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State of the Cardano Developer Ecosystem - 2026 Survey

System7d ago2 posts

This action links a CIP-179 survey

State of the Cardano Developer Ecosystem - 2026 Survey

About 15 minutes. The results help tool builders, documentation writers and funders decide what to work on first.

Openuntil Nov 30, 2026 (through epoch 670)Anyone can answer

DReps cannot answer this survey, so it has no thread on DRepTalk.

Open the survey
1 SPO voted on this action, see how

On-chain changes

Informational action. No on-chain effect, the vote signals opinion only.

Abstract

The State of the Cardano Developer Ecosystem survey is back for 2026! If you build on Cardano, we'd love to hear from you: it takes about 15 minutes. If you don't build on Cardano yourself, you surely know someone who does, so please pass it on. There's nothing to vote on here.

Motivation & rationale

Every year since 2022, we've asked Cardano developers what they build, what they build with, and what gets in their way. Many programming communities run a survey like this, and for good reason: it's the best way to see how an ecosystem changes from one year to the next. Last year, 109 developers took the time to answer, and you can explore the 2025 results.

The results help tool builders, documentation writers and funders decide what to work on first. And if you take part in decisions about Cardano, as a DRep, an SPO or a member of the Constitutional Committee, good information about the developer ecosystem matters to you too. That information is only as good as the number of developers who answer, which is where we need your help.

So here's what we're asking:

  • If you build on Cardano, please answer the survey. Technical SPOs, that includes you: there are questions about running a stake pool.
  • If you know developers, please share the survey with them, in your community, your channels, or your next DRep or pool update.

Why an Info Action? Governance actions get read and talked about far beyond developer circles. We hope this one reaches developers who don't follow the usual developer channels, through the people who know them.

You don't need to vote. This action doesn't change anything or ask for a decision. If you'd still like to record a vote, Abstain is the way to go.

Answering. The survey takes about 15 minutes and is available in nine languages. You don't need a wallet or ada. Your answers are published on the Cardano blockchain, so they're public; the survey's site explains what that means before you start.

Open and reproducible. This is a CIP-179 survey, so its questions and every answer are recorded on chain. The code that runs the survey and builds the report is open source. Anyone can count the answers and check the results for themselves. We'll publish the results after a processing period, shortly after the survey closes.

Funding. The Cardano Foundation funds the survey's preparation, its hosting and this governance action's deposit. The survey itself is run for the community, and the answers reflect the views of the people who give them, not those of the Cardano Foundation.

Thank you. A big thank you to Dave (ItsDave_ADA), HeptaSean, Hinson (SIDAN), Martin Lang (ATADA), Philip DiSarro, Robertino Martinez, Romain Soulat, Rusty (fallen-icarus), Shan (Strike), YUTA, and all others who helped review the survey draft and its translations.

Rationale highlights

Why some of the largest DReps voted for and against, in their own words. About vote rationales

  • Phil UPLC
    Yes177.4M ₳

    Fill out the survey!

    A PDF version of this rationale is also made available.

    It takes a few minutes, do it.

  • Rodrigo-[CHIL]
    Yes16.1M ₳

    I participated in the survey. Thanks to everyone who worked on putting this together!

  • BKIND
    No1.8M ₳

    BKIND votes No. This info action asks for no decision. It promotes a survey whose answers are recorded on chain under keys made in the browser for the occasion. Such a record looks like a count anyone can check, but it cannot show how many people answered....

    BKIND votes No. This info action asks for no decision. It promotes a survey whose answers are recorded on chain under keys made in the browser for the occasion. Such a record looks like a count anyone can check, but it cannot show how many people answered.

    Action: info action 706449f5192f39...657d#0 by the Cardano Foundation, with a deposit of 100,000 ada that returns to stake1uyyqmz5ae7ct4f26p4t87y2xrrgu7f3e0cpap66zgcnxu0gl7gy6y. I verified on chain that the action was published on 28 October 2026 in epoch 664, and that the proposal document hashes to the on-chain anchor, 0ac3f40505cab485e027989b2eebcb4897a2af0e483fe5fe1274c88ecd8290b1. The survey it links is the CIP-179 survey definition in transaction 8a9e8ee18d2169...8081#0, published on 26 October 2026 in epoch 663, open to one role only, Keyholder, with public answers and end epoch 670.

    What I support. A yearly survey of Cardano developers is useful, and the code of the survey and of its report is open source. My No is not to asking developers. It is to the way the answers are collected and presented.

    A key per browser, not a person. Keyholder is the CIP-179 role for "control of a payment/spending credential". Such a credential costs nothing, needs no ada and no registration. The survey's documentation states: "The browser makes a key, and the response's credential is that key." The sponsor "pays at most 0.5 ada per response, once per respondent key". Another browser makes another key, and with it another response the sponsor pays for. The chain cannot tell these responses apart from responses by different people.

    The proposer pays for and admits answers. Respondents "don't need a wallet: a sponsor, run on Vercel, pays their transactions." That sponsor is run by the proposer, and through its bot check it decides which responses it pays for and submits. A respondent without a wallet can only answer through it. The answers are on chain, but for those respondents, whether an answer gets there is decided off chain by the party that asks the questions.

    On chain is not the same as verifiable. The survey's documentation is open about how responses are made. The action, read by every DRep, stake pool operator and Constitutional Committee member, states instead: "Anyone can count the answers and check the results for themselves." Anyone can count the records. Nobody can check from the chain how many people they come from. Recording them on chain gives the results the look of a verifiable count that the method does not support.

    BKIND votes No: answers under keys made in the browser for the occasion are presented as a count anyone can check, while the chain cannot show how many people stand behind them (govActionId 706449f5192f39...657d#0).

See all 24 rationales