Bifrost: Unlocking Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano — Road to Mainnet (Phase 1 of 2)

7 of 7 committee members voted

• Ace Alliance71aa5b3a…8f04

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  Ace Alliance finds the proposed "Bifrost: Unlocking Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano - Road to Mainnet (Phase 1 of 2)" Treasury Withdrawals Governance Action Constitutional. Rationales are archived at https://github.com/ace-alliance/ace-voting/

  "Bifrost: Unlocking Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano - Road to Mainnet (Phase 1 of 2)" (gov_action1mlv...ms7jwt) is a Treasury Withdrawals Governance Action and is therefore governed by both the general proposal standards in Article II, Section 6 and the additional Treasury Withdrawal standards in Article II, Section 7 of the Cardano Constitution, together with the Appendix I.3 guardrails. The Action seeks to withdraw 12,332,031 ada (12,332,031,000,000 lovelace) from the Cardano Treasury, valued by the proposer at 1,973,125 USD at a reference rate of 0.16 USD per ada, to fund a nine month first phase running from July 2026 to March 2027 that takes Bifrost, a Bitcoin to Cardano bridge whose custody is distributed across Cardano stake pool operators through FROST threshold signing, from its Catalyst funded testnet to an audited deployment on Cardano mainnet under controlled private access. Public launch and operations are deliberately deferred to a separate Phase 2 proposal in Q1 2027 and are not funded by this Action. The recipients are FluidTokens and Lantr Engineering as joint vendors, neither of which is IOG or IOG affiliated; one of the three named oversight board members is an IOG employee, a connection we note once and which does not change the scrutiny we apply. The Action was proposed in epoch 640 and expires at the end of epoch 647. Whether the Treasury should fund a Bitcoin bridge at all, whether 12,332,031 ada is good value for the scope described, and whether threshold signing over the SPO set is the right technical approach are policy questions reserved to the DReps and the community; our review is confined to the constitutionality of the Action.

  Article II.6 (Governance Action Standards). The procedural standards are satisfied. The Action anchors to an IPFS hosted document at ipfs://QmZwHmFoyhd18WMRhv9356CXfbUqjkPsKKGZtCpVLaWgcU with the on-chain blake2b-256 hash f95bd74697b3499760bc768b7400d9c1f57d3ff447e1c51cb9f0ec24a94c782b, a content addressed form that is immutable and incapable of being altered after submission as Article II.6.1 requires, and the document retrieved from that anchor validates against the hash recorded on-chain. The metadata supplies the title, abstract, motivation, rationale, itemized budget, three milestone delivery schedule with acceptance criteria, risk register, administration terms, and supporting annexes that Article II.6.2 requires.

  Article II.7.1 (Terms of the Withdrawal). Each required term is specified. The purpose is the hardening, external security audit, formal verification, and controlled mainnet deployment of the Bifrost bridge, together with the stewardship structure and hardened economic model that the later public launch depends on. The period for delivery is nine months from July 2026 to March 2027, broken into M1 (Q3 2026, hardening and audit readiness), M2 (Q4 2026, security audits and mainnet preparation), and M3 (Q1 2027, private mainnet in both custody modes), each with stated deliverables and acceptance criteria. The relevant costs and expenses are itemized by workstream: core development 3,937,500 ada, security and quality assurance 3,601,563 ada, product management 984,375 ada, ecosystem readiness and partnerships 1,109,375 ada, and legal, stewardship and economy 1,578,125 ada, giving a subtotal of 11,210,938 ada, to which a 10 percent refundable contingency of 1,121,094 ada is added, priced at 210,000 USD per FTE year for senior engineering and product leadership. The circumstances of refund are stated at three levels: unspent contingency returns to the Cardano Treasury at the end of the term, the oversight board may pause and halt disbursement if delivery falters, and funds remaining in the escrow contract after expiration sweep back to the Cardano Treasury automatically through a failsafe enforced at the contract level that the proposal states cannot be overridden.

  Article II.7.2 (Prior Treasury Funding Disclosure). The disclosure requirement is satisfied, and the proposal makes it expressly under Article II, Section 7.2. Lantr Engineering discloses a prior Treasury withdrawal within the last 24 months, the 2025 Treasury Budget allocation of 657,692 ada for the Scalus DApps Development Platform under governance action 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#17, recorded as fully received. The proposal also discloses, beyond what Article II.7.2 strictly requires, the joint FluidTokens and Lantr Engineering Project Catalyst Fund 14 award of 739,000 ada for Bifrost itself (project 1400012), of which 33 percent has been received, giving a complete picture of prior community funding for the work this Action would continue.

  Article II.7.3 (Net Change Limit). A Net Change Limit is set and this withdrawal does not exceed it. The operative limit is 350,000,000 ada for the period spanning epochs 613 through 713, agreed by the DReps through the on-chain Info action gov_action1m3xx08yv788vfxqh6nfvrjtvmqpwezsy0ggaczctkyjmttc2wmxsq4jsr7q. That limit operates cumulatively across the period, so each enacted withdrawal consumes headroom against the 350,000,000 ada ceiling and a later action must fit within the headroom that remains. Following the enactments at the close of epoch 645, 12,604,371 ada of headroom remains under the limit. This Action requests 12,332,031 ada, which is 272,340 ada below that remaining headroom. The margin is narrow but the test is arithmetic, and the Action passes it. We note that a further Info action, gov_action15atytcy8ru7mkcs8m7r8mx7k5x36t0h6grtgmak6v5wmf4nq07lsqhakceq, proposes a superseding Net Change Limit of 500,000,000 ada for the same epochs 613 to 713 period; on the earliest view available that new limit could not take effect before the first slot of epoch 647, and because this Committee can only vote within the lifetime of the governance action before it, the limit we apply is the 350,000,000 ada limit in force. The outcome does not turn on that timing question: 12,332,031 ada falls within the remaining headroom under the 350,000,000 ada limit, and would fall within a 500,000,000 ada limit by a far wider margin, so the Action is within the Net Change Limit on either reading.

  Article II.7.4 (Audit and Oversight Allocation). The proposal allocates ada for independent audits and oversight metrics as part of the funding request. The legal, stewardship and economy workstream (1,578,125 ada) expressly funds administration and third party audits, comprising grant administration, technical assurance, and financial audit. Two independent parties are named and funded from that allocation: No.Witness Labs, which holds no stake in FluidTokens or Lantr Engineering, performs periodic third party technical audits with quarterly technical reviews published to the community; and an external financial auditor, likewise holding no stake in the vendors, reviews Phase 1 treasury management and fund use with a report published at the close of the grant in Q2 2027. Separately, the security and quality assurance workstream (3,601,563 ada, 32.1 percent of the subtotal) funds external protocol, cryptographic, and off-chain audits, formal verification of critical paths, penetration testing, and a bug bounty, which address the security of the software rather than the use of the ada and are therefore additional to, not a substitute for, the Article II.7.4 allocation. Oversight metrics are implemented through milestone delivery reports published alongside each disbursement request, a public transaction journal recording every on-chain disbursement, claim, sweep, and reorganisation with transaction hash, action type, amount, signers, justification, and metadata hash following the SundaeSwap metadata standard, a transparency portal, and monthly community updates.

  Article II.7.5 (Designated Administrator). The proposal designates an independent, multi party Oversight Board as administrator, naming Chris Gianelloni of Blink Labs, Matthias Benkort of the Cardano Foundation, and Riley Kilgore of IOG, none of whom holds a stake in FluidTokens or Lantr Engineering. The board's monitoring role is given effect in the escrow permission scheme rather than left to assurance alone: a disbursement requires both vendors plus at least one board member, any single board member can pause a milestone, and a board majority is required to resume it or to modify the project. That structure gives the administrator both a veto over the release of funds and a unilateral ability to stop delivery that is failing, which is what Article II.7.5 asks of an administrator responsible for monitoring how funds are used and ensuring deliverables are achieved. This is the same board and the same permission framework this Committee accepted as satisfying Article II.7.5 in the Scalus withdrawal, and the proposal is explicit that this grant administration board is distinct from, and does not depend on, the future stewardship structure that will own the bridge.

  Article II.7.6 (Custody and Delegation of Held Funds). The on-chain withdrawal destination is the stake address stake179nmtusegux540zeqwpyapfjfvpxy75qxu4weq2emvcztqgtmwxw2, carrying the script hash 67b5f219470d4abc5903824e85324b02627a80372aec8159db302581 and the CIP-19 mainnet script credential header byte 0xf1, so the funds are held by a script rather than by a key holder and every movement is auditable by the Cardano community on-chain. We verified the account directly: it is registered, it is delegated to no stake pool, and it is delegated to the predefined always abstain DRep, which is exactly what Article II.7.6 requires of administrator held funds. The escrow is the SundaeSwap treasury-contracts framework, whose treasury.ak and vendor.ak validators have been independently audited by TxPipe and MLabs and are in production use on mainnet, and which enforces the auto abstain delegation and the prohibition on SPO delegation at the contract level rather than by promise. The public transaction journal described under Article II.7.4 supplies the off-chain counterpart to that on-chain auditability.

  Appendix I.3 (Treasury Guardrails). TREASURY-01a is satisfied because the Net Change Limit for epochs 613 to 713 was agreed by the DReps through an on-chain governance action at the required threshold. TREASURY-02a is satisfied for the reasons given under Article II.7.3: the 12,332,031 ada withdrawal falls within the 12,604,371 ada of headroom remaining under the 350,000,000 ada limit for the period. TREASURY-03a is satisfied because the withdrawal is denominated in ada, the USD figures in the proposal being reference values only. We note for completeness that the proposal's own constitutionality checklist cites a guardrail "TREASURY-04a" for the proposition that the Action requires more than 50 percent of DRep active voting stake; Appendix I.3 of the enacted Constitution enumerates only TREASURY-01a through TREASURY-03a, and the DRep ratification threshold for a Treasury Withdrawal is a ledger level protocol parameter rather than a guardrail. The mislabelling is immaterial to constitutionality. The parameter, hard fork, no confidence, constitution, and committee guardrail groups are not engaged by a Treasury Withdrawals action.

  Ace Alliance finds the proposed "Bifrost: Unlocking Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano - Road to Mainnet (Phase 1 of 2)" Treasury Withdrawals Governance Action Constitutional.

• Cardano Curia84feba94…6bd5

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  Cardano Curia finds the “Bifrost: Unlocking Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano — Road to Mainnet (Phase 1 of 2)” Treasury Withdrawal governance action constitutional by a unanimous internal vote of five to zero.

  What is being proposed

  This Treasury Withdrawal requests 12,332,031 ADA for Bifrost Phase 1, delivered by FluidTokens and Lantr Engineering from July 2026 through March 2027. The proposal funds bridge hardening, external security audits, formal verification, penetration testing, ecosystem and SPO readiness, legal and stewardship work, and a controlled private-mainnet deployment in federated and SPO-threshold custody modes. Public launch and ongoing operations are expressly excluded and reserved for a later Phase 2 proposal.

  Constitutional determination

  Cardano Curia finds the action constitutional.

  The proposal identifies a clear purpose, a nine-month delivery period, three dated milestones, detailed workstreams, acceptance evidence, an itemised budget, reporting obligations, and refund circumstances. The requested amount includes a separately identified ten-percent refundable contingency, and any unused contingency is committed for return to the Cardano Treasury.

  The security work is extensive and directly connected to milestone acceptance. It includes smart-contract and cryptographic review, formal verification of critical paths, watchtower and off-chain audits, penetration testing, a bug-bounty programme, remediation requirements, and publication of audit and verification evidence. No.Witness Labs is assigned periodic third-party assurance, and an external financial auditor is funded to review Phase 1 treasury management and use of funds.

  The proposal discloses relevant prior support, including Lantr Engineering’s prior Cardano Treasury withdrawal and Catalyst funding for the Bifrost testnet programme. It distinguishes the previously funded testnet work from the present mainnet-hardening and assurance scope.

  Grant administration is separated from the bridge’s future stewardship. FluidTokens, Lantr Engineering and an independent oversight board control milestone-based disbursement through audited SundaeSwap escrow contracts. Board members can pause milestones; disbursements require multiple independent approvals; unused funds may be swept early; and funds remaining after expiration return automatically to the Cardano Treasury. The escrow enforces auto-abstain DRep delegation and no SPO delegation for Treasury funds while they remain under administration.

  The proposal therefore satisfies the applicable governance-action and Treasury Withdrawal standards concerning specificity, delivery period, costs, prior-funding disclosure, independent audits, oversight metrics, administration, auditability, delegation controls and refunds. Its cross-chain infrastructure purpose is consistent with the constitutional tenets supporting application development, interoperability, safe preservation of value and information, and responsible use of resources. The phased approach also avoids presenting the private-mainnet deployment as a completed public service before the required security evidence exists.

  Cardano Curia finds the Bifrost Phase 1 Treasury Withdrawal governance action constitutional. The decision is based on its defined phased scope, dated milestones, detailed budget, refundable contingency, prior-funding disclosures, extensive independent assurance, financial audit, public evidence requirements, multi-party escrow administration, delegation controls, and enforceable return of unused funds.

• Cardano Japan Council725d4d44…7b31

  YesExpired · term ends epoch 653Rationale

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  We consider this governance action to be constitutional.

  This proposal is a Treasury Withdrawal Governance Action to withdraw ₳12,332,031 from the Cardano Treasury in connection with "Bifrost: Unlocking Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano - Road to Mainnet (Phase 1 of 2)" by Lantr Engineering and FluidTokens. This proposal refers to the proposal document on IPFS and presents the proposal's title, summary, rationale, and justification. These elements comply with the requirements of Article 2, Section 6, Paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Cardano Constitution. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 1, this proposal aims to deploy the Bifrost bridge - which enables Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano - to the audited mainnet, with an implementation period of approximately nine months designated as Phase 1. Furthermore, it outlines deliverables for each milestone, success criteria, a roadmap, scope of work, budget breakdown, and reporting structure. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 2, this proposal discloses Lantr Engineering's prior Treasury Withdrawal within the past 24 months, including the allocation amount, receipt status, and corresponding Governance Action. It also separately discloses prior Project Catalyst funding received by FluidTokens and Lantr Engineering for Bifrost. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 3, we confirm that the requested amount of ₳12,332,031 falls within the applicable Net Change Limit. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 4, this proposal outlines the establishment of a supervisory framework comprising an independent Oversight Board, an independent technical assurer, and an independent financial auditor, and specifies that milestone-based reviews, public reporting, technical assurance, and financial audits will be conducted. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 5, this proposal outlines the separation of grant administration from the bridge's operating entity, establishing a system for fund management via an escrow contract and oversight by an independent Oversight Board. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 6, this proposal adopts fund management via an escrow contract using the SundaeSwap treasury-contracts framework. Furthermore, this framework specifies that funds will not be delegated to the SPO; instead, they will be delegated to DRep via a predefined abstention voting option, and any remaining funds after the contract's expiration will be automatically returned to the Cardano Treasury. Therefore, as no clear conflict with the Cardano Constitution has been identified, this proposal is deemed constitutional.

  For the reasons stated above, we determine that it is constitutional.

• Eastern Cardano Council2ea7a78e…10ec

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  We have determined that this treasury withdrawal governance action is constitutional.

  The governance action with ID "gov_action1mlv...ms7jwt" and title "Bifrost: Unlocking Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano — Road to Mainnet (Phase 1 of 2)" is a Treasury Withdrawal, and is therefore subject to the following sections and guardrails in the Cardano Constitution.

  ARTICLE II, Section 6 of the Cardano Constitution states that governance actions must follow a standardized and legible format, including a URL hosting an immutable document and a corresponding hash, and must provide sufficient rationale including a title, abstract, justification, and supporting materials.

  This governance action includes a valid URL and hash, which matches the hash of the off-chain documentation referenced. The rationale also meets the minimum content specified in this section.

  ARTICLE II, Section 7 specifies that Treasury Withdrawal governance actions must include the following:

  1. Purpose, Delivery Period, Costs, and Refund Conditions

  This governance action specifies:

  • The purpose of the withdrawal as "This proposal funds Phase 1 of 2: the work required to take Bifrost from a working testnet to launch readiness."
  • The period for delivery of proposed activities as "a 9-month delivery period from July 2026 to March 2027."
  • The relevant costs and expenses in the "Budget overview (Phase 1)" section.
  • The circumstances under which funds may be refunded to the Cardano Treasury as "Unspent contingency is returned to the Cardano Treasury at the end of the term."

  These elements fulfil the requirements of Article II, Section 7(1).

  2. Prior Treasury Funding Disclosure

  ARTICLE II, Section 7(2) requires disclosure of whether the prospective recipient has received ada from the Cardano Treasury within the last 24 months.

  This governance action states that "In accordance with Article II — Section 7.2 of the Constitution, Lantr Engineering discloses prior Treasury withdrawals. We also disclose earlier Project Catalyst support for Bifrost to provide a complete picture of prior Cardano community funding.". This fulfils the requirement of ARTICLE II, Section 7(2).

  3. Net Change Limit (NCL)

  ARTICLE II, Section 7(3) requires that Treasury Withdrawals must not exceed the Net Change Limit.

  The Net Change Limit in effect at the time of submission of this vote on-chain is the governance action with ID "gov_action1m3x...4jsr7q".

  • A. Current NCL Amount: 350000000 ada
  • B. Current NCL Time Period: Epoch 613 to Epoch 713 (Inclusive)
  • C. Total of Treasury Withdrawals within the Current NCL Time Period: 335610296 ada
  • D. Amount of this Treasury Withdrawal: 12332031 ada
  • E. "C" plus "D" = 347942327 ada
  • F. "A" minus "E" = 2057673 ada

  As the value of "F" is greater than or equal to zero, this governance action fulfils the NCL requirement.

  4. Audit Allocation and Oversight Metrics

  ARTICLE II, Section 7(4) states "Treasury Withdrawals actions shall require an allocation of ada as a part of such funding request to cover the cost of periodic independent audits and the implementation of oversight metrics as to the use of such ada."

  This governance action states that "An external financial auditor will review Phase 1 treasury management and fund use, with a report published at the close in Q2 2027. The auditor holds no stake in FluidTokens / Lantr Engineering and is remunerated from funds allocated in this proposal.", which fulfils the requirements of ARTICLE II, Section 7(4).

  5. Designated Administrators

  ARTICLE II, Section 7(5) requires that one or more administrators are designated to monitor fund usage and ensure deliverables are achieved.

  This governance action states that "Grant administration rests with the two vendors and an independent oversight board, keeping funding control independent of the asset being funded. An independent, multi-party board provides third-party governance. Board members have no stake in Lantr Engineering / FluidTokens. They co-sign disbursements, review milestones, and can halt funding if delivery falters. Independent oversight board members: Chris Gianelloni - Blink Labs, Matthias Benkort - Cardano Foundation, Riley Kilgore - IOG.", which fulfils this requirement.

  6. Fund Management Requirements

  ARTICLE II, Section 7(6) states "Any ada received from a Cardano Blockchain treasury withdrawal, so long as such ada is being held by an administrator prior to further disbursement to the Treasury Withdrawal Recipient, must be kept in one or more separate accounts that can be audited by the Cardano Community, and such accounts shall not be delegated to an SPO but must be delegated to the predefined abstain voting option."

  This governance action specifies the following withdrawal address, which at the time of assessment is not delegated to an SPO and is delegated to the auto abstain voting option:

  • stake179nmtusegux540zeqwpyapfjfvpxy75qxu4weq2emvcztqgtmwxw2

  Finally, the guardrails that require consideration for this governance action are TREASURY-01a, TREASURY-02a, and TREASURY-03a. These are addressed as follows:

  • TREASURY-01a - The net change limit with governance action ID "gov_action1m3x...4jsr7q" is currently in effect, after being "agreed by the DReps via an on-chain governance action with a threshold of greater than 50% of the active voting stake".
  • TREASURY-02a - As per the above assessment, this treasury withdrawal does not exceed the current Net Change Limit.
  • TREASURY-03a - This treasury withdrawal is denominated in ada.

  We therefore find this governance action Constitutional.

  This governance action sufficiently fulfils the criteria specified for treasury withdrawals in the Cardano Constitution, so is deemed constitutional.

• Phil_uplc68bb0b42…8746

  YesActive · term ends epoch 799No rationale
• Tingvard646d1b3a…be43

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  Tingvard judges the “Bifrost: Unlocking Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano — Road to Mainnet (Phase 1 of 2)” Treasury Withdrawal governance action constitutional.

  This governance action requests 12,332,031 ADA from the Cardano Treasury to fund Phase 1 of Bifrost, a permissionless Bitcoin-Cardano bridge secured by Cardano’s SPO ecosystem. The proposal covers a 9-month delivery period from July 2026 to March 2027 and is intended to take Bifrost from a working testnet to launch readiness.

  The proposal identifies the purpose of the withdrawal, the amount requested, the delivery period, and the scope of work. Phase 1 funds bridge hardening, security audits, formal verification, ecosystem and partner readiness, and stewardship and economic foundations for launch. Public rollout and 24 months of operations are explicitly separated into a later Phase 2 proposal.

  The proposal includes three milestones covering hardening and audit readiness, security audits and mainnet preparation, and private mainnet deployment under controlled access. Each milestone includes deliverables and acceptance criteria.

  The proposal provides a budget breakdown. The total request is 12,332,031 ADA, including bridge hardening and security, ecosystem readiness and partnerships, legal, stewardship and economy work, and a 10% refundable contingency.

  The proposal includes refund circumstances. It states that the 10% contingency is refundable and that unspent contingency will be returned to the Cardano Treasury at the end of the term. It also includes a failsafe sweep where funds remaining in the contract after expiration sweep back to the Treasury automatically.
  The proposal distinguishes long-term bridge stewardship from grant administration. The future stewardship structure is a Phase 1 deliverable and will govern the bridge in the long term, while grant administration during Phase 1 is handled separately through the two vendors and an independent oversight board.

  The proposal identifies FluidTokens and Lantr Engineering as the two vendors and provides an independent oversight board. The board co-signs disbursements, reviews milestones, and can halt funding if delivery falters.

  The proposal includes audit and assurance provisions. Periodic third-party audits will be performed by No.Witness Labs, quarterly technical reviews will be published, and an external financial auditor will review Phase 1 treasury management and fund use. Both are remunerated from funds allocated in the proposal.

  The proposal addresses custody and delegation. Funds will be held and released through the SundaeSwap treasury-contracts framework, which uses audited smart contracts. The treasury contract enforces auto-abstain DRep delegation and no SPO delegation for all funds in escrow.
  The proposal discloses prior treasury and ecosystem funding, including Lantr Engineering’s 2025 Treasury Budget allocation for Scalus and the Catalyst Fund 14 allocation for Bifrost.

  The proposal states that it follows the applicable Net Change Limit and that, at the moment of submission, it is within its boundaries.

  Tingvard therefore finds that the proposal satisfies the relevant constitutional requirements for a Treasury Withdrawal governance action.

  Tingvard finds the “Bifrost: Bitcoin-Cardano bridge secured by Cardano SPOs” Treasury Withdrawal governance action constitutional.

  The proposal identifies the purpose, amount, delivery period, costs, refund circumstances, vendor and administration structure, custody and delegation arrangements, audit and oversight provisions, prior funding disclosure, and NCL position.

  Tingvard therefore judges this governance action constitutional.

• KtorZ64f97568…3a49

  AbstainExpired · term ends epoch 653Rationale

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  Conflict of interest

  I have gladly accepted to support the project as an overseeing board member, which therefore disqualifies me to review this in all fairness.