code that secures the network. **If we continue to treat the Treasury as a bottomless expense account for administrative heavy lifting, we will deplete our reserves long before we achieve the mass adoption outlined in the Cardano 2030 vision. **

**The strength of a decentralized ecosystem like Cardano relies not just on its code, but on the cohesive social fabric of its participants. **Acknowledging contributors who have shaped our foundation is a low-cost, high-impact method of reinforcing community values. The proposal points out Max van Rossem’s key contributions, and recognizing him as an architect of our adaptability goes hand in hand with the principles he helped put in place.

Reviewing my own voting history, I previously cast a "Yes" vote for the "Rename the Chang 2 Hard Fork to the Plomin Hard Fork" action. I recommend a YES vote to solidify this tradition and maintain consistency with previous governance decisions regarding naming conventions.

As a DRep I've consistently advocated for a business-minded approach to Cardano’s governance. My primary directive is to ensure the long-term stability of the protocol and the protection of our treasury against profligate depletion. With this proposal we are essentially defining the fiscal guardrails for the next sixteen months.

The rationale provided by the Cardano Budget Committee regarding the "115% of realized Net Income" figure initially triggered my skeptical reflexes. Deficit spending is a slippery slope that I have historically voted against when specific line items —such as the Stablecoin DeFi Liquidity Budget, which I opposed in September 2025 — threatened the Constitution's conservative principles. However, we are looking at a duration of approximately 100 epochs (February 2026 to July 2027). If the treasury inflows from 2025 (approx. 307 million ADA over roughly 73 epochs) remain consistent, our projected income over this new 100-epoch period would likely exceed 420 million ADA. Therefore, setting **a withdrawal cap of 350 million ADA is not an act of overspending; rather, it is a mathematically prudent constraint that effectively mandates a treasury surplus. **It forces the ecosystem to spend less than it earns, aligning perfectly with my objective to protect the treasury and ensure disinflationary stability.

Furthermore, I find the strategic realignment of the NCL cycle to a mid-year schedule to be an operational necessity. As someone who has managed international project lifecycles, I recognize the inefficiency of synchronizing critical fiscal planning with year-end holidays. Shifting the cycle ensures that future budget committees have access to complete, annualized data before forecasting, thereby reducing speculative variance in our governance. While **I maintain my reservations regarding the previously approved 50 million ADA allocation for stablecoins — a measure I voted against because I believe market forces, not treasury subsidies, should drive liquidity **— I must respect the democratic consensus of the DReps who approved it. A constitutionally compliant NCL must account for these existing liabilities; to do otherwise would be to advocate for a governance deadlock, which serves no one.

My experience in tech leadership and analysis makes me look beyond all the flashy terms and really dig into what's being proposed here. Essentially, we’re being asked to support a business venture that’s being dressed up as "core infrastructure." This term is starting to feel like a way to avoid the usual scrutiny that comes with for-profit decentralized apps (DApps).

I get that Cardano could really use a solid, high-performance order-book solution, especially with Hydra in play. But **the financial details of this proposal raise some serious red flags for me. The Treasury is taking on all the operational risk for developing this product! **Spending 250,000 ADA a month just to "harden" a beta and set everything up is a tough pill to swallow, especially since there’s no mention of any equity or revenue sharing coming back to the Treasury. So, we’re acting like a venture capital firm that isn’t getting a slice of the pie—just the "privilege" of using the end product. That feels totally out of sync with sustainable economics. If this product is supposed to be a real game-changer, like a "Binance killer," then where’s the private investment? Why should ADA holders have to foot the entire bill for a private company’s competitive edge?

Looking at it from a constitutional standpoint, this proposal goes against Tenet 8: "The Cardano Blockchain shall not unreasonably spend resources." Throwing such a huge amount of money for just six months, especially when some of that is going to redundant reporting, feels completely unreasonable to me!

Voting "Yes" on this proposal could set a really risky precedent where private companies can treat the Treasury like their own personal slush fund instead of a source for public good projects. Just because something is "helpful for the ecosystem" doesn’t automatically make it "public infrastructure." DeltaDeFi is a business, and it should operate like one.

My perspective, forged through decades of navigating complex technical and management environments, compels me to look past the superficial promise of "simplification" and interrogate the structural integrity of the proposed changes. We are moving from a phase of aspirational governance to one of executable reality, and this proposal ostensibly aims to shed the dead weight of non-binding expectations that have previously clouded our constitutional framework.

The core value proposition here is the elimination of ambiguity and the removal of "governance theater." By stripping away the non-binding "expectations" and "encouragement" clauses (e.g., the codes of conduct for DReps and SPOs) the proposal admits a harsh but necessary truth: if a rule cannot be enforced on-chain or through strict legal frameworks, it does not belong in a Constitution. I applaud this ruthlessness. As a strategist, I view the clutter of unenforceable advice as a liability that dilutes the power of actual mandates. Furthermore, the removal of the Budget Info Action mechanism, absorbing its requirements directly into Treasury Withdrawal Governance Actions, is a sound efficiency measure. It reduces bureaucratic drag without ostensibly sacrificing oversight, provided that the audit safeguards mentioned are indeed as robust as the rationale suggests.

Reverting "ADA Holder" back to "ADA Owner" and rolling back the audit provisions to the original wording protects the ecosystem from a constitutional gridlock. It is a business decision to ensure continuity. We are effectively trading semantic progress for political stability, but also transform the Constitution from a "living document" of vague aspirations into a tighter, more sterile contract.

While I remain vigilant regarding the reverted audit language, the immediate necessity of stabilizing the governance layer outweighs the desire for perfect, yet unpassable, legislation.** I strongly believe that we must secure the foundation before we can remodel the house.**

From a strategic standpoint, the value proposition here is essentially the establishment of a "North Star" for the disparate voting body. We are currently operating in a decentralized environment where the Constitution provides the hard constraints, in other words, the "musts" and "must nots", but explicitly lacks the directional mandate of where we should go.

**This proposal attempts to fill that vacuum with "Five Strategic Pillars" **and associated KPIs. My skepticism immediately flags the risk of bureaucratic bloat; however, upon deeper reflection, the lack of a shared strategic definition is currently a greater liability than the existence of a non-binding guidance document. If we do not define what "mission-critical" means in the context of our 2030 objectives, we risk dissipating the Treasury on disjointed initiatives that pass the Constitutional check but fail the strategic necessity test. The way I interpret it is that this proposal bridges the gap between "is this legal?" (Constitution) and "is this wise?" (Strategy).

**My affirmative vote hinges on the crucial need for unity. We cannot afford a governance model that is purely reactive. **While I usually detest "vision statements" as corporate fluff, in a headless decentralized ecosystem, a shared map is not a luxury; it is a critical piece of infrastructure. The proposal respects the Constitutional boundaries while attempting to mature our governance from a technical process into a strategic operation.

This is a classic case of outcome engineering masquerading as safety. We held an election. The community established a process (Article IV, Section 40 of the Constitution requires a public process). That process yielded a binary result: one seat, one winner. Attempting to install the runner-up via a separate governance action immediately after the fact treats the election results as a "suggestion" rather than a mandate.

The proposal claims to "strengthen governance continuity." I argue it weakens social consensus. If every close election results in the loser being proposed for a seat anyway under the guise of "resilience," why hold elections at all? We are establishing a precedent where on-chain governance is used to litigate off-chain disappointments.

Indeed, if we drop below 7 members, the CC enters a state of dysfunction where it cannot ratify actions. This is a real risk. However, the solution to a brittle parameter is to fix the parameter or hold a new, dedicated election for an expanded seat — not to arbitrarily appoint a specific individual who failed to secure the mandate in the designated contest.

If we want 8 members, we should have run an election for 8 members! We cannot "patch" election outcomes on-chain because we feel the margin was too tight. That is not resilience; that is instability.

**The chain must survive. **We cannot allow a single resignation to hold the protocol hostage. Ratify the member, restore the quorum, and then let’s immediately discuss raising the committee size to create a redundancy buffer so this never happens again. Fix the hole in the boat.

I repeat what I said on the previous GA in brutal honesty: this proposal is nothing else but a corrective tax we are being asked to pay for years of insular architectural purity that prioritized academic rigor over commercial interoperability! We built a fortress, but we forgot to build the drawbridge, and now we are paying a premium to install it while the market lays siege to Cardano's relevance.

This GA is nothing else but an admission of failure in Cardano's GTM-strategy. The fact that we still lack Tier-1 stablecoins, institutional custody, and recognized pricing oracles in late 2025 is a strategic indictment! The proposal asks for a "blank check" trust based on "sensitive commercial negotiations," shielding the line-item costs behind NDAs. As a DRep who demands transparency, this opacity makes me deeply uncomfortable. We are essentially handing the ecosystem's credit card to a Steering Committee comprised of the "usual suspects" — IOG, CF, and EMURGO — hoping they finally close the deals that should have been secured three years ago. The centralization of this Steering Committee is a bitter pill; it effectively sidesteps the decentralized wisdom of the crowd in favor of a technocratic oligarchy to execute these deals.

Sadly, Cardano is an island of 200 million bucks in TVL in a sea of billions. The 70 million ADA, while expensive, is the cost of buying our way back into the game. Hopefully.** If this infrastructure brings even a fraction of the liquidity seen on competing chains, the ROI on treasury sustainability via transaction fees and network utility will dwarf the initial outlay. To vote no is to resign ourselves to being a scientific curiosity rather than a financial powerhouse.**

Let me be unequivocally clear: while this proposal is operationally necessary, its very existence is an indictment of a profound lack of strategic foresight within our ecosystem's budget management bodies. **We are being asked to sanction an eight-epoch extension—a mere 40 days—to prevent the Cardano Treasury from becoming constitutionally paralyzed. This is not governance; this is crisis management.
**
The rationale is sound on its face. Article IV of our Constitution and the associated Guardrails are unambiguous: no withdrawals from the Treasury are permitted without a valid NCL in place. With the current NCL expiring at the end of Epoch 604 (January 4, 2026), **failure to act would indeed freeze all Treasury operations, jeopardizing every single funded project and the operational continuity of our ecosystem. **

However, a mere eight-epoch extension is a tactical patch, not a visionary plan. It kicks the can down the road, creating a recurring cycle of uncertainty. Managing a treasury of this magnitude requires long-term, predictable, and stable financial frameworks! Presenting the community with a last-minute stopgap measure, with just weeks to spare, demonstrates a reactive posture that is fundamentally at odds with the prudent and forward-thinking stewardship this ecosystem demands.

I vote to prevent catastrophe, not to endorse this manner of governance. This action is a necessary evil, a bandage applied to a wound that should never have been inflicted.

Having spent over three decades navigating the complex corridors of Technology, Media, and Telecommunications, and witnessing the rise and fall of ecosystems based on their infrastructure readiness, I approach this proposal not merely as a DRep, but as a strategist concerned with the existential viability of our network. The request for 70,000,000 ADA is a staggering sum that demands not just scrutiny, but closer interrogation of its strategic intent. We are presented with a proposition that is both an admission of past strategic gaps and a desperate, albeit necessary, bid for relevance in a liquidity-driven market. The proposal effectively seeks to fund the "plumbing" we have long lacked: Tier-1 stablecoins, institutional custody, bridges, and oracles.

My immediate critique centers on the optics of this "black box" request. We are being asked to authorize a massive liquidity injection into a "strategic integration fund" managed by the usual suspects (IOHK, CF, Emurgo, Intersect). While the proposal cites "commercial confidentiality" as the reason for obscuring the specific partners, my experience in high-level corporate negotiations tells me that while NDAs are real, blank checks are dangerous. We are effectively being asked to trust a Steering Committee to execute on deals that arguably should have been secured years ago. It stings to fund "basics" from the treasury at this maturity stage of the chain.

However, **let's face the reality and view this through a prudent, business-first lens: Cardano is currently an island. Without a native, liquid, Tier-1 stablecoin and recognized institutional custody rails, we are uninvestable for large-scale institutional capital. We are structurally handicapped. **My skepticism regarding the opacity of the vendors is outweighed by the strategic necessity of the deliverables. We cannot govern a ghost town. If we vote "No" based on a desire for perfect transparency or resentment of the founding entities, we maintain our moral high ground but starve the chain of the oxygen it needs to survive. And that is liquidity and interoperability! With this proposal, we are purchasing an entry ticket to the global financial markets. It is an expensive ticket, and the "Trust us" nature of the Steering Committee is bitter medicine, but the alternative is irrelevance.

Personally, I just regret that the majority of DReps have wasted 50 million ADA on an unsecured loan for a meme coin (critically misaligned with the Cardano constitution at that!). Those treasury funds could and should have been spent on this proposal instead!

I support reimbursing the original 100,000 ADA deposit lost due to the governance protocol bug, recognizing the submitter’s pioneering role in Cardano’s on-chain governance infancy. This repayment is a fair acknowledgment that early participants should not be unduly penalized for technical failures outside their control.

However, I firmly oppose the inclusion of the additional 3,000 ADA claimed for staking rewards and opportunity costs. These are speculative losses lacking transparent, auditable justification. Treasury funds must prioritize activities that provide measurable ecosystem value rather than compensating subjective or unverifiable claims.

Beyond this specific reimbursement, it is imperative to establish explicit guardrails within Cardano’s governance framework. The treasury must not be treated as an insurance mechanism for technical bugs or user errors unless clearly codified by governance policy. Approving this reimbursement must be explicitly declared a one-off exception with no precedent for future compensation claims arising from operational faults.

If the community deems an insurance mechanism necessary to protect early testers or contributors from technical risks, such a fund should be created deliberately through a dedicated account funded by transaction fees or other sustainable sources; not ad hoc treasury withdrawals.

The Foundation argues for digital presence and infrastructure positioning, and I accept the premise that owning strategic TLDs can confer branding and control benefits. However, **Cardano’s marginal returns from a gTLD, even if secured, are speculative compared to direct investments in developer grants, tooling, Hydra/L2 growth, or enterprise integrations. **The proposal does not quantify expected ecosystem value (revenue, user adoption, developer activity) relative to alternative uses of Foundation effort and community attention.

Furthermore, **ICANN gTLD ownership is not the only, nor necessarily best, route to achieving the stated objectives. **The Foundation must justify why owning the TLD is superior to these options (e.g. strategic agreements with blockchain-native naming providers such as Unstoppable Domains) and creating seamless resolver bridges to Cardano wallets.

**Owning .ada and .cardano could be valuable, but only if justified by demonstrable demand, robust risk mitigation, and a clear alternatives analysis showing gTLD ownership is the best way forward and necessary for adoption. **

The Foundation covering costs is laudable, but that alone does not justify asking the community for an endorsement that would commit our reputation and governance machinery to a materially risky program. ICANN gTLD applications may expose the ecosystem to significant, uncertain financial burdens (contention auctions, legal/IP disputes, and ongoing operational scaling) and reputational/legal liabilities absent rigorous contingency planning and governance safeguards.

The strategic goal is valid and important: Cardano needs reliable pathways to mainstream liquidity and discoverability. Snek has demonstrable operational competence and has (purportedly) invested heavily. That does not, however, justify deploying ₳5M of public treasury capital under the opaque, lightly‑secured terms offered here. This is a loan, not a grant; that raises expectations for rigorous financial transparency and enforceable repayment mechanics. The proposal does not deliver those essentials.

A responsible governance decision for a loan model must protect the Treasury first! This proposal, as currently written, asks for substantial risk tolerance without commensurate contractual protections, clear repayment triggers, or market‑priced compensation. Approving it now would be reckless and would set a harmful precedent.

I believe in equitable and open compensation for key governance roles. However, this submission is premature, overbroad, and procedurally weak. It asks for 1,000,000 ADA without sufficient justification, without parity to comparable roles (notably DReps and SPOs), and without an enforceable accountability framework that satisfies basic Treasury stewardship standards.

The proposal offers no benchmarking: no hourly estimates, no comparable compensation models (DRep stipends, SPO reimbursements, external committee rates), no CPI or FX sensitivity, and no breakdown of how 200k per member maps to time, effort, or deliverables. A blunt “up to 200,000 ADA” figure per person is not a defensible ask for a public treasury.

Approving this as-is risks precedent-setting spend, inequitable treatment of other contributors, and ambiguous governance accountability. **Cardano governance needs to guard against small-group exploitation and eliminate the risk of inadvertently forming an elite paid class. **Compensation is legitimate, but must be tied to transparency, parity, and accountability for CCs, DReps, and SPOs alike.

„The pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the others. With their superior knowledge, it was natural that they should assume leadership.“
George Orwell, Animal Farm

At a first glance,** I got to say that I appreciate the editorial hygiene here: tighter definitions, consistent terminology, and the immutability requirement for proposal documents do raise the floor on clarity and integrity.** Without a doubt, applying audit, oversight, and segregation safeguards to all treasury withdrawals is a sturdier default than size-based carve‑outs.

But, and that's a big, big BUT: the heart of this proposal strips out, much like the previously proposed change to this document, strategic budget discipline and weakens basic transparency where we shouldn’t!

So let's repeat: Removing the Budget “Info” mechanism and the prior budget article eliminates the constitutional link between withdrawals and an approved ecosystem budget. Previously, withdrawals were only permitted pursuant to a budget then in effect; now we’re left with a global cap and per‑withdrawal checks. That’s a shift from strategic allocation to piecemeal spending. It invites governance noise and “death‑by‑a‑thousand‑cuts” treasury drift. And we've already too much noise, grifters, social welfare, liquidity drainers, and what not.

Deleting the requirement to approve a roadmap via “Info” further reduces upfront visibility. We lose the macro view that helps align spend with priorities and sequence work.

Granted, the new text generalizes audit/oversight to all withdrawals, but unfortunately removes two simple, high‑signal guardrails: naming the recipient and explicitly stating that funds shall be used for the stated purpose! This is important, kids! Those are not ornamental decorations. Identity disclosure and purpose constraints are baseline accountability for any fiduciary and diligently acting business!

Conveniently the constitution now mandates independent audits for every withdrawal yet no longer requires proposals to include funding for those audits. That’s an unfunded requirement by design and will either force hidden costs onto recipients or degrade audit quality in practice.

Dropping the obligation for the CC to adopt a code of conduct lowers the bar on governance hygiene significantly. Yes, transparency and reason‑giving remain, but a constitutional duty to adopt and publish a code is a minimum viable standard for a body that can halt enactment.

This version 2.3 is a step backward on strategic fiscal governance and a step sideways on transparency. Which, let's be honest, is convenient to certain large entities in the Cardano ecoystem.

I truly believe we can have both simplicity and discipline by keeping the definitional and immutability improvements; sticking to universal audit/segregation; restoring a lightweight budget framework that links withdrawals to an approved budget or program; reinstating recipient identity and explicit “use‑as‑stated” language; requiring that audit costs be provisioned; and keeping a constitutional requirement for the CC to adopt and publish a code of conduct (content at their discretion).

Simplification must not come at the expense of strategy, accountability, and treasury stewardship!

I support an open, neutral, community-owned GovTool as a public good, because without accessible, open-source governance tooling Cardano risks fragmentation and centralization. But this specific funding request fails to demonstrate fiscal discipline, offers insufficient operational evidence, and leaves too many trust and delivery questions open at this stage. I cannot responsibly endorse ₳1.15M without stronger justification, clearer cost-efficiency, and concrete measurable commitments. **I vote NO. Do the work, tighten the ask, come back.
**
Here's my vision: I want GovTool to thrive. I want it lean, resilient, and truly community-owned — not a recurring line-item that enables softly‑contracted, overpaid maintenance while UX issues persist!

**The current math ($120k per 1 FTE, $60k per 0.5 FTE) reads like comfortable contractor rates with no productivity evidence. **For the consortium to foster community trust, it is essential to clearly demonstrate why these rates are both competitive and indispensable. I would accept up to ~$80–90k per senior FTE in USD-equivalent for 2025 global remote market, but it must be justified with CVs, time allocation, and deliverables. The current salaries/contractor costs at USD equivalents are well above market benchmarks for full-time engineering in an open-source, largely remote, global market. Especially when hosting at only ₳6.25k/month in a ₳1.15M program is suspiciously low; either hosting is massively underestimated or the bigger portion is personnel/overhead with weak justification.

**I would appreciate a detailed analysis of how GovTool plans to position itself in comparison to Tempo.vote, 1694.tools, and other user experience projects! Is GovTool primary, or a plumbing/API provider? **A smaller, API-first funding ask to stabilise APIs and enable third-party UXs might be more efficient and community-centric. If the intent is to be the canonical UX, justify that with feature parity and UX roadmaps. I for one don't like to reinvent the wheel twice at a time when Cardano is stuck in a swamp of grifters sucking liquidity from the treasury, funds, and CNTs.

GovTool is critical infrastructure. No question about it. But funding it is defensible. The governance of treasury funds demands prudence and demonstrable value for money. This proposal, as presented, is too broad, too expensive, and too light on enforceable, measurable outcomes to be approved at this time. As someone entrenched in strategic planning, I'm missing a feasible path aligned with a feasible long-term vision. This proposal is, yet again, a list of ideals and aspirations without proper planning and realistic budgeting.

Everybody has a "vision," yet few these days have a clear "mission."

Oh well. The document presents many sensible high-level goals, but it lacks prioritization, measurable realism, and protects neither treasury discipline nor implementation clarity; endorsing it now would prematurely green-light a strategic umbrella without required trade-offs, accountability frameworks, or a defensible cost/benefit basis.

It's not all bad, though. The ambition aligns with Cardano’s long-term value proposition: enterprise-grade, censorship-resistant public infrastructure with scientific foundations. The focus areas are broadly correct: abstraction for UX, L2 + scalability, SPO health, developer onboarding, enterprise/national integration, and treasury sustainability. Lastly, the KPI list identifies relevant vectors (L1 revenue, daily meaningful transactions, enterprise integrations), which is better than many prior high-level statements.

The devil is in the details, or lack thereof. **The document is a strategy-lite manifesto with lots of desirable outcomes and pillars but no prioritized trade-offs. Strategy must choose what not to do. This plan does not. **Without hard choices, we will diffuse resources across everything and achieve little. Sounds like present-day Cardano, huh? Pursuing both “world-class L1 scalability” and extensive Layer 2 expansion is fine, but the document does not define sequencing, resource allocation, or critical-path dependencies. The proposed KPIs are aspirational but not actionable or credible. For example: $200M annual L1 revenue and 250k daily meaningful transactions are headline-worthy but lack baseline assumptions (time horizon, sources of that revenue, what counts exactly as meaningful transaction).

The call for an “active, multi-asset, managed treasury” is sensible in principle, but the doc provides no governance guardrails, risk appetite, or conflict-of-interest mitigation. Converting long-term public-good funds into actively managed assets without strict governance, independent oversight, and loss limits is hazardous, to say the least. A phrase like “investments that lead to paying clients” needs concrete investment criteria; otherwise grants and “strategic investments” become opaque subsidies that reproduce past inefficiencies. Also sounds like present-day Cardano—another check here.

Get real and get realistic! Claiming Cardano is “the only viable option” for enterprises demanding high assurance is rhetorical overreach. Enterprises judge platforms on verifiable compliance, SLAs, vendor ecosystems, and ecosystem maturity; none of which are guaranteed by peer review alone. The document underestimates the engineering, legal, and procurement effort required to achieve SOC-type compliance, accounting/auditing integrations, and sovereign-grade SLAs. Those require resourcing and time, not rhetoric and wishful thinking.

The strategy asks the community to align, but offers no enforcement, funding prioritization process, nor escalation rules when initiatives drift. There is no explicit linkage between the strategy and on-chain governance levers (how will treasury allocations be tied to KPI milestones?).

I vote NO on this Action in its current form. I support the underlying ambition and many specific focus areas, but not the document as a governance mandate today. As always, and with all of my votes, I demand a tighter, prioritized, accountable, and data-driven strategy with concrete risk mitigation and treasury governance.

I support the strategic goal: deeper, resilient stablecoin liquidity on Cardano is essential. I buy into serious, well-governed use of treasury capital to bootstrap critical public goods. Yet this proposal, in its current form, is dangerously under-specified, legally exposed, and operationally risky. It asks for 50M ADA to build what should be a surgical, legally robust, and transparency-first intervention; yet it delivers vague governance mechanics, fragile custody design, and large execution risks without credible mitigation. I cannot, in good conscience, approve this.

The idea is valid and has been bandied around for years. Stablecoin liquidity is a key missing piece for growth, on-/off-ramp stability, and deeper DeFi activity. However, a 9-person multisig with 5-of-9 signers plus a dRep tDAO oversight centralizes execution risk in a human committee with weak, undefined real-world legal safeguards and key-management procedures. The legal standing of dReps, committee members, and the smart contract’s “ownership” is not established. If something goes wrong — say, a breach, hack, or regulator inquiry — who is legally liable? The proposal punts this, again, to later “legal structure” discussion. That is unacceptable for deploying tens of millions of ADA.

And speaking of legal: the proposal promises "legal entities and counsel later" but requires the full 49.5M withdrawal only after “legal structure in place.” That sequencing is ambiguous and insufficient, because the first 500k ADA withdrawal already contains a material legal budget but no binding terms. Ouch.

Then there's the treasury accounting and peg risk. While the fund design allows assets to include fiat-backed stablecoins and liquidity tokens, we're left completely in the dark about how protocol insolvency, stablecoin issuer failure, or depeg events are handled. This is not defined at all.

I'd deem the committee pay of $9k/month total as slightly overpriced, but the real kicker is that contingency legal/audit/KYC costs are baked into the fund with no spending caps or community-approval triggers. Double ouch.

I am not opposed in principle to deploying treasury capital to bootstrap stablecoin liquidity. I also respect the ambition to build open-source governance and legal frameworks. But for the reasons outlined above,** I cannot support this proposal as written: it asks for a very large capital allocation without binding legal protections, executable counterparties, phased risk mitigation, or a hard contingency plan for stablecoin failure or market stress.**

NO — Do not approve. The Snek loan request (5 MILLION ADA!!!) is high-risk, under-specified, and effectively an unsecured bet on a meme-token.

The proposal lacks:

• legally binding loan terms and jurisdiction;
• collateral or enforceable recovery mechanisms;
• tranche-based milestones;
• measurable KPIs (named exchanges, liquidity/depth, volume targets);
• audited financials and realistic cash‑flow forecasts;
• and clear remedies on default.

I'd consider a "loan" for a materially smaller, trancheable sum (say, 500k max.) with hard milestones, signed legal covenants, collateral or guarantees, independent audits, and a credible repayment model with stress testing.

The Treasury must behave like a sovereign steward of scarce capital, not a venture lender without collateral, enforceable covenants, or credible cash-flow evidence.

The proposition has strategic merit and could become an excellent regional program, but in its current form it asks the treasury to perform a leap of faith. That is not how responsible custodians should operate when approving 778k ADA.

Strategic intent is strong, but the submission is high on narrative and light on the essential governance requirements we need to prudently release treasury funds. For 778k ADA I've to see granular deliverables and evidence that identical or similar work is not already budgeted elsewhere (regional DRep activity, existing ecosystem funds, IOHK/EMURGO/CF initiatives, SPOs, local community grants). The proposal claims alignment but does not map overlap or show coordination agreements. Without that mapping we risk fragmented effort and wasted spend.

I will not approve budgets that prioritize more parties, more hackathons, or influencer blitzes without iron-clad, measurable pathways to paying users and lasting references. If a proposal cannot demonstrate that each ADA spent produces traceable, market-validated outcomes, then it is ineffective and cannot be justified from the treasury.

If you want my support for region programs, bring measurable pilots, customer-signed MOUs, staged funding, and a plan to convert outcomes into repeatable word-of-mouth referrals. That is how Cardano convinces institutions — not with another party event.

At first glance, the proposed amendments appear modest, mostly wording refinements, clarifications, and removal of outdated or redundant clauses. This is not inherently problematic; streamlining documentation is beneficial. However, the devil is in the details, particularly regarding treasury withdrawals and the removal of the Budget Information Action (BIA) requirement.

The rationale to remove BIAs for treasury withdrawals under 1 million ADA within two years, accompanied by the relaxation of audit requirements, is deeply troubling. Audits are a fundamental control mechanism in any prudent financial governance framework. Labeling audits as “burdensome conditions” as DRep YUTA states, betrays a lack of appreciation for sound business management principles. This signals a potential weakening of financial oversight that will invite misuse or misallocation of funds, contrary to the fiduciary responsibilities we hold as DReps!

Moreover, the removal of BIAs and audit requirements will almost certainly incentivize proposers to fragment larger budgets into multiple sub-1-million ADA requests, circumventing meaningful scrutiny. This creates a loophole ripe for exploitation by less scrupulous actors, increasing the oversight burden on DReps and diluting treasury protection.

The proposal’s motivation to support builders more efficiently is understandable, efficiency cannot come at the cost of financial rigor. The constitution should reinforce, not erode, mechanisms that ensure transparency and accountability. The added disclosure requirements are insufficient substitutes for formal audits and structured budget reviews.

This proposal does not demonstrate the necessary strategic foresight or business acumen to safeguard Cardano’s treasury and governance framework. It underestimates the complexity and risk of financial management in a decentralized ecosystem. I do not see this as a step forward but rather a step sideways, potentially backward.

Vote: NO

The premise of the proposal is that SNEK is the flagship Cardano token that will unlock liquidity, visibility and user acquisition like DOGE or SHIBA. This is a false analogy: DOGE or SHIBA are broad meme tokens with cultural impact, and significant utility or community use beyond hype, while SNEK is a highly speculative niche meme token of little intrinsic value or utility. The claim of "over 42,000 wallets" and "2 billion ADA in all-time trading volume" is not a sign of ecosystem value in itself, especially when the price of the token has mostly been down. This in itself is a red flag as to the sustainability and strategic value of the proposal to anchor Cardano's exchange visibility on a token whose price and utility are questionable.

The proposal also confuses the success of SNEK with the needs of the whole ecosystem and states that "funding SNEK's growth is also funding Cardano's global competitiveness". This is a dangerous false analogy: the strength of Cardano is in its protocol, scientific basis and diverse ecosystem of real-world use cases projects. Prioritizing a single speculative token for treasury funding is a waste of resources that could be used for infrastructure, developer tools, Layer 2 scaling solutions or for a more sustainable and holistic ecosystem governance improvement.

These 5 million ADA budget is too large, especially since there are no budget breakdowns, deliverables or risk mitigation plans at this stage. While it states that the project was self-funded to $4 million, it does not convincingly show that the additional treasury funds will yield a proportional ecosystem-wide return or how these expenditures differ from market listing fees and liquidity provision already done by other projects. The lack of transparency on cost efficiency and ROI is a red flag about the stewardship of community funds.

This is a clear NO from my side!

I vote YES to ratify this governance action because it is imperative to have a valid Constitutional Committee in place before the current term expires. This is foundational for Cardano’s governance continuity and legitimacy.

However, I urge the community and future proposals to focus on evolving governance structures with strategic foresight, enhanced transparency safeguards, and stronger independence mechanisms. Procedural actions like this must become more efficient and less resource-intensive as the ecosystem matures.

If this goes through (and it should), then the community needs to hold IOR and Intersect to high standards. No more unlimited funding without traction. Milestones need to be heavily questioned by third party experts – not “rubber stamped”.

This is a “must have” research program, ask anyone in the field. Cardano cannot afford to keep funding academic exercises that don't quickly filter into the engineering pipeline and mainnet improvements. The world is moving and we cannot sit on our laurels.

Let's get research that ships.

Cardano cannot have a fragile, obsolete funding system if it wants to stand against the backdrop of new age Web3 ecosystems. This proposal is not only needed, it is long overdue. We have the history, the pain points are real, the oversight is strong, and the budget is large but proportional to the scope and the impact.

If we want Catalyst to be credible, inclusive and scalable– Vote Yes. If we want to leave the Cardano engine of innovation to sputter in place – Vote No and prepare for the consequences. My vote: YES. Let's get it done right, and then burn every deliverable to the ground.

I vote YES - provided full transparency, milestone enforcement and aggressive public reporting of progress and spend.

It is "core engineering to keep the lights on" for Cardano as a global settlement layer. If we do not do it, we risk a stagnant or worse ecosystem.

However, let's be clear: It will not be a black box or IOE slush fund. We need to see exactly what is being delivered for every ADA spent. If Intersect do not enforce this, I will not give them my vote next year.

This is a very important project for the Cardano developer community. It is filling a real need (Python tooling), has a good history and the budget is reasonable for the scope and impact. There is no real duplication at this quality and level of integration in Cardano.

No-nonsense: Cardano's developer community is still many years behind Ethereum in terms of mature, accessible tooling (especially for non-Haskell/JS devs) and Python is the language of millions of developers around the world (in data science, finance, etc.) and if we want Cardano to get talent outside the Haskell cult, then it is non-negotiable that we have native, robust Python tooling. PyCardano is the only Python library that can create and sign Cardano transactions without the need for kludgy 3rd party serialization tools, reducing friction, bugs and the onboarding pain of developers who would otherwise just build on another chain.

This proposal fits very well with the plan to make Cardano more accessible and useful to a wider dev community by lowering the barrier of entry. It helps to foster innovation outside the very small circle of Plutus/Haskell in-group. We need more bets like this if we want a healthy, growing dev community.

If we want our tokens to be taken seriously outside of our bubble, liquidity and visibility are key. The diagnosis of the proposal is right: lack of exchange presence and low liquidity are the bottlenecks to growth of the ecosystem.

Does it scale? No, this is a one-off solution that won't help the next CNT unless we do the same exercise (and pay for it) over and over.

Is it sustainable? No, once the treasury funding is gone so is market making and the incentive for exchanges to keep us on their exchange.

Does it build Cardano's main strengths? No, it will reinforce our dependence on centralized venues and market makers instead of building native liquidity infrastructure.

This proposal is an attempt to brute-force Cardano into the top tier exchanges with expensive deal-making and "market making as a service". I agree that visibility and liquidity are problems but it is a short-sighted solution that will cost millions for little and temporary gain while making us more dependent on centralized intermediaries.

The proposal deals with real problems: liquidity, custody, fiat ramps, but it does so in a way that looks like a big public grant for the expansion of a private company. The amount requested is too much without supporting transparency at this time and given that there are similar efforts ongoing elsewhere in the Cardano ecosystem. There is a high risk of duplicated effort, vendor lock in and no ecosystem impact. The Treasury is supposed to fund public goods, not underwrite the go to market costs of one stablecoin issuer or ramp provider.

Let's see more evidence of open infrastructure deliverables, competitive costings, and clear non-duplication before we spend millions of ADA on what smells like a vendor subsidy. Cardano needs public goods infrastructure, not a private market share wars funded out of the Treasury.

I 100% agree, Cardano needs global exposure and getting builders in front of investors, devs and users is critical. But the "Ecosystem Pavilion" type of approach (pay to have a booth at a generic event for multiple projects) feels like a old school marketing stunt in a digital first world.
Cardano's problems won't be solved with more generic booths at a generic event. What is missing from this proposal is a clean statement of what unique value Cardano has at these expos that would make them come to Cardano, what exactly makes us different in a generic blockchain expo hall? No answer here. Intersect has funded and continues to fund community booths, hackathons and dev onboarding at global events. Cardano Foundation, EMURGO and a dozen community groups have already put forward presence at expos and conferences. Is Supplyoneers FZ-LLC just copying what's already out there? No clear evidence that this proposal is coordinating with anything else, or filling a hole that's not there.

Yes Intersect will manage the contracts and the milestones. Yes there are oversight committees. But the core problem is upstream: what if the whole concept doesn't work out and we burn treasury on visibility without conversions and without any network effect.

The proposal describes a real gap: Cardano does not yet have reusable and composable on-chain elliptic curve and finite field cryptographic tooling. But it does not show why the existing cryptography libraries, community standards or research work can not be used or extended instead of a "proof of concept" to be built from scratch. The Cardano ecosystem already has several cryptography initiatives (e.g. CTL, Ply, Cardano.nix) and is improving the Plutarch tooling. The proposal says that it is building on them but it does not explain in what way GrumpleStiltSkin is different and/or does not duplicate work.

This is a typical story of the blockchain development gap reduction, tooling fragmentation and cognitive overhead reduction. The intent is good: Cardano ecosystem is too difficult for newcomers coming from the traditional enterprise stack, and even despite being a beautiful tech stack. But the proposal does not mention some key facts: Cardano already has multiple mature development environments in different languages (Plutus in Haskell, Marlowe in DSL, Glow in DSL) and a lot of work in place on good SDKs and Layer 2.

Is Scalus a step in this direction or it is a copy of the same effort, but with a Scala coat of paint? The vendor's credentials are good: Oleksandr Nemish used to work at IOG and is a functional programmer expert. But there is no proof in the proposal that Scala 3 integration will be better or complementary to the existing Cardano tools and this is not enough to justify the budget. There is no proof of new technical breakthrough and there is no clear idea how Scalus is going to work with Cardano's eUTxO model and Hydra scaling solutions. Without this, the risk of tool fragments is that they will be siloed and incompatible and will result in more fragmentation of the ecosystem, which contradicts the objective of the proposal.

In terms of strategy, the proposal that focuses on Scala developers is a double-edged sword. Some enterprise developers will be attracted, but the strength of the Cardano ecosystem is in the scientific side and functional programming. It is likely that introduction of another complex language and toolchain will make the onboarding process more difficult for the wider community and the fragmentation of the developers' efforts will be even more severe. The productivity boost at scale is not justified without benchmarks or pilot results.

I like the idea of lowering the barrier for Web2 developers but this proposal does not have enough technical differentiation, ecosystem alignment and the proof of need to justify the requested funds. It is likely to copy the existing effort and to fragment our tooling landscape when we need to be cohesive and scalable.

This proposal to tokenize US home equity on Cardano is interesting in concept but without a clear strategic rationale, planning or differentiation from other RWA projects. The $3M is too much for a proposal without transparent budget and risk controls and we are still missing the regulator and liquidity issues and the risk of duplication of effort.

I propose a no vote as we need to keep our treasury for projects with clear rationale, ecosystem importance and a proven impact.

We are requested to fund a proposal for NFTCDN to help Cardano native asset media delivery for Cardano developers by offering a paid service free for 18 months. The problem is real but the proposed solution duplicates what CDNs do already without evidence of unique value or widespread benefit to the community.

The value proposition is overly optimistic and unproven, the budget is not transparent and the proposal raises questions about lock-in, sustainability and strategic fit.

I would vote NO: Cardano should invest in infrastructure that is open, sustainable and well-justified, not vendor-dependent stopgaps.

I have to question why the proposal is requesting 6 million to be spent on an event marketing campaign. This is a large amount of treasury funds. The abstract and motivation sections are based mostly on marketing jargon and comparisons to competitors and not on what a specific, concrete strategy to be different.

The proposal does not show how this amount of money will lead to a measurable return on investment or growth of the Cardano ecosystem other than "participating in events" and "hosting parties", which could be seen as a very expensive brand campaign with no return.

Cardano Foundation, Emurgo and Rare Network are reputable names involved in the proposal. But the proposal does not show how this proposal will not duplicate the marketing activities of these parties and other Catalyst funded projects.

There is no doubt that the idea to have a single face for the Cardano brand at blockchain events is a good idea. However, the amount of money requested is too large and not justified. It will duplicate the effort of other parties and will not lead to a measurable return or ROI. Cardano should focus on strategic and low-cost initiatives that will lead to growth of the protocol and the Cardano ecosystem. I vote NO. This is not a responsible use of treasury funds.

This is an ambitious scope of work in important technical areas: ledger and consensus conformance testing, Plutus script tooling, genesis sync acceleration, node emulation, history expiry and codec improvements. This is all relevant and is related to scalability, performance, verifiability, developer experience, all of which are important for Cardano's future.

₳11m is a large amount, especially if we consider that the total amount approved for 39 proposals is ₳275m. The proposal bundles multiple projects into one, making it difficult to understand the cost/benefit of each. Since we need to be responsible with the Cardano treasury, I think we should vote NO at this time. The proposal needs to be sharpened and clear how it differs from current work and how the budget is justified.

The proposal seems to be reinventing the wheel on top of an already complex and well-funded governance and funding system, without a compelling argument as to why the existing system cannot be used more effectively or augmented in some way.

The zero operation cost claim is interesting but not well explained as to how that is possible in the long term considering the complexity of the oversight, legal and technical infrastructure described. The proposed voting power formula (sqrt donation amount + log reputation) is well balanced between stake and impact, but it is very complex and dependent on subjective reputation values that can be gamed and manipulated, even with the proposed Sybil and collusion protection, and the use of Hyperledger Identus for zero-knowledge KYC is very interesting but not yet proven in a large scale in the Cardano decentralized system. The proposal does not explain how the layers of verification will work with the native identity and governance tools of Cardano and the potential risk of centralization and privacy issues.

The proposal is a waste of effort if it is not adding value on top of what is already being done in Project Catalyst and other funding experiments, without a compelling and evidence-based advantage.

While Eternl’s multi-platform presence and community-driven nature are commendable, the proposal lacks a compelling articulation of unique value or innovation that justifies dedicated ongoing funding at this scale. The Cardano ecosystem already supports several wallets, including Lace (IOG-backed) and others, which have significant user bases and development momentum. The critical question remains: how many wallets does Cardano need to maintain publicly from treasury funds? Wallet proliferation risks fragmenting developer and user attention, diluting network effects, and increasing maintenance overhead.

The proposal does not provide a comparative analysis against existing wallet solutions, nor does it address whether coordination or consolidation efforts have been explored to optimize resource allocation. Without such strategic alignment, funding Eternl in isolation risks duplicative expenditure and missed opportunities for synergy. Given the ecosystem’s need for robust, scalable infrastructure, treasury funds should prioritize projects with clear, differentiated impact and collaborative frameworks.

Plutarch is a key tool, but it is not the only smart contract development framework in the Cardano ecosystem. Coordination with other projects like Plutus and related tooling is paramount to avoid fragmentation and duplication of effort. The proposal does not articulate how it aligns or integrates with parallel initiatives, nor does it address whether alternative or complementary solutions could reduce maintenance overhead or consolidate resources.

Plutarch is important, but this proposal lacks clear budget breakdown, strategic vision, and ecosystem coordination. ₳243,478 is a significant ask without demonstrated cost-efficiency or innovation focus. Maintenance alone is insufficient for Cardano’s future scaling needs. I vote NO until the proposal provides detailed funding justification, integration plans, and a forward-looking roadmap aligned with Cardano’s long-term goals.

Dolos aims to provide a lightweight Cardano data node optimized for dApps, but the proposal lacks clear differentiation from existing solutions and fails to justify the ₳220k budget given its narrow scope. Without evidence of unique strategic value or critical ecosystem need, funding this risks duplicating efforts and misallocating treasury resources. Governance processes are sound, but substance is lacking.

For these reasons, I vote NO! Cardano’s treasury should focus on higher-impact, scalable solutions aligned with our long-term vision.

The Cardano ecosystem already hosts multiple blockchain explorers, including mature, well-supported platforms like Cardanoscan and PoolTool, each catering to different user segments—from casual users to developers and SPOs. The question is not whether explorers are needed—they clearly are—but how many are sustainable and justified given our treasury constraints and strategic priorities.

Cexplorer.io claims 50,000 monthly users and millions of data requests, which is respectable, but nowhere near the scale of the leading explorers. The proposal lacks a clear differentiation strategy that justifies funding a third or fourth major explorer. It does not convincingly demonstrate unique features or innovations that would significantly advance Cardano’s transparency or developer experience beyond what existing explorers already provide.

Furthermore, the proposal’s motivation and rationale are vague and generic: "improve UX," "expand team," "ensure stability," and "continuous improvement" are standard maintenance requests that do not explain why this specific platform deserves substantial treasury funding rather than relying on community support or commercial models.

At first glance, funding Lucid Evolution’s maintenance and development seems aligned with a core need: supporting a widely used off-chain library critical for developer productivity.

Lucid Evolution is described as “one of the most used offchain libraries,” yet the ecosystem already hosts multiple competing libraries and tools for off-chain interactions (e.g., Blockfrost SDK, Mesh SDK, and others). The proposal does not convincingly demonstrate why Lucid Evolution is uniquely indispensable or how it outperforms alternatives.

While open source is commendable, the proposal centers on funding a single vendor, Anastasia Labs, to maintain and evolve the library. This creates a potential single point of failure and vendor lock-in. How can we ensure continuity if this vendor disengages?

As a DRep responsible for safeguarding Cardano’s ecosystem sustainability and transparency, I appreciate the need for reliable blockchain explorers. These are essential infrastructure pieces. AdaStat.net has proven its utility over years, which argues strongly in favor of continued support rather than risking loss of service.

My "Yes" vote is backed by the following reasoning:

• AdaStat.net is a critical piece of Cardano’s infrastructure that has proven stable and useful over years.
• The requested funding appears reasonable relative to the scope (2 years continuation).
• Lack of detailed budget breakdown and innovation roadmap is a concern but can be mitigated by strict milestone enforcement post-approval.
• Continued support aligns with Cardano’s governance transparency goals.

The core claim that a Typescript browser node will “remove the ivory tower” and significantly lower barriers for developers is, at best, speculative and at worst, naïve. Cardano’s architecture, especially its UTxO model and consensus mechanisms, is complex by design. Simplifying node implementation to Typescript and running it in-browser risks compromising performance, security, and protocol fidelity. The proposal offers no technical evidence or benchmarks demonstrating feasibility, let alone resilience under real-world network conditions. Without this, the “trustless” nature they promise remains unproven.

The motivation leans heavily on broad platitudes about decentralization and accessibility but lacks a critical evaluation of existing alternatives. Light clients and wallet integrations already provide user-friendly access without requiring full nodes in browsers. The proposal does not articulate why this approach is superior or how it integrates with Cardano’s layered scaling roadmap (Hydra, Layer 2, Leios). Nor does it address the significant challenges of resource constraints in browsers, potential attack surfaces, or the impact on network security.

While the concept behind UTxO RPC is aligned with Cardano’s need for standardized developer tools, this proposal falls short in justifying ongoing funding at this level with insufficient evidence of broader ecosystem demand, clear impact metrics, or strategic growth plans.

The budget appears inflated relative to the scope presented here, and the proposal does not demonstrate urgency or unique value compelling enough to allocate over 200k ₳ without further refinement.

In a landscape where Cardano must adopt a business-minded, strategic approach to safeguard its treasury and scientific foundation, this proposal feels premature and insufficiently grounded. The ecosystem would benefit more from incremental, well-scoped interoperability projects that leverage existing Layer 2 and ZK research, rather than a large upfront bet on an unproven ZK bridge framework.

The proposal’s abstract and motivation are heavy on buzzwords—“zero-knowledge,” “modular,” “trustless,” “isomorphic blockchains”—yet conspicuously light on concrete technical differentiation or demonstrable competitive advantage. Cardano’s existing ecosystem is already advancing with Hydra, optimistic rollups, and ongoing research in ZK proofs. What exactly sets this implementation apart? The rationale claims superiority over optimistic bridges by touting reduced latency and trust assumptions, but fails to engage with the inherent complexity and security challenges of ZK bridges, especially in a multi-chain environment. The devil is in the details, and those are missing here.

Furthermore, the vendor’s profile, while impressive in academic credentials and prior cryptographic work, lacks specific evidence of delivering production-grade cross-chain ZK bridge infrastructure. Contributions to libraries and protocols are not synonymous with having built a secure, scalable, and battle-tested bridge compatible with Cardano’s unique eUTxO model. The proposal does not clarify how the ZK circuits will interact with Cardano’s accounting model or how they will handle the notoriously difficult problem of finality and state synchronization in a trust-minimized way.

This is a "No" from my side!

I acknowledge the importance of maintaining and enhancing BloxBean’s Java tools as part of Cardano’s ecosystem infrastructure. The requested budget is modest relative to the potential long-term value of solid developer tooling.

Cardano’s governance system is indeed in need of evolution, and a data-driven, community-informed approach is the right direction. Nonetheless, this proposal’s current form lacks the rigor and strategic safeguards required to ensure it delivers meaningful, sustainable improvements. The absence of DRep incentives and budget caps is especially concerning, as these issues directly threaten governance participation quality and decentralization integrity.

I vote NO on this treasury withdrawal in its current form. I urge the proposers and the community to insist on the following before reconsideration:

• A clear incentive framework for DReps that rewards thorough analysis and participation.
• Defined budget limits per cycle with transparent, measurable KPIs tied to funding release.
• A robust plan to translate governance insights into on-chain protocol enhancements with committed follow-up funding.
• Integration of on-chain governance tooling improvements alongside off-chain community engagement.

Without these critical elements, this proposal risks becoming a costly, repetitive exercise with limited real-world impact. Cardano’s governance deserves more than incremental reporting—it demands transformative, accountable, and incentivized evolution.

Let us not settle for Minimum Viable Governance; let us demand a governance system that truly empowers and respects every stakeholder’s time and voice.

Although zkFold’s ZK rollup promises scalability and lower fees, the proposal lacks clear integration with Cardano’s existing Layer 2 roadmap, detailed risk management, and budget transparency. The requested ₳1.16M is premature given the experimental stage and governance centralization concerns. I vote NO until these critical gaps are addressed to protect Cardano’s treasury and strategic coherence.

The proposal’s goal to create a community-driven 2030 vision and roadmap is essential and strategically aligned with Cardano’s values. However, the ₳750,000 budget is excessive given the lack of a detailed breakdown, clear accountability measures, and a robust community engagement plan. Without these, I cannot justify such a large treasury withdrawal. I vote NO until the proposal is refined with greater financial transparency and stronger execution safeguards.

This proposal to rewrite the Ledger Cardano app UI is a narrow, incremental fix that duplicates effort already covered by a broader Ledger integration governance action I support. It lacks strategic cohesion and efficient use of ₳300,000 treasury funds. For prudent, unified progress, I vote No—we must consolidate and fund this work within the existing comprehensive Ledger proposal.

TL;DR:
The Cardano Builder DAO proposal aims to fill a real funding gap for live dApps but introduces risks of governance fragmentation, vendor conflicts, and administrative complexity. Its ROI framework lacks rigor, and treasury protection is insufficiently addressed. Without stronger integration, independence safeguards, and clearer strategic impact, committing ₳12M now is premature. For the long-term stability and coherence of Cardano’s ecosystem, I recommend a NO vote until these critical issues are resolved.

Blockfrost is critical infrastructure but currently too centralized, risking Cardano’s core values. The Icebreakers initiative offers a promising decentralization approach but lacks measurable milestones, clear impact metrics, and a phased, accountable roadmap.

₳1.3 million is a significant ask without sufficient proof of concept or alternatives considered. I vote NO. The proposal needs sharper KPIs, delivery milestones, independent validation, and risk mitigation before treasury funds should be committed.

I vote No on this treasury withdrawal. I urge the proposer to return with a refined proposal that includes:

• Clear, quantifiable milestones and KPIs aligned to ecosystem growth metrics;
• Independent performance benchmarks and security audits;
• A sustainability plan for post-funding continuation;
• Transparent mechanisms for milestone validation and community reporting.

The proposal’s goal to sustainably fund open-source development is crucial and aligned with Cardano’s needs. However, the requested ₳5,885,000 is too large for a single withdrawal without clear, phased milestones, rigorous KPIs, and stronger transparency. Governance control remains too concentrated, risking accountability gaps. Coordination with existing Cardano entities is unclear, risking duplication. I vote NO—we must insist on a more disciplined, incremental funding model with robust oversight to protect the treasury and ensure long-term ecosystem resilience.

I vote Yes to fund Pallas because it is a critical Rust-native toolkit underpinning key Cardano projects and essential for ecosystem stability. However, the proposal lacks clear KPIs and a strong innovation roadmap aligned with Cardano’s long-term vision. Continued funding should be contingent on rigorous milestone tracking and demonstrable impact beyond maintenance. Supporting Pallas now is pragmatic—but we must insist on sharper accountability going forward.

I recommend a No vote on this treasury withdrawal in its current form. I urge the proposers to refine their technical roadmap with demonstrable prototypes, provide quantitative economic forecasts, and strengthen community involvement mechanisms. Only with these enhancements can we confidently support a project that promises to bridge Cardano and Bitcoin in a meaningful, sustainable way. Cardano’s future depends on strategic discipline, not unchecked optimism.

I must vote NO on this proposal for the following reasons:

Lack of Granular Accountability: The proposal outlines broad and essential functions but fails to provide detailed, measurable deliverables or KPIs that justify such a large financial commitment. Without concrete milestones, it’s impossible to rigorously assess if funds are spent efficiently or if objectives are met.

Oversight Concerns: The governance and oversight model, although incorporating external entities, remains heavily centralized around Intersect’s leadership. This concentration raises risks of operational bottlenecks and insufficient decentralization—contradictory to Cardano’s foundational principles.

Insufficient Strategic Innovation: The proposal largely maintains the status quo without presenting transformative or scalable governance strategies. Given the critical juncture of Voltaire, we must demand bold steps toward pluralization and decentralization rather than reinforcing existing centralized structures.

Opaque Community Engagement Metrics: Supporting numerous committees is positive in theory, but the lack of transparent evaluation mechanisms for community impact and participation quality undermines confidence in Intersect’s effectiveness.

Treasury Protection Imperative: The requested amount represents a sizeable chunk of our treasury. Approving this without stringent controls risks compromising the protocol’s long-term financial health and stability.

The continuous maintenance and timely updates for Ledger, Trezor, and Keystone wallets are indispensable for safeguarding user access and integrating new Cardano features as the protocol evolves. Vacuumlabs’ long-standing involvement since 2018 and proven expertise provide confidence in their capacity to deliver.

While I maintain a call for improved transparency and milestone clarity going forward, the proposal’s alignment with the approved Intersect budget framework and robust governance oversight mechanisms mitigate some risks. Supporting this initiative ensures that Cardano’s hardware wallet ecosystem remains secure, functional, and future-proof—an essential pillar for network decentralization and user trust.

I vote No on this proposal in its current form. The 6 million ADA budget is excessive, poorly justified, and risks inefficient treasury use. We must prioritize lean, measurable, and strategically focused initiatives that preserve treasury health while still driving adoption and innovation. Let’s demand a revised proposal with transparent budgeting and phased milestones before committing such a significant sum.

While I acknowledge the importance of advancing scalability and throughput solutions, this proposal demands rigorous scrutiny beyond the surface-level enthusiasm for “permissionless rollups” and “fraud proof simplicity.”

First, the budget ask—over 2 million ADA—is not trivial. Funding must be proportional to measurable progress and risk mitigation, yet the proposal heavily leans on theoretical advantages of EUTxO without demonstrating a fully operational prototype or proven mainnet readiness beyond vague “significant progress.” The assertion that fraud proofs on Cardano are “extremely straightforward” because of local ledger state glosses over the complexity and novel engineering challenges inherent to optimistic rollups, especially when scaling to real-world use cases. We need granular, verifiable milestones that detail how Midgard will overcome potential UTxO contention and small block size limitations without compromising network performance or security.

Regarding economic incentives, the tokenless design and fee revenue flowing directly to Cardano’s base layer are commendable structural choices. However, the proposal does not sufficiently address how Midgard will attract operators and users in the absence of native token incentives or detail how fees will be sustainably allocated and balanced against operational costs.

Midgard represents an ambitious, strategically aligned project that could leverage Cardano’s architectural strengths to pioneer rollups in a truly permissionless, censorship-resistant manner. Yet ambition alone cannot justify large treasury allocations without transparent technical disclosures, incremental proof points, and detailed risk assessments. We must demand a sharper roadmap with explicit deliverables before endorsing substantial funding.

I support Midgard’s vision but urge restraint and exacting oversight. We owe it to our community to protect the treasury and uphold Cardano’s scientific rigor while enabling innovation. Let us invest boldly—but wisely—in this potential cornerstone of Cardano’s Layer 2 future.

From a strategic governance perspective, I question whether this proposal aligns optimally with the timing and thematic focus of the broader Catalyst funding rounds. Catalyst’s iterative funding cycles are designed to empower community-driven innovation and rapid adaptation. Given that Cardano.nix is a toolset with active community engagement and evolving requirements, it may benefit from the iterative feedback loops and dynamic prioritization facilitated by Catalyst 14 rather than a fixed budget allocation through Intersect. This could enhance community oversight, foster broader stakeholder input, and potentially unlock complementary contributions or enhancements from the wider developer ecosystem.

Moreover, integrating this funding into Catalyst could reinforce the principle of decentralized decision-making by allowing the community to evaluate the proposal’s evolving impact in real time. This would also align with our collective imperative to adopt a business-minded governance approach—making strategic choices that optimize treasury utilization while safeguarding the protocol’s long-term stability.

I support the necessity of this work and recognize its critical role in Cardano’s infrastructure. Yet, I advocate for a governance model that leverages Catalyst’s adaptive funding mechanisms to ensure the community remains actively engaged in shaping the evolution of foundational tools like Cardano.nix. This is not merely a question of funding but of embedding accountability, transparency, and strategic agility into the heart of our treasury disbursements. Only through such disciplined, community-centric stewardship can we secure Cardano’s future as the most decentralized and scalable PoS network in the world.

I would like to raise a few points of concern from a strategic governance perspective regarding the request by Tempo.Vote for 380k ADA over six months.

I do not dispute the importance of an independent infrastructure to ensure data integrity and not depend on a centralized provider. However, the cost of the proposed infrastructure (200k ADA) is too high and far from the industry standard for similar blockchain node and backend indexing services. We need to be more business-minded in our approach to treasury spending. We need to ask ourselves if this cost is realistic or if it is a slippery slope that will lead to the treasury being depleted without any accountability. Running a Cardano node and an indexer is not a walk in the park but it should not cost hundreds of thousands of ADA per month in fiat terms. **With a good developer earning about 120k USD per year, the 180k ADA development budget over six months is also something we should ask ourselves if it is justified. **Especially without a detailed list of deliverables that are directly linked to measurable results.

The insistence on withdrawing the funds in ADA instead of a stablecoin pegged to fiat currency is also adding a lot of volatility risk to the budgeting and treasury management. **The ADA price can have a huge impact on the actual value of the funds that are being allocated and that will undermine the stability and predictability of the treasury. A stablecoin disbursement mechanism would be a much better way to protect the treasury's purchasing power and to align it with the real-world operational costs. **

Tempo.Vote's desire to make governance more accessible is laudable and the feature roadmap (improving UX, optimizing governance voting, and innovating with a lending pool to facilitate governance action submissions) is promising. But we need to be careful and not let ambition take over. Without a detailed list of costs and performance metrics, it is hard to approve such a large withdrawal of ADA and that will erode the trust of the community and put the long-term sustainability of Cardano's treasury at risk.

I appreciate the contribution of Tempo and I have been using their platform over others. I must however firmly reject this proposal as it is. We are the guardians of a fixed and disinflationary treasury and we need to be prudent in our stewardship. We cannot allow the treasury to be depleted with high infrastructure costs and withdrawals in ADA without any accountability. We need to demand responsible and transparent spending that protects Cardano's future and respects the scientific rigor of this protocol.

From a strategic governance perspective, this proposal to continue funding GovTool’s active development and maintenance raises significant concerns regarding the fragmentation and duplication of governance infrastructure within the Cardano ecosystem. While GovTool undeniably plays a critical role as an open-source, community-owned interface facilitating on-chain governance participation, the coexistence and overlap with other platforms—most notably tempo.vote—cannot be ignored. This parallelism risks diluting user engagement, confusing stakeholders, and ultimately weakening the unified governance experience that Cardano must strive to deliver.

The proposal’s emphasis on GovTool’s modularity, open APIs, and broad ecosystem integration is commendable; however, it insufficiently addresses the strategic imperative of consolidation. The Treasury resources allocated here—up to ₳1.15M annually—represent a substantial investment that must be justified by demonstrable efficiency gains and a clear roadmap toward interoperability or unification with other governance tools. The absence of explicit plans to harmonize GovTool with tempo.vote or to rationalize overlapping functionalities leaves the community vulnerable to redundant expenditures and operational inefficiencies.

Cardano’s governance strength lies not only in decentralization but in coherence and scalability. Supporting multiple competing governance frontends fragments the community’s attention and complicates the user journey, undermining the inclusivity and accessibility that Voltaire envisions. It is imperative that the Governance Tools Working Group and the GovTool Consortium prioritize strategic alignment with existing platforms, fostering interoperability standards or even converging development efforts to create a singular, robust, and user-friendly governance interface.

Moreover, from a business-minded stewardship standpoint, we must scrutinize the proposal’s tiered funding structure and ensure that every tranche of expenditure directly contributes to sustainable and scalable governance outcomes. While the modular approach and community feedback integration are positive steps, they do not substitute for a comprehensive strategic framework that safeguards the Treasury and maximizes long-term value for Ada holders.

In advancing Cardano’s governance infrastructure, we must reject proliferation in favor of strategic consolidation. The future stability of the protocol and the vitality of its community participation depend on decisive, coordinated action to unify governance tools. Therefore, I support funding GovTool only on the condition that the proposal includes a binding, transparent roadmap for integration or harmonization with tempo.vote and other governance platforms. This is non-negotiable if we are to preserve Treasury resources, enhance user experience, and uphold Cardano’s scientific and decentralized governance ethos.

I firmly believe that governance tools must empower and unify, not divide, our community. It is time for us, as stewards of Cardano’s future, to make strategic choices that protect our treasury and build a truly scalable, coherent governance ecosystem—one platform, one vision, one Cardano.

The proposal's budgetary framework, particularly the valuation of full-time equivalent (FTE) efforts at USD 200,000 per annum, demands rigorous scrutiny. While the ambition to develop an interoperable, modular block-producing node is commendable and aligns with Cardano’s ethos of decentralization and robustness, the compensation level proposed is disproportionate when benchmarked against industry standards for comparable roles within the blockchain and open-source development domains.

A salary of USD 200,000 per FTE, irrespective of function or responsibility, risks alienating the community by projecting an image of excess rather than stewardship of the treasury. This is especially critical given Cardano’s fixed supply and disinflationary monetary policy, which mandates prudent and strategic allocation of funds to ensure long-term protocol stability and sustainability. The treasury is a communal resource, meant to fuel innovation without compromising the economic integrity of the ecosystem.

Moreover, the blanket application of this salary level across diverse roles—from ledger architecture to marketing—ignores the nuanced valuation of skills, responsibilities, and market realities. A more calibrated approach, such as aligning salaries closer to USD 120,000 per annum, would reflect a fair market rate while preserving fiscal discipline. Introducing performance-based bonuses or success-linked incentives would further align contributor motivation with tangible project milestones and community value creation.

The proposal’s governance and treasury management mechanisms, including the use of smart contracts and multi-signature authorizations, are robust and demonstrate a commendable commitment to transparency and accountability. However, technical rigor in fund administration must be matched by strategic prudence in budgetary allocations.

In advancing Cardano’s vision, we must not lose sight of the broader imperative: fostering a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient ecosystem. Overcompensating a select few under the guise of innovation risks undermining community trust and diluting the collective mission. I am resolute in my conviction that the treasury must be deployed with a business-minded rigor, balancing ambition with responsibility. The future of Cardano depends on our ability to make such strategic choices decisively and wisely.

The proposal to allocate a 275 million ADA budget in one consolidated on-chain action raises fundamental concerns that strike at the heart of Cardano’s long-term monetary and governance strategy. While the ambition to fund critical technical development is understandable, the conflation of essential projects with discretionary or even questionable expenditures undermines the clarity and discipline required for sustainable treasury management.

Cardano’s fixed supply and disinflationary emission schedule are not mere marketing points—they are pillars of our network’s integrity and competitive advantage. Unlike traditional fiscal budgeting, treasury disbursements on Cardano must be approached as a form of monetary policy intervention, with profound implications for inflation and token value. The analogy to Bitcoin’s sub-1% inflation rate is instructive: protocols that fail to maintain stringent control over supply risk market devaluation and loss of confidence. Cardano’s current sub-2% inflation is already a delicate balance; introducing large, loosely vetted expenditures threatens to destabilize this equilibrium.

The governance process itself reveals critical weaknesses. Bundling diverse proposals into a single, massive budget obscures granular scrutiny and forces DReps into an all-or-nothing vote. This approach disenfranchises the community’s ability to engage meaningfully and erodes trust in the decision-making framework. Proper governance demands transparency, segmented voting, and rigorous application of spam filters to prevent dilution of focus and resources on non-essential initiatives.

Moreover, the absence of a clearly defined spending ceiling prior to proposal consideration inverts responsible budgeting principles. We must first establish how much the treasury can sustainably allocate without compromising network health, then apply stringent selectivity to proposals based on strategic alignment and demonstrable impact. The fear that the Network Control Limit (NCL) is being treated as a target rather than a constraint is not hypothetical—it is manifesting in real-time and must be addressed with urgency.

From my extensive experience navigating complex, technology-driven ecosystems, I assert that unchecked treasury spending is the single greatest existential risk Cardano faces today. We must recalibrate our governance approach to prioritize cautious, business-minded stewardship of resources, ensuring that every ADA spent advances Cardano’s foundational vision of a decentralized, scalable, and scientifically grounded blockchain.

I stand firmly against this haphazard spending trajectory and call upon our community and fellow DReps to adopt a more disciplined, transparent, and strategic framework for treasury governance. Our protocol’s future stability depends on it.

While the intent to facilitate community builders’ access to treasury funding without the burden of a 100k ADA deposit is well-meaning, it fundamentally undermines the rigor and security that the threshold was designed to uphold.

The 100k ADA deposit is not an arbitrary barrier; it serves as a critical economic signal that aligns incentives, deters frivolous or low-quality proposals, and protects the treasury from dilution by projects lacking sufficient skin in the game. Removing or lowering this threshold risks opening the floodgates to a proliferation of proposals that may fragment community focus, dilute scarce resources, and ultimately erode public confidence in the governance process.

Moreover, the constitutional safeguards embedded in the Cardano budget framework—including the 50% + 1 Lovelace threshold of active voting stake—are designed to ensure that only proposals with demonstrable, broad-based community support proceed. Relaxing the deposit requirement while relying solely on voting thresholds may expose the system to strategic manipulation, especially given the complexities and nuances of voter participation and stake delegation patterns.

The long-term resilience and legitimacy of Cardano’s treasury governance depend on maintaining a disciplined, business-minded approach that prioritizes quality over quantity. While we must encourage innovation and community participation, this cannot come at the expense of the protocol’s foundational principles of decentralization, transparency, and accountability.

I firmly believe that preserving the 100k ADA deposit threshold is essential to safeguarding the treasury, ensuring meaningful commitment from proposers, and upholding the integrity of our governance process. Therefore, I will vote No on this proposal, advocating instead for a governance model that balances accessibility with responsibility and strategic foresight.

While the ambition to increase stablecoin liquidity on Cardano is understandable, I must express strong reservations about this proposal on several strategic and operational grounds.

First, the requested budget of 50 million ADA—3.33% of the treasury—is disproportionate given the current state of DeFi on Cardano and the broader crypto landscape. The history of DeFi projects is replete with failures, rug pulls, and speculative memecoins that have eroded trust and capital. Allocating such a significant portion of our treasury to seeding liquidity in this volatile space risks misappropriation of community resources without guaranteed returns or meaningful ecosystem advancement.

Second, the proposal’s governance and remuneration structure raises concerns. A seven-person committee compensated at $2,000 per month each—totaling $168,000 annually—may appear modest but, combined with liquidity deployment, creates a complex fund management scenario that lacks clear, measurable value-add beyond liquidity provision. The committee’s passive management approach, while cost-conscious, does not sufficiently address the dynamic risks of DeFi protocols or provide robust mechanisms for accountability beyond monthly reporting and community feedback channels, which are inherently reactive rather than proactive.

Third, the assumption that stablecoin liquidity alone will catalyze sustainable growth underestimates the multifaceted nature of Cardano’s ecosystem development. True long-term value emerges from innovation in protocol improvements, Layer 2 scaling solutions like Hydra, and fostering real-world use cases that leverage Cardano’s unique UTxO model—not merely from liquidity injections into DeFi protocols that may not survive market cycles or regulatory scrutiny.

Furthermore, the proposal’s risk mitigation strategy—minimizing ADA price impact via staggered monthly purchases and holding up to 35% in ADA—while prudent, does not fully address systemic risks such as stablecoin issuer solvency, regulatory clampdowns, or smart contract vulnerabilities inherent in nascent DeFi projects.

Given Cardano’s fixed supply and disinflationary emission schedule, our treasury must be stewarded with a long-term, business-minded approach that prioritizes stability, scientific rigor, and strategic innovation. Deploying a large portion of funds into speculative liquidity pools without clear evidence of sustainable ecosystem benefits contradicts these principles.

I firmly believe that Cardano’s future lies in leveraging its unique technological strengths—not in chasing short-term DeFi yields that mirror the pitfalls seen elsewhere. We must focus on empowering projects that build foundational infrastructure, enhance scalability, and foster genuine adoption.

Therefore, I vote No on this proposal. Our treasury deserves a more disciplined, visionary, and risk-aware allocation strategy that secures Cardano’s position as the most decentralized, scientifically grounded, and scalable blockchain network for the decades ahead.

I stand ready to collaborate on proposals that reflect these values and safeguard our shared vision.

The proposal to set a Net Change Limit (NCL) of 300M ADA spanning epochs 563 to 635 raises serious concerns from a governance and financial stewardship perspective. First, it is important to recall that the community has already sanctioned an NCL of 200M ADA, explicitly covering the entirety of 2025. This existing limit was established to ensure prudent, measured disbursement of Treasury funds aligned with clear accountability and project milestones.

Requesting an immediate increase to 300M ADA, effectively front-loading additional funds for both 2025 and 2026, circumvents the discipline of periodic review and assessment. It undermines the principle of incremental funding based on demonstrated outcomes, which is essential in safeguarding the Treasury and maintaining trust within the community. Approving a larger NCL now, without the benefit of evaluating the tangible results of projects funded under the current 200M ADA limit, risks diluting financial rigor and could set a precedent for less transparent budget expansions in the future.

Moreover, this approach conflicts with the strategic imperative to align financial governance with a business-minded, outcome-driven framework. The Cardano ecosystem’s long-term stability depends on measured, evidence-based decisions rather than speculative or convenience-driven increases. A more responsible and sustainable path would be to approve a new NCL for 2026 during Q3 2025, post comprehensive review of project milestones and Treasury inflows. This timing respects the community’s right to informed decision-making and ensures that Treasury allocations remain firmly tethered to performance and strategic priorities.

In light of these considerations, I strongly oppose the proposed NCL increase to 300M ADA at this juncture. Upholding financial discipline and transparency is paramount to preserving the integrity of Cardano’s governance and securing its future as the most decentralized, scientifically grounded PoS network. I therefore vote "No" on this governance action.

The Amaru proposal presents a carefully constructed initiative aimed at enhancing Cardano’s node diversity, resilience, and interoperability. While I recognize the merit in fostering innovation and expanding the ecosystem, I must emphasize that any strategic investment must be weighed against our overarching mandate to safeguard Cardano’s long-term stability, treasury health, and scientific rigor.

First, the rationale for developing an alternative node implementation is compelling in principle: improved resource efficiency, industry-grade observability, and broader platform compatibility are undeniably valuable goals. Yet, the current Haskell node’s proven robustness and security over five years set an exceptionally high bar. Introducing a parallel node implementation inherently increases complexity and operational risk, especially when the new codebase is still nascent and unproven at scale.

Moreover, while Rust offers attractive features such as fine-grained memory control and a vibrant ecosystem, it is crucial to rigorously validate that the Amaru node can match or exceed the Haskell node’s security guarantees without introducing new attack surfaces or subtle bugs. The proposal’s emphasis on conformance testing and specification alignment is reassuring, but this process is iterative and resource-intensive. We must be prepared for extended timelines and unforeseen challenges, which could strain resources and divert attention from other critical protocol improvements.

Decentralization is rightly highlighted as a core value, and multiple node implementations can indeed reduce centralization risk. However, decentralization must not come at the cost of fragmenting developer focus or undermining the unified security model that the existing node provides. Our governance approach should ensure that the addition of Amaru is not merely a diversification for its own sake but a strategic enhancement that complements and strengthens the network.

The financial ask—₳1.5 million for six months of development—reflects a serious commitment but also demands scrutiny. Transparency and accountability mechanisms, including the on-chain smart contract and quarterly reporting, are positive steps. Yet, the proposal’s optimistic assumptions about effort and costs must be tempered by the reality of blockchain development’s inherent complexity. We must ensure that contingency budgets are not a buffer for systemic underestimation but a safeguard against genuine risks.

Strategically, the Cardano community must maintain a business-minded discipline. We are custodians of a fixed supply, disinflationary protocol with a treasury that must be preserved to fund innovation sustainably. Supporting Amaru should be framed as a calculated investment with clear milestones, measurable outcomes, and a governance structure that can pivot decisively if progress stalls or risks materialize.

I support the initiative to expand Cardano’s ecosystem and attract new contributors, but I insist that we proceed with rigorous oversight, continuous evaluation, and an unwavering commitment to the protocol’s foundational principles. Amaru’s success hinges not only on technical execution but on our collective ability to integrate innovation without compromising the stability and security that define Cardano’s unique value proposition.

The proposal to set the Net Change Limit (NCL) at 200M ada for 2025 strikes me as a commendably cautious and forward-thinking approach — especially given the Cardano Treasury’s pivotal role as a financial backbone for the ecosystem's sustained vitality.

In an era where exuberance often tempts rapid capital deployment, the insistence on a conservative NCL reflects a mature recognition that treasury governance is not merely about spending but about stewardship. To approve a high NCL upfront risks undermining the very foundation we seek to build: a resilient, self-sustaining ecosystem capable of weathering volatility — both in market conditions and technological evolution.

Recent data from Q1 2025 underscore that crypto markets continue to face regulatory headwinds and fluctuating investor sentiment. Despite Cardano’s steady innovation pipeline in DeFi, NFTs, and decentralized governance mechanisms, the broader environment remains uncertain. This context strengthens the argument for a measured withdrawal limit that safeguards principal growth.

Strategically, this 200M ada baseline creates breathing room for the community to refine its priorities without rushing into premature or oversized commitments. It encourages rigorous vetting of budget proposals and stimulates disciplined commercial innovation. By preserving treasury capital, we keep open the option to scale initiatives sustainably as use cases mature and adoption deepens.

However, this approach’s success hinges on transparent, agile governance processes that allow timely revision of the NCL when justified by evolving ecosystem needs — be it emerging partnerships, technological pivots like Hydra scaling, or new revenue streams from staking and DeFi activities. A static limit without such mechanisms risks either stifling growth or inviting political gridlock.

Moreover, in my view, embedding strategic foresight into treasury management requires integrating predictive analytics and scenario planning to anticipate future cash flow needs and external shocks. The community could benefit from adopting more sophisticated financial modeling tools that align budget cycles with market realities and developmental milestones.

In essence, this is not just a budgetary decision; it is an inflection point for Cardano’s governance culture. Prioritizing sustainability over immediacy today lays groundwork for genuine long-term acceptance of crypto technologies — a journey still in its infancy.

I voted against the proposed 350M ADA Net Change Limit because it represents fundamentally unsound fiscal governance. Setting a fixed ADA amount rather than a percentage of treasury revenue ignores basic economic principles and creates dangerous spending incentives. A dynamic threshold of 77-88% of the previous year's revenue would ensure sustainable treasury management while maintaining flexibility for ecosystem growth.

The proposed 350M ADA ceiling exceeds last year's revenue, effectively normalizing deficit spending. We're still in the early stages of Cardano's evolutionary journey - establishing responsible fiscal guardrails now is crucial. While some may argue this enables more 'investment' in ecosystem development, history shows that untethered spending authority inevitably leads to waste and misallocation. The community must resist the siren song of easy money and instead embrace sound monetary principles that have proven successful in traditional finance.

Building a truly decentralized financial ecosystem requires discipline, not profligacy. My 'No' vote stands for sustainable growth over short-term gratification.