Ikigai's ₳103,000 reimbursement goes unpaid for the third time

Ikigai’s reimbursement expires with ₳2.89B yes against ₳55.0M no

Ikigai’s deposit reimbursement expired at the start of epoch 656. It asked for ₳103,000: a ₳100,000 deposit on a symbolic info action of September 2024 that, its document says, a node bug kept from being returned, plus ₳3,000 for staking rewards forgone.

Yes votes carried ₳2.89B of DRep power and the no votes ₳55.0M. Power that did not vote and power delegated to the always no confidence option count as no. Five of the seven committee members voted yes, meeting the two-thirds requirement, so the DRep side alone kept it from being paid.

Blockdaemon and Sebastien Guillemot セバ, the third and eighth largest DReps, did not vote on it, so their power sat on the no side. Yoroi W₳llet and EMURGO abstained, which took their power out of the count.

The same ₳103,000 has now been asked for three times, through an info action that could not pay anything out and two withdrawal requests, as the review of epochs 653 to 655 sets out. The ₳100,000 deposit stays unreimbursed.

SASA_nagamaru_ながまる wrote in its yes rationale that reimbursing a loss caused by an issue in Cardano’s own infrastructure matters for fairness and trust in the governance system. Pitkind, the only committee member to vote no, wrote that the constitution requires every withdrawal to allocate ada for audits and oversight metrics, and found the action unconstitutional because it allocates none.

The Governance Incentives Framework expires at 1.7%

The Governance Incentives Framework asked for ₳4.2M to evaluate governance incentive mechanisms through research, data and modelling before putting any of them to governance for adoption. It expired at the start of epoch 656 with 1.7% of DRep power, on 12 yes votes, 98 no and 19 abstain. In the committee only Leandros BSP voted yes, and four members found it unconstitutional.

SIPO wrote that governance incentives are necessary and that its objection was to “the price of studying it”. SIPO wrote that the project would deliver a framework, research and a dashboard rather than a working incentive mechanism, and that the pilot meant to test one would receive ₳333,333. It also objected that no line-item budget was published and that 21.6% went to administration and contingency. Army of Spies questioned whether the request was a prudent use of funds, writing that the treasury is on a trajectory toward zero within the next ten years.

No withdrawal was paid in these epochs. Between the start of epoch 656 and the start of epoch 659, the treasury grew by ₳10.9M to ₳1.37B. Under the ₳500M spending limit for epochs 613 to 713, ₳42.6M remained.

23 pools vote no and 17 yes in the poll on raising k to 1000

The k poll was submitted in epoch 656. It asks pools whether there is enough support to propose raising k, the target number of fully saturated pools, from 500 to 1000. At the proposal’s drafting baseline that would lower the saturation point, the stake above which a pool’s rewards stop growing, from about ₳75M to ₳37.5M, without enlarging the reward pot.

The poll cannot change k itself. Its document takes more than 50% of active pool stake voting yes as the measure of support and leaves DRep votes out of it. Voting runs until the start of epoch 663.

By the close of epoch 659, 17 pools had voted yes and 23 no. In the committee Ace Alliance found it constitutional and Tingvard abstained.

YUTA, the largest DRep, abstained because “this is an SPO poll and DRep votes do not affect the outcome”. CardanoYoda (MANDA Pool) abstained for the same reason and wrote that it would likely vote yes on the parameter change itself.

The Cardano Foundation voted no, writing that a higher k “would redistribute a fixed reward pot without addressing the factors that determine whether independent operators can remain viable”, and that the view applies to its stake pools too. CryptoCrow also voted no. Martin Lang voted no and wrote that redelegated stake would, if anything, flow to midrange pools near the new saturation point rather than to small ones.

Cerkoryn’s 75 ada fee proposal remains open

Cerkoryn’s fee proposal, which would lower the minimum pool fee from 170 ada to 75, and the OpenZeppelin request for ₳11.8M both remain up for a vote until the start of epoch 661. For pools and their delegators the minimum fee stayed at 170 ada and k at 500 through these epochs.

The three open votes on 7 October, after these epochs

A snapshot taken on 7 October, early in epoch 660, had Cerkoryn’s fee proposal at 32.7% of DRep power, on 68 yes votes, 30 no and 14 abstain, up from 6.2% in the snapshot behind the previous review. Three committee members had voted yes on it. The OpenZeppelin request stood at 3.8%, on 13 yes votes, 70 no and 11 abstain. On the k poll, 17 pools had voted yes and 26 no, with 0.7% of pool stake voting yes.

DReps voting in the last 12 epochs fall to 228

At epoch 659, 228 DReps had voted at least once in the last 12 epochs, down from 271 at epoch 655 and the fewest since epoch 537 (January 2025). The count fell in each of these four epochs. DReps holding delegated power without such a vote rose from 605 at epoch 655 to 633.

Over the same epochs, voters cast 277 votes across DReps, pools and the committee. The count includes superseded votes, votes a voter later replaced. Final votes came from 102 distinct DReps and 40 pools.

Among the ten largest DReps, Yoroi and EMURGO abstained on the k poll in epoch 658, as they had on the Ikigai reimbursement and the incentives request before that voting closed. Yoroi wrote each time that it was withholding its vote, citing “the current situation”, and would reassess once conditions allow. EMURGO wrote that it prefers to withhold judgment until “the current situation reaches resolution”. Blockdaemon, Sebastien Guillemot セバ, the Eternl DRep Committee and Everstake had not voted on the k poll.

Power delegated to DReps fell ₳59.7M, from ₳5.30B at epoch 656 to ₳5.24B at epoch 659. Power delegated to the always abstain option rose ₳500.9M between epoch 655 and epoch 656, to ₳10.30B.

Between epoch 655 and epoch 659 the Cardano Foundation lost ₳35.7M of delegated power and Yoroi ₳29.4M, the two largest drops, and AKYO deregistered with ₳12.0M.