Viet_Cardano_Community

We propose a NO vote on the proposed 1.68 million ADA funding for the Eternl wallet.

Although Eternl is a popular wallet among users, this proposal reveals critical weaknesses in terms of governance economics. Firstly, the requested amount is excessively large, intended solely for operational maintenance rather than for building new features or developing the underlying protocol. Secondly, the model for transitioning to the Pro plan (assuming 4.2% of users pay) is purely theoretical speculation, lacking concrete data to support it. A commercial project that has been operating for many years yet still requires continuous "bailouts" from the Treasury demonstrates instability in its business structure.

In principle, the Cardano Treasury is designed to fund non-profit public goods or bootstrap new technologies, not to perpetually sustain commercially viable products that have the potential to generate revenue in a competitive market already filled with alternatives (like Lace, Yoroi). Furthermore, the proposal to receive a lump sum payment for 12 months without milestone-based payouts is a serious governance flaw.

We fully support this proposal!

This is a technology investment that delivers enormous public value (Public Goods) and creates a truly exclusive competitive advantage for Cardano. Thanks to its eUTxO design and unique consensus mechanism, Cardano is the only large blockchain that can operate a fully validating light node directly in the user's web browser through the Gerolamo project. This helps dApps and e-wallets minimize reliance on central API/RPC services (like Blockfrost), thereby ensuring absolute decentralization and information security in the true spirit of Web3.

Furthermore, the Harmonic Labs team has a history of excellent product delivery, incorporating community feedback to break down the proposal and reduce the budget by 30%. The clear milestone structure, independent oversight board, and delay recovery mechanism minimize risks for the treasury. We believe this proposal not only enriches the diversity of network nodes (alongside Haskell, Amaru, and Dingo) but also serves as a crucial foundation for optimizing Midnight infrastructure and future Layer 2 solutions.

We vote NO for this proposal.

The proposed upgrade from the basic "Platinum" package to "Title" costs an additional $424,360 USD (over 1.76 million ADA) but offers extremely limited benefits.

Spending a large amount of ADA from the national treasury on purely image-based marketing items (such as a 15-minute presentation on the main stage, printing logos on lanyards, or a protein shake stand) in the current market is not feasible. The basic Platinum package is sufficient to ensure Cardano's necessary presence with international investors and partners.

We need to maintain strict fiscal discipline to protect the Treasury for core infrastructure development projects (such as Hydra, Leios, Midnight) and directly support the builders – those who actually create real utility for Cardano – instead of investing in extravagant brand-building campaigns with extremely vague ROI and clear signs of declining performance.

While acknowledging Tweag's excellent technical capabilities and the strategic importance of the Peras upgrade (shortening verification times from 12 minutes to 2 minutes for Midnight and DeFi), the proposal's financial structure is unhealthy for the ecosystem treasury. The requirement for a budget commitment of nearly 40 million ADA over a continuous two-year period (2026–2028) is excessively long, reducing flexibility and the community's ability to control milestones.

The proposal bundles too many less urgent ancillary items into the core Peras funding package, forcing voters into an "all or nothing" situation. Furthermore, the $176/hour unit price is too high, and there's a lack of detailed budget breakdown for each specific work package.

Therefore, we decided to vote NO and request that Tweag break the project down into one-year phases, reduce non-essential items, and clarify the cost structure before re-funding. This helps protect fiscal discipline and allows other infrastructure projects to develop alongside it.

Although this is an innovative and meticulously prepared RWA (Real-World Appliance) application proposal utilizing Cardano's unique Bio-ID technology, it is not suitable for direct Treasury funding.

The proposal is essentially a commercialization of a private product serving a specific niche market (durian exports from Dak Lak, Vietnam) rather than a shared public infrastructure (Public Goods) for the entire ecosystem. Since traceability is mandated by law (Circular 11 and GACC China) for the multi-billion dollar export industry, businesses and cooperatives participating in the supply chain have a strong financial incentive to pay for the service themselves.

Furthermore, the project offers very little direct economic value to the Cardano ecosystem (a closed MAGIC credit ecosystem with extremely low L1 transaction fees), while the Treasury bears all the initial risk. Instead of seeking direct funding from the Treasury through on-chain governance voting, the project should seek more suitable funding sources from Project Catalyst, the venture capital firm Draper Orion Fund (specializing in RWAs), or private equity funds.

We recommend voting YES for this revised version.

First, strategically, holding the Cardano Summit close to and in the same location (Singapore) as TOKEN2049 is an excellent marketing leverage. It allows Cardano to capitalize on the massive traffic from over 25,000 experts, investment funds, and Web3 builders gathered there. This creates a synergistic effect, expanding awareness instead of isolating itself.

Second, in terms of transparency and finances, the "Revised" version clearly demonstrates accountability. By eliminating the overlapping EMURGO funding package and proactively taking on additional internal costs, this proposal shows respect for the Treasury.

While CF could actually self-finance, we believe that sharing Treasury funding for an event that represents the face of the ecosystem (to maintain Tier-1 status) is a worthwhile investment. This new proposal strikes a reasonable balance between expansionist ambitions and financial discipline.

We strongly recommend a YES vote. The reason is simple: the Plutus language is the "heart" of the entire Cardano ecosystem, and currently, this heart is operating at an excessively high cost.

If Cardano wants to compete fairly and attract billions of dollars in capital, the cost of executing smart contracts must be lower. This proposal directly addresses that problem by adding new built-in functions like multiIndexArray and eliminating redundant checks, drastically reducing script size and transaction fees. With lower fees, new DeFi protocols can implement complex features (such as instant liquidation and asset rebalancing) that were previously considered economically impossible on L1.

We consider the 11.9 million ADA budget to be a worthwhile investment in the core infrastructure.

While the prospect of Bitcoin's liquidity coming to Cardano is very attractive, voting NO is the safest and most logical choice at the moment for three core reasons:

• Incredible technical risk: The project's underlying technology, the BitVM bridge, has not yet proven its stability in practice. Funding nearly $3 million for an "unfinished" product carries very high execution risk.
• Misdirection of Treasury purpose: We believe the Treasury should prioritize public goods and core infrastructure. Commercial and highly profitable projects like Pogun need to demonstrate their capabilities by raising private capital or through specialized venture capital funds instead of relying on the treasury.
• Risk of capital recovery: The promise of repayment based on EBITDA (Earnings Before Tax, Depreciation, and Interest) is a major loophole. We found that the project team could easily inflate salary, operating, or legal costs to reduce EBITDA, potentially leading to the Treasury never recovering its invested ADA.

Given the limited resources of the ecosystem, we believe money should be spent more prudently.

GOVERNANCE PROPOSAL EVALUATION REPORT

• Proposal Name: Blockfrost: Maintenance and Next Generation Indexing
• Proposal Type: Treasury Withdrawal
• Requested Budget: ₳7,920,000 (Equivalent to ~$1,900,000)
• Allocation: $1,000,000 for infrastructure development (Project Cayley) & $900,000 for operational expense subsidies (OPEX).

1. Proposal Overview
   The proposal aims to address the data retrieval scalability challenges of the Cardano network, particularly in preparation for the Leios upgrade. The proposal consists of two core components:

• Project Cayley: Developing a decentralized "slice indexing" architecture, allowing SPOs and data providers to index only a specific portion of the blockchain instead of the whole, thereby reducing hardware costs.
• Blockfrost Operational Subsidy: Providing funds to maintain Blockfrost's free-tier API service – which currently handles approximately 90% of the free API traffic across the ecosystem.

1. Analysis of Current Voting Data (On-chain Consensus)
   Based on data from smart contracts, the proposal is facing widespread rejection from the community:

• DReps (Delegated Representatives): Approximately 80% of the active voting power has voted NO.
• Constitutional Committee: The consensus rate (YES) has only reached 31.25%, indicating that many members are also abstaining.

1. Independent Evaluation
   Pros:

• Solving a real-world problem: Cayley's "slice indexing" fragmented architecture is a strategic solution that lowers the barrier to entry for smaller SPOs as Cardano's data size expands.
• Short-term ecosystem protection: Supporting Blockfrost's expenses will ensure that thousands of dApps and developers using the free service do not experience operational disruptions.

Concerns:

• Structural bundling issue: Combining the R&D costs of a core technology (Project Cayley) with an operational expense subsidy (OPEX) for a private company into a single vote is coercive. Voters cannot approve the technological part without inadvertently approving the corporate subsidy.
• Centralization risk and unfair competition: Blockfrost currently operates on a commercial (freemium) model. Using community funds (Treasury) to pay for the operational expenses of a private enterprise creates an unequal competitive advantage over other providers (Maestro, Koios, Cardanoscan).
• Lack of return on investment (ROI) mechanism: The proposal lacks transparent metrics regarding Blockfrost's revenue, nor does it include a revenue-sharing mechanism or a loan conversion model with the community fund.

1. Voting Decision and Recommendation
   DECISION: NO

Summary Argument: We appreciate the technological vision of Project Cayley in preparing for the Leios era, as well as Blockfrost's historic contributions to the Cardano ecosystem. However, we are compelled to vote NO on this proposal due to the irrationality in the budget structuring. The community Treasury should not be utilized as a source of regular operational expense (OPEX) funding for a private business model, especially when this could distort the free market and stifle the growth of other competing RPC platforms.

We recommend that the author team withdraw and restructure this into two independent proposals: one proposal focusing entirely on building the open-source standard for Project Cayley, and a separate proposal for operational support that includes transparent financial terms (e.g., a loan or revenue-sharing)

High assurance and mathematical precision are Cardano's signature "weapons." However, we believe these weapons are currently being kept hidden away: they are too complex and expensive, making formal verification a privilege reserved only for experts or projects with massive audit budgets.

This proposal is revolutionary because it "democratizes" security technology. By packaging complex verification tools into familiar programming environments (like VS Code), every programmer can now automatically verify the validity of smart contracts while writing code, preventing vulnerabilities from developing.

We consider the 13 million ADA investment reasonable given the devastating hacks that have wiped out billions of dollars in TVL on other platforms. Therefore, we believe that voting YES is an action that transforms Cardano's safety philosophy into a practical tool, paving a solid path to receiving massive and stringent capital flows from traditional financial institutions.

Approving a massive budget of up to 62.1 million ADA just for 'system maintenance' may seem absurd at first glance, but in reality, we view this as a matter of life-and-death 'insurance policy' that the entire Cardano network is forced to sign.

We believe that it is impossible to build skyscrapers like Ouroboros Leios technology or multi-billion dollar DeFi applications on an uncared-for foundation. In the blockchain world, where the smallest security vulnerability can wipe out user assets and permanently destroy trust, system maintenance is not an 'option', but the oxygen for survival. This proposal provides an invisible yet solid shield to protect the network: from emergency disaster recovery systems and continuous security monitoring, to patching and automated testing. Therefore, we vote YES to build Cardano.

Cardano's biggest challenge today is overcoming the transaction throughput bottleneck. If it cannot process a massive volume of data on a global scale, the network will lose the opportunity to access capital from DeFi and traditional financial institutions (Real World Assets), gradually phasing itself out before its competitors. Ouroboros Leios is the most excellent 'solution' to the blockchain trilemma: it brings a breakthrough in processing speed without forcing Cardano to trade off security or decentralization — the core identities that defined the network's reputation.

More importantly, this is a mandatory puzzle for economic sustainability. As the Reserve used for rewards gradually depletes in the future, Cardano must survive based on transaction fee revenue. Without owning a core infrastructure powerful enough to handle tens of millions of transactions per month, the network will run out of resources to maintain node operations

To maintain a competitive advantage over other smart contract platforms, Cardano needs foundational upgrades. This proposal brings three revolutionary improvements, directly addressing the biggest economic and user experience bottlenecks today.

First, the Babel Fees feature allows users to pay transaction fees with any token (such as USDC or BTC) instead of being required to hold ADA. This completely eliminates the barrier to entry for new users. Second, the account address upgrade (CIP-159) will enable micro-fees and support Layer 2 scaling, making DeFi transactions significantly cheaper. Finally, allowing the Treasury to hold multi-assets (including stablecoins) will protect Cardano's development fund from the brutal price volatility of the crypto market. We recognize these as critical milestones.

Although the amount of 13.1 million ADA is a massive investment, we evaluate that the economic potential it unlocks (for example, a multi-billion dollar cross-chain DeFi market) is fully justified. Therefore, we believe that a YES vote is the optimal choice to elevate Cardano's technological and financial position

The long-term success of the Cardano network fundamentally depends on attracting and retaining developers, which in turn drives the number of DApps and monthly active users (MAU). Currently, the ecosystem is facing a major bottleneck with only about 550 active developers (growth rate is nearly 0) – lagging far behind competitors like Ethereum or Solana. We identify that the main cause stems from a poor developer experience (DevX): fragmented tools, scattered documentation, and a learning curve that is initially too steep.

This proposal directly addresses these painful challenges with a comprehensive suite of solutions: creating a rapid project initialization tool ('cardano-init'), building a template smart contract library (similar to OpenZeppelin), and unifying the Developer Portal. We evaluate that allocating 3.6 million ADA from the Treasury is a strategic investment that is fully justified, aiming to accelerate developer growth by at least 30% within 12 months.

Removing technical barriers will create a powerful development 'flywheel' for the entire ecosystem. Therefore, we believe that voting YES is essential to support the vision of expanding real-world utility and solidifying Cardano's position

Although Layer 2 infrastructure is a crucial piece of the puzzle for Cardano to achieve sub-1-second transaction completion times, we firmly vote NO.

The core reason lies in the financial risk structure of the proposal. Combining three completely different projects (Data Availability infrastructure, Hydra, and Midgard Rollup) into a single 10.4 million ADA funding round is a risky approach. Midgard is particularly risky because it is still in its early testing phase. Requiring Cardano's Treasury to bear the entire commercialization risk for a L2 project goes against industry practice – where L2 projects typically raise their own venture capital (VC) funding due to their enormous profit potential.

Furthermore, given the network's current tight budget, allocating over 27 million ADA to upgrade its L1 core (Ouroboros Leios), the Treasury cannot be seen as an unlimited "money printing machine." This proposal needs to be vetoed to force the development team to break down the project into smaller components, become partially financially independent, and make a more transparent revenue-sharing commitment with Cardano before seeking funding again.

We are not rejecting this idea because it is bad. Positioning Cardano alongside TOKEN2049 is strategically sound and can expand visibility beyond the existing ecosystem.

Our concern is about measurable outcomes. For a proposal requesting significant treasury funding, it is critical to show what concrete value returns to the ecosystem.

Metrics like reach, sentiment, or media mentions do not directly translate into growth. What matters more are outcomes such as partnerships, integrations, investor engagement, or real opportunities for projects. These are not clearly defined in the proposal.

Even the stronger KPIs still lack clarity. There is no clear definition of what counts as a qualified lead or collaboration, who verifies them, and what happens after the event. Without this, the measurement framework is too weak.

A strong presence at a major event does not automatically create value. Visibility alone is not enough to justify treasury spending without clear, trackable results.

We support Cardano being present on global stages. But treasury usage must be measurable and accountable. In its current form, this proposal does not provide enough clarity on impact to justify the funding.

We don’t think the priority right now is to explore entirely new approaches beyond Plutus or to chase another alternative that is marginally better than Aiken.

From our perspective, the current bottleneck of Cardano is not developer tooling or the lack of new technical directions. The real issue is the lack of users. When there are not enough users, there is not enough incentive for developers to come and build.

We see this as a sequencing problem. The ecosystem needs to reach a certain level of adoption before expanding into new smart contract paradigms. At this stage, even a significantly better developer experience will not drive meaningful adoption if user demand is still weak.

It is also important to point out that the limited adoption of Plutus is not mainly due to its complexity. Developers are willing to learn difficult systems when the opportunity is large enough. What is missing today is that opportunity, because the number of active users is still too small.

We recognize that there are architectural limitations such as missing event systems, lack of standard ABI patterns, limited composability, and difficulties with data heavy or compute heavy use cases. These are real issues, but they are not the primary constraint holding back growth right now. They only become critical when the ecosystem reaches a scale where those limitations start to block real demand.

Our position is simple. We should focus on growing the user base and creating real demand first. Once that foundation is strong, developers will naturally follow, and more advanced technical approaches beyond Plutus will become both necessary and impactful.

We voted NO because it's unclear whether SPOs are truly ready to use the alternative node, and we don't fully understand their needs and priorities. Investing in a solution with an uncertain adoption rate and unmeasurable benefits is quite risky. Not to mention the need for continued support in the coming years, which puts pressure on the entire ecosystem.

Currently, ADA prices are low, and we need to consider other, more pressing ecosystem needs. The builder community we're involved in has stated that because Catalyst paused funds 15 and 16, they lack the resources to continue building. Therefore, the funds need to be directed towards projects that directly impact user acquisition and growth.

While supporting the strategy of attracting venture capital, we decided to vote NO on the Cardano x Draper Dragon proposal in order to request a more complete plan.
The main reason is that the current KPIs are too subjective, lacking specific target figures and disbursement milestones according to Vision 2030 to ensure accountability. In addition, the governance mechanism is unclear among stakeholders, so I propose the addition of a DRep Council to oversee and create a balance between on-chain and off-chain. Financially, the proposal does not disclose the historical capabilities of the partner, nor the fee structure and capital protection mechanisms for the Treasury in case of risk. Finally, the project needs to demonstrate why outsourcing is more effective than in-house development. We are not completely rejecting it, but we will wait for a more transparent and rigorous restructuring version before giving our confidence.

We vote NO on this proposal. While acknowledging efforts to standardize KPIs and feedback processes, we find the framework still has significant shortcomings:

Unrealistic workload: With approximately 200 proposals per year (e.g., 2025), requiring DRep to conduct thorough reviews (an average of 4 hours per project) free of charge is not feasible. Without limiting the number or extending the review time, governance quality will suffer due to hasty decisions.

Risk of power consolidation: Using a "participating stake" instead of a "live voting stake" in a context of low participation rates will create opportunities for large DReps to manipulate results. The process needs mechanisms to counter this concentration of power to protect the Treasury.

The drawback of proposal bundling: Combining multiple projects into a single withdrawal puts DRep in a dilemma: they are forced to accept low-quality projects to save the good ones. Proposals should be separated or a cap (e.g., 15M ADA) should be set to increase accuracy during voting.

Vote YES for this proposal because Catalyst needs an organization capable of operating more transparently and effectively than the previous group. The community expects that the operational capability of the Cardano Foundation will enable Catalyst to function efficiently and better support ecosystem growth.

DRep VCC voted YES because this proposal reflects the will of the community and directly addresses Cardano’s most critical strategic bottlenecks at this stage of ecosystem development.

First, this decision is based on community consultation, not personal preference.
DRep VCC conducted an open community poll within the Vietnamese Cardano community. The result shows that a clear majority supports funding this proposal. This aligns with the core principle of DRep representation: voting in accordance with the voice of the represented community. Evidence of the voting results has been publicly shared: https://t.me/ADA_VIET/111872

Second, the proposal directly targets the infrastructure gaps currently holding Cardano back.
Cardano does not lack core protocol technology; it lacks institution-grade integrations, including:

• Tier-one stablecoins
• Institutional-grade pricing oracles
• Cross-chain bridges
• Institutional custody and wallet infrastructure
• On-chain analytics platforms

These are foundational requirements, not optional enhancements, for attracting deep liquidity, large-scale DeFi activity, RWA use cases, and DePIN adoption.

In summary, this YES vote is a clear mandate from the community to prioritize critical infrastructure and position Cardano for real, scalable economic growth

Votes YES on the ₳5M loan proposal for Cardano’s Global Listing Expansion powered by SNEK.

• Accountability: First loan-based Treasury request, with 2.44% APR repayment.
• Credibility: SNEK self-funded $4.5M, secured Tier 1 listings (Kraken, Crypto.com, KuCoin).
• Ecosystem impact: Expands ADA liquidity, visibility, and sets frameworks for future tokens

We vote YES. v2.0 mainly relaxes and clarifies treasury withdrawal rules, removes Budget Information Actions, and adds minimal disclosure requirements that don’t create extra work for proposers.

We support this proposal because it has been reviewed by the community, and the majority agree with the proposed Net Change Limit. Establishing this limit ensures transparency, accountability, and the sustainability of Cardano’s treasury.

Additionally, this proposal aligns with Article IV of the Cardano Constitution and the Treasury Withdrawal Guardrails, ensuring responsible spending while facilitating the strategic growth of the ecosystem.

DRep VCC vote ❌ NO on this proposal for the following reasons:

👉 There is no clear evidence that reducing the contribution to the Treasury will increase the number of staking participants. This requires concrete data and analysis rather than assumptions.

👉 The Cardano ecosystem needs more resources from the Treasury, not only to fund development projects but also to boost marketing, attract new users, and support liquidity for DApps. Reducing the Treasury’s funds could slow down these efforts.

👉 A slight increase in staking rewards does not bring significant benefits to delegators, whereas strong investment in ecosystem development creates real value, helping ADA appreciate sustainably. The focus should be on long-term growth rather than short-term benefits.

Vote YES because this proposal implements CIP-1694, transitioning Cardano from the bootstrap phase to a full on-chain governance model. The Constitution has been shaped through extensive community consultation, reflecting the collective will and ensuring that all ADA holders have a voice in governance. Approval will establish a strong foundation for future improvements and amendments, fostering Cardano’s sustainable growth.