Withdraw 3,810,423 ada for Mithril Protocol
On-chain changes
- 3,810,423 ₳paid tostake1784...kq5u3j9v
Abstract
This Treasury Withdrawal funds Mithril Protocol.
This Treasury Withdrawal is submitted by Intersect on behalf of the vendor. The content for the following sections; Abstract, Motivation and Rationale have been sourced from the approved proposal submitted by the Vendor as part of the Intersect budget process.
Motivation & rationale
Mithril solves one of Cardano's most pressing infrastructure challenges: the cost and complexity of securely accessing and verifying blockchain state. As today full node synchronisation is slow and light clients rely on centralized trust. Mithril addresses this by using stake-based threshold multi-signatures to certify Cardano state in a trustless way, enabling nodes and applications to verify state rapidly without relying on the entire chain.
Strategic Pillar Alignment
- Pillar 1: Infrastructure & Research Excellence
Fully aligned
State proofs strengthen cross-chain interoperability.
- Pillar 2: Adoption & Utility
Fully aligned
Faster sync times lower onboarding friction and unlock new tooling for exchanges, wallets, and monitoring.
- Pillar 4: Community & Ecosystem Growth
Partially aligned
Mithril enables community-built tools (bridges, light wallets, full wallets, light clients, monitoring tools) to emerge around Cardano.
Cardano is entering a period of heightened governance activity, ecosystem expansion, and scaling pressure. Without fast, verifiable, and trustless infrastructure, the network risks growing dependency on centralized indexers and hosted APIs. Funding Mithril's continued development through Intersect MBO ensures Cardano scales while preserving its core decentralization guarantees.
Intersect Budget Process
This proposal achieved the required 67% support threshold during the 2026 Intersect Budget Process Hydra Voting phase and has therefore been advanced for on-chain Treasury Withdrawal Governance Action submission in accordance with the approved Budget Process Framework.
Net Change Limit Compliance
The requested amount does not at time of submission, on its own or in aggregate, breach the applicable 350M Net Change Limit covering Epoch 613 to Epoch 713.
In accordance with the guardrail TREASURY-02a, this withdrawal does not exceed the NCL at the moment of submission.
Audit & Oversight
Audit and oversight costs are included within the overhead applied to this proposal. The Intersect administration fee covers administrative oversight and is reflected within the cost of this proposal. Independent oversight will be provided through Intersect and technically capable third-party, including reporting obligations and milestone-based disbursement controls.
Prior Treasury Funding Disclosure
Teragone has not previously received direct funding from Cardano treasury or community governance programs.
However, we have been actively involved in the Mithril project for several years through a close collaboration with Input Output Global (IOG), which has funded the project to date.
In this context, Teragone has contributed to the development, maintenance, and evolution of Mithril, gaining strong technical expertise and operational experience while delivering work aligned with the broader Cardano ecosystem.
This proposal represents a transition from IOG-funded development to a community-governed funding model via Intersect, ensuring continuity and long-term sustainability of the Mithril project.
Budget Summary
| Work Package | Total (ADA) |
|---|---|
| Mithril Protocol Continuous Development | 3,699,440 |
| Intersect Budget Administration fee | 110,983 |
| Total | 3,810,423 |
Intersect Budget Management Tooling
To administrate treasury funds on-chain, Intersect will utilize the treasury management smart contract framework developed by Sundae Labs. A new instance of these smart contracts has been deployed for 2026, mirroring the contracts from the 2025 budget cycle.
- The 2026 Treasury Reserve Smart Contract stake address:
stake1784sdxt6jjennmstphgdu7l7c2scf5d02a6cve2dgn5s2kq5u3j9v - The 2026 Treasury Reserve Smart Contract payment address:
addr1x84sdxt6jjennmstphgdu7l7c2scf5d02a6cve2dgn5s2k8tq6vh499n88hqkrwsmealas4psng674m4sej5638fq4vqmxs59w - The 2026 Project Specific Smart Contract payment address:
addr1x9d6k9z6t6fvsetj2djmerargk475lef9gfvshy4rwh4h7jm4v295h5jepjhy5m9hj86x3dtafljj2sjepwf2xa0t0aq048cay
Specifics
Intersect will utilize a single Treasury Reserve Smart Contract (TRSC), with one Project-Specific Smart Contracts (PSSC). Intersect’s management consists of five ‘admin’ and three Intersect ‘leadership’ roles. An Oversight Committee consisting of six external, independent third-party entities will provide checks and balances on Intersect, and safeguard against errors and unilateral control. The administration of both TRSC and PSSC will be managed by Intersect, with external oversight on certain actions from the Oversight Committee.
The Oversight Committee consists of Sundae Labs, Cardano Foundation, Dquadrant, NMKR, Sundial and Eternl. Their role is to independently verify key administrative actions using on-chain logic, ensuring accuracy and consistency without exercising discretion over governance decisions.
For all details on Intersect’s configuration please see the Smart Contract Guide on the knowledgebase.
The high level permissions are as follows:
- TRSC Fund and PSSC Modify
- Two of the five Intersect admins, two of the six trusted entities and one of the three Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
- TRSC Disburse
- Two of five Intersect admins, three of six trusted entities and two of three Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
- TRSC Pause and Resume
- Two of five Intersect admins, and one of three Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
- TRSC Sweep
- One of five Intersect admins, and one of three Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
- TRSC Reorganize
- Two of five Intersect admins and three of six trusted entities must authorize
Processes
Upon enactment of this governance action, funding for this project will be directed into the TRSC’s stake address. All instances of TRSC and PSSC can not be staked with a SPO and are delegated to the auto-abstain predefined DRep. From here funds will be withdrawn into a UTxO remaining at the TRSC payment address.
When the Legal contract is prepared and the vendor is ready, funding for this project will be transferred using the Fund action to the PSSC. All milestones will be outlined within the metadata.
A dashboard is available (treasury.sundae.fi) for the community to audit the TRSC or PSSC and track metrics related to this withdrawn ada as well as being immutably verifiable on chain.
Rationale highlights
Why some of the largest DReps voted for and against, in their own words. About vote rationales
Yoroi DRep votes YES on Withdraw 3,810,423 ada for Mithril Protocol. The Cardano community has spoken clearly through the Hydra off-chain voting platform, and Yoroi is committed to honouring that voice. Honouring the Community Mandate: With a supermajority...
Yoroi DRep votes YES on Withdraw 3,810,423 ada for Mithril Protocol. The Cardano community has spoken clearly through the Hydra off-chain voting platform, and Yoroi is committed to honouring that voice.
- Honouring the Community Mandate: With a supermajority of over 67% in the off-chain governance process, this proposal carries a strong and unambiguous signal of community support. Yoroi votes Yes in alignment with that collective decision.
EMURGO as a DRep votes YES on Withdraw 3,810,423 ada for Mithril Protocol, with rationale outlined below. This proposal successfully completed the off-chain community governance process on the Hydra voting platform, crossing the required 67% approval...
EMURGO as a DRep votes YES on Withdraw 3,810,423 ada for Mithril Protocol, with rationale outlined below.
This proposal successfully completed the off-chain community governance process on the Hydra voting platform, crossing the required 67% approval threshold. EMURGO respects the legitimacy of this community-led process and votes YES in recognition of the mandate that the Cardano community has clearly expressed. For these reasons, EMURGO votes yes.
I am voting No on this proposal. This year's Net Change Limit (NCL) has been set well above the level I consider sustainable. Under my published voting framework, an appropriate NCL is roughly 15% of the previous year's staking rewards (on the order of...
I am voting No on this proposal. This year's Net Change Limit (NCL) has been set well above the level I consider sustainable. Under my published voting framework, an appropriate NCL is roughly 15% of the previous year's staking rewards (on the order of ₳82M), whereas the NCL currently in force is several times that amount. Because the treasury is already authorized to disburse far beyond my personal NCL threshold, I am voting No on all treasury withdrawal proposals until aggregate withdrawals are brought back within a sustainable limit — regardless of the individual merits of any single proposal. This vote reflects a position on total treasury spend, not a judgment on the value of your specific project. Reference: https://coffeepool.jp/notes/drep-voting-framework-for-sustainable-ecosystem/ [Japanese version follows] 本提案に反対票を投じます。今年のNet Change Limit(NCL)は、私が持続可能と考える水準を大幅に上回って設定されています。公開済みの投票フレームワークでは、適正なNCLは前年のステーキング報酬の約15%(₳82M程度)ですが、現行のNCLはその数倍に達しています。トレジャリーは既に私のpersonal NCL(個人として許容する上限)を大きく超える出金が認められている状態にあるため、出金総額が持続可能な範囲に戻るまで、個別提案の良し悪しに関わらず、すべてのトレジャリー出金提案に反対票を投じます。本投票はトレジャリー支出全体に対する立場の表明であり、貴提案の価値そのものを否定するものではありません。参照: https://coffeepool.jp/notes/drep-voting-framework-for-sustainable-ecosystem-jp/
Even after years, Mithril still only provides snapshots for bootstrapping nodes. That is okayish, but not impressive enough to justify wasting that many ADA on it.