Blockfrost: Maintenance and Next Generation Indexing
On-chain changes
- 7,920,000 ₳paid tostake17xz...6ghh5qjr
Abstract
Proposal as pdf: https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmUdbgB3eHms52HY4oha5u2V4mrpCZkhBw2AaozeMiz8sL
One of the primary challenges in decentralizing access to data-providing services such as Blockfrost is the substantial amount of resources required to index the entire Cardano blockchain dataset, even when only a fraction of that data is needed in practice.
As Cardano prepares for Leios, the cost of indexing the full blockchain dataset will grow substantially. Today, participating in data-serving infrastructure requires indexing the entire chain. This prices out smaller operators and concentrates infrastructure around fewer providers.
Project Cayley introduces decentralized slice indexing — allowing SPOs and node operators to choose which portions of the chain they want to index and serve. This lowers the barrier to participation, reduces infrastructure costs across the ecosystem, and keeps data-serving infrastructure decentralized as the chain scales. Its modular multi-chain architecture further enables developers to access data across Cardano, Midnight, and Bitcoin through a unified API.
This proposal funds two components: Project Cayley ($1,000,000) to build the next-generation indexing architecture, and an operational subsidy ($900,000) to maintain the free-tier infrastructure that Blockfrost has funded entirely on its own since inception. Total ask: ₳7.92M ($1,900,000 at $0.24/₳).
Motivation & rationale
1. The Proposal (What)
One of the primary challenges in decentralizing access to data-providing services such as Blockfrost is the substantial amount of resources required to index the entire Cardano blockchain dataset, even when only a fraction of that data is needed in practice. This challenge becomes increasingly significant when considering Cardano's planned scalability improvements under Project Leios and the substantial impact its adoption will have on the growth of the Cardano dataset.
Project Cayley addresses this directly by introducing decentralized slice indexing — empowering SPOs and other Cardano node operators of all sizes to participate in data-serving infrastructure without the burden of maintaining a full dataset index, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure costs across the ecosystem. Its modular multi-chain architecture will further enable application developers to seamlessly integrate and reach different blockchain ecosystems with significantly greater ease, benefiting from reduced integration time and a unified API across chains.
Since its first day of operation, Blockfrost has provided free API access to the Cardano blockchain for developers and projects across the ecosystem — absorbing 100% of the infrastructure cost of that free tier without ever passing it on to users. Today, Blockfrost serves approximately 90% of all free-tier API traffic, making it the de facto data access layer for a significant portion of the ecosystem's builders and applications. This was a deliberate choice to lower barriers to entry and accelerate Cardano adoption — and as we scale Cardano with Leios, ensuring that infrastructure remains freely accessible and distributed is more important than ever.
This proposal therefore addresses both challenges: funding Project Cayley to build the decentralized infrastructure the ecosystem needs at scale, and asking the Cardano Treasury to assume its fair share of the cost of free-tier infrastructure that Blockfrost has carried alone since inception — an operational subsidy to keep this service running, maintained, and freely accessible to developers while the decentralized infrastructure matures.
The total funding ask is ₳7.92M (equivalent to $1,900,000 at a reference rate of $0.24/₳).
Deliverables
| Sequence | Item Description |
|---|---|
| Q2 2026 | Milestone 1: Indexer first release Implement DSL 0.1 and the Mandoline indexer with initial Cardano support as an MVP release. Milestone 2: Service Level Compliance — Demonstrate continued adherence to a 99.9% uptime SLA for the community free tier during Q2 2026. |
| Q3 2026 | Milestone 3: Provider API Layer Expose indexed Cardano data via a GraphQL API interface for consumers. Milestone 4: Service Level Compliance — Demonstrate continued adherence to a 99.9% uptime SLA for the community free tier during Q3 2026. |
| Q4 2026 | Milestone 5: Bitcoin Indexer Extend DSL 0.1 and Mandoline to support Bitcoin alongside Cardano. Milestone 6: Service Level Compliance — Demonstrate continued adherence to a 99.9% uptime SLA for the community free tier during Q4 2026. |
High level estimates
- 1 project manager for 9 months
- 1 community coordinator for 9 months
- 4 engineers for 9 months
- 3 devops for 9 months
Budget Allocation
| Component | Weight | Allocation (ADA) | Allocation (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product, Engineering and R&D | 42.1% | ₳3,333,333 | $800,000 |
| Security Audits | 10.5% | ₳833,333 | $200,000 |
| Ops & Infrastructure | 47.4% | ₳3,750,000 | $900,000 |
| TOTAL | ₳7,916,666 | $1,900,000 |
2. Proposed Value Delivered (Why)
2.1 Making Data Infrastructure Affordable
Project Cayley addresses one of the most pressing infrastructure challenges facing the Cardano ecosystem today and in the near future. As Leios scales Cardano throughput, the cost of full-chain indexing becomes increasingly prohibitive — Cayley tackles this head-on by enabling sliced indexing, projected to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure costs across the ecosystem. This makes building on Cardano significantly more affordable, lowering barriers for developers and operators of all sizes while keeping decentralization economically viable at scale.
| Throughput (TxkB/s) | Raw Growth (GB/mo) | Indexed Growth (TB/mo) | Indexed Cost ($/mo) | Indexed Cost ($/yr) | Yearly % Incr from 1.3TB | 5-yr Cumul. Growth (TB) | 5-yr Cumul. Cost ($) | 5-yr % from current state |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 150 | ~394 | ~3.94 | ~$263.50 | ~$3,162 | ~3,637% | ~236.4 | ~$15,810 | ~18,185% |
| 200 | ~526 | ~5.26 | ~$376.40 | ~$4,517 | ~4,855% | ~315.6 | ~$22,585 | ~24,277% |
| 250 | ~657 | ~6.57 | ~$439.20 | ~$5,270 | ~6,065% | ~394.2 | ~$26,350 | ~30,323% |
| 300 | ~788 | ~7.88 | ~$546.40 | ~$6,557 | ~7,274% | ~472.8 | ~$32,785 | ~36,369% |
| 350 | ~920 | ~9.20 | ~$655.90 | ~$7,871 | ~8,492% | ~552.0 | ~$39,355 | ~42,462% |
Table 2.1: Predicted growth patterns based on CIP-0164 for a single indexer (we have more than 100+ Icebreakers)
Beyond cost savings, the multi-chain architecture extending to Bitcoin and other ecosystems opens up new economic opportunities by positioning Cardano infrastructure as a unified data layer across blockchains, broadening the addressable market and attracting developers from outside the ecosystem.
2.2 Sustaining Ecosystem-Critical Infrastructure
Blockfrost has operated as public infrastructure since day one, offering free access to Cardano data to any developer who needs it. This has never been a commercial decision — it has been a subsidy paid by Blockfrost to the ecosystem. The scale of that subsidy is now significant: approximately 90% of all free-tier Cardano API traffic flows through Blockfrost's infrastructure, representing a broad base of projects, developers, and users who depend on its continued availability.
Asking the Cardano Treasury to share that cost is a recognition that community infrastructure is best sustained as a shared responsibility across the ecosystem. The $900,000 operational subsidy ensures continuity of a service the ecosystem already relies on, with no disruption to the developers and applications that depend on it.
The operational subsidy breaks down as follows. $600,000 covers the personnel required to operate the free tier reliably — three DevOps engineers in a follow-the-sun rotation ensuring round-the-clock coverage and incident response, a dedicated developer for ongoing maintenance and bug fixes, and support staff handling developer-facing queries and incident communication. The remaining $300,000 covers the underlying infrastructure costs required to sustain the service at the reliability standard committed to in this proposal.
In parallel, Blockfrost is actively reworking its commercial model to ensure that future pricing and access structures do not create barriers or negative dependencies for the ecosystem. This work is being undertaken with ecosystem health as a primary consideration, ensuring that as the decentralized infrastructure matures, the commercial model evolves in a way that complements rather than competes with community interests.
2.3 KPIs
| Core Cardano 2030 KPIs (Adoption) | Alignment | KPI Alignment Narrative |
|---|---|---|
| TVL | N/A | |
| Monthly Transactions | N/A | |
| Monthly Active Users (MAU) | Yes - Enables / Indirectly | Cayley reduces infrastructure costs for data-providing services, enabling smaller operators and new applications to participate in the ecosystem. The free tier subsidy ensures existing developers and applications are not disrupted, collectively supporting growth in active users. |
2.4 Additional KPIs
| Additional Cardano 2030 KPIs (Adoption) | Alignment | KPI Alignment Narrative |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability: Monthly Uptime (6 epochs) | Yes - Directly | Cayley's decentralized slice indexing enables a higher number of operators to participate in data infrastructure by lowering resource requirements, reducing single points of failure. The operational subsidy funds a dedicated DevOps team in a follow-the-sun rotation, ensuring 99.9% uptime of the community free tier throughout the transition. |
| Operational Resilience: Voting Power Distribution of Controlling Stake | N/A | |
| Operational Resilience: Alternative Full Node Clients | N/A | |
| Revenue / Adoption: Annual Protocol Revenue | Yes - Enables | Cayley reduces operational costs for data infrastructure, enabling more economically viable applications and services. Sustaining the free tier through the subsidy ensures no disruption to existing applications, collectively driving increased transaction volume and protocol fee revenue. |
| Governance: Drep Participation Rate | N/A | |
| Scalability: Throughput Capacity per day | Yes - Directly | Cayley ensures data infrastructure can scale with L1 throughput increases by eliminating the requirement for every data provider to index the entire blockchain. The operational subsidy ensures the existing free tier remains stable and reliable as that transition takes place. |
2.5 Pillars
| Cardano 2030 Pillars | Alignment | Pillar Alignment Description |
|---|---|---|
| Pillar 1: Infrastructure & Research Excellence Keep Cardano secure, fast, and interoperable so it can host more economic activity. | Yes - Fully | Project Cayley keeps Cardano developer friendly and ensures infrastructure remains affordable and economically viable as the chain scales. The operational subsidy ensures no gap in service quality during the transition to decentralized infrastructure, maintaining the reliability developers depend on. |
| Pillar 2: Adoption & Utility Driving widespread, non-speculative utility by focusing on high-value industry verticals, superior user experience (UX), and enterprise-grade security. | Yes - Fully | Project Cayley drives adoption by making Cardano data more accessible and practical for real-world use cases. Sliced indexing enables developers and enterprises to build more efficiently, while the free tier subsidy ensures continued zero-barrier access for the 90% of developers currently relying on Blockfrost. The security audit ensures enterprise-grade reliability before public launch. |
| Pillar 3: Governance Cardano governance must be hard to capture, easy to use, and paced. This builds directly on Cardano’s tripartite model of DReps, Constitutional Committee, and SPOs. | N/A | |
| Pillar 4: Community & Ecosystem Growth Driving global engagement through a market-centric approach, cultivating a skilled developer base, and proactively demonstrating ecosystem value. | Yes - Partially | Project Cayley grows the ecosystem by onboarding SPOs as Icebreakers, giving them a new economically viable role as data providers. The free tier subsidy directly supports community growth by keeping access to Cardano data free for developers of all sizes. |
| Pillar 5: Ecosystem Sustainability & Resilience Ensuring the long-term financial health and operational integrity of the network infrastructure. | Yes - Fully | Project Cayley contributes to long-term sustainability by significantly reducing infrastructure costs for operators and developers. The operational subsidy ensures that the cost of community-critical free infrastructure is shared equitably across the ecosystem rather than borne by a single entity, improving long-term financial resilience. |
Cardano 2030 Pillars: https://product.cardano.intersectmbo.org/vision/strategy-2030/
3.0 Treasury Governance & Compliance
3.1 Contract Management
A written off-chain Legal Contract will be created between Input Output and the Cardano Development Holdings (CDH), as mandated by the Constitution, and will be administered by Intersect. This will include details of the project delivery schedule and dispute resolution.
Project Delivery
All milestones, acceptance criteria, payment amounts and expected delivery dates will be agreed between the Input Output and Intersect, acting on behalf of the CDH. Input Output will deliver according to the agreed-upon project schedule within the Legal Contract, of which the necessary information will be made public via the budget management platform via transaction metadata.
Defined by the milestones within a Legal Contract, Input Output will submit and attest milestone acceptance to the community, Intersect or 3rd Party Assurer.
Project progress will be monitored via Intersect's delivery assurance function which will be communicated to the community.
Acceptance of the work will be supported by a 3rd Party Assurer, who will be responsible for reviewing and signing off the work completed at each project milestone against the corresponding milestone deliverables detailed within the Legal Contract. This work is funded from a portion of this treasury withdrawal.
3.2 Auditable Accounts & Fund Delegation
Budget Management Tooling
To administrate treasury funds on-chain, Intersect will utilize the treasury management smart contract framework developed by Sundae Labs. The smart contracts have been extensively tested including audits from TxPipe and MLabs.
Final mainnet validation test can be seen via the Disburse action within transaction: 0f591dc544ae14102dbb4a74d5311a6acffc1772b163d8b7a9656b9525950b17
This withdrawal will utilise Intersect’s 2025 treasury reserve contract with address being: stake17xzc8pt7fgf0lc0x7eq6z7z6puhsxmzktna7dluahrj6g6ghh5qjr
Funds will later be migrated to a 2026 treasury reserve contract once established.
Budget Management Specifics
Intersect will utilize a single Treasury Reserve Smart Contract (TRSC), with many Project-Specific Smart Contracts (PSSC), managed by Intersect. Intersect's management consists of three 'admin' and two Intersect 'leadership' roles. An Oversight Committee consisting of five 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 PSSCs will be managed by Intersect, with external oversight on certain actions from the Oversight Committee.
The 2025 TRSC Oversight Committee consists of Sundae Labs, Cardano Foundation, Dquadrant, Xerberus and NMKR. 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 three Intersect admins, two of the five trusted entities and one of the two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
- TRSC Disperse
- Two of three Intersect admins, three of five trusted entities and two of two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
- TRSC Pause and Resume
- Two of three Intersect admins, and one of two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
- TRSC Sweep
- One of three Intersect admins, and one of two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
- TRSC Reorganize
- Two of three Intersect admins and three of five trusted entities must authorize
Processes
Upon enactment of this governance action, funding for this project will be directed into the TRSC's stake account. All instances of TRSC and PSSC can not be staked with a SPO and will be delegated to the auto-abstain predefined DRep. From here funds will be withdrawn into a UTxO remaining at the TRSC.
When a 2026 TRSC is established, the funding for this project will be migrated via the ‘disburse’ action.
When the Legal contract is prepared and Input Output is ready, funding for this project will be transferred using the Fund action to a PSSC. All milestones will be outlined within the metadata.
A dashboard will be available 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.
3.3 Funding Denomination
All amounts in this proposal are denominated in ada (₳). The total Treasury ask is ₳7,916,666. USD figures ($1,900,000) are provided for reference only, based on an ADA/USD rate of 0.24.
3.4 Refund Conditions
All funds not disbursed by the end of the delivery period will be returned to the Cardano Treasury. A final reconciliation will be published as part of the oversight reporting cycle. In the event of partial delivery or scope reduction, unspent funds associated with cancelled or reduced deliverables will be returned proportionally.
3.5 Prior Treasury Receipts
IO and its affiliated entities have been accountable for delivery of work funded by the Cardano Treasury. The total funds allocated has been ₳130,708,860 across a number of projects within Treasury Smart Contract, to date IOG has withdrawn ₳78,459,777.
| Workstream | Ada received | % of allocation | Corresponding Governance Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blockfrost | ₳1,137,500 | 88% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#2 |
| Catalyst | ₳3,095,400 | 60% ** | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#23 |
| IOE | ₳47,159,487 | 49% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#1 |
| IOR | ₳26,840,000 | 100% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#32 |
| Governance | ₳227,390 | 38% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#22 |
**Note: for Catalyst this only reflects the workstream that focuses on the Hermes Infrastructure and UX/UI improvements, not the execution and operation of Funds 14-16. Per Info Action this is in the process of transitioning to Cardano Foundation.
3.6 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.
3.7 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.
Rationale highlights
Why some of the largest DReps voted for and against, in their own words.
I vote NO to "Blockfrost: Maintenance and Next Generation Indexing." Rather than positioning Blockfrost as a public service, I believe it's better overall to position it as a service competing with other API providers, designing it as a pathway to guide...
I vote NO to "Blockfrost: Maintenance and Next Generation Indexing."
- Rather than positioning Blockfrost as a public service, I believe it's better overall to position it as a service competing with other API providers, designing it as a pathway to guide users from the free tier to the paid tier.
If it's positioned as a public service and eliminates other providers, there will be no competition within the ecosystem, and although a commercial tier is suggested in the proposal, its design priority will likely not increase. This includes not only price competition but also competition in terms of features, etc.
I myself started using Blockfrost in the free tier last month, moved to the paid tier, and have now moved back to the free tier because I have my own server. I am one of the users for whom the free tier acted as a pathway to the paid tier.
- When using Treasury, I think it's beneficial to present a monetization and repayment plan, as seen in the current Eternl proposal. This would alleviate the concerns mentioned in point 1.
ーーー
私は「Blockfrost: Maintenance and Next Generation Indexing」にNOを投票します。
1.Blockfrostを公共サービスとして位置付けるよりも、他のAPIプロバイダーと競争をするサービスと位置付け、無料ティアを有料ティアへ誘導するための導線として設計した方が全体から見て良いと思います。
公共サービスとして位置付け、他のプロバイダーを全滅させた場合、エコシステム内で競争がなくなり、商用ティアは提案書内に示唆されていませすが、おそらくそれを設計する優先度も高まりません。これは単に価格競争だけではなく、機能面などの競争を含みます。
私自身、先月、Blockfrostを無料ティアで使い始めて、有料ティアへ移行し、現在また、自前のサーバーを用意したために無料ティアに移行しましたが、結局のところ、無料ティアは有料ティアへ誘導するための導線と設計するのは合理的です。
2.トレジャリーを使用する場合、現在のEternlの提案書に見られるように、収益化と返済プランを提示することは有益だと思います。これにより1の懸念が軽減されます。
Overview of EDC vote on IO + Tweag proposals: ❌ IO: Developer Experience Initiative ✅ IO: Cardano Upgrades ✅ IO: Consensus Initiative ✅ IO & Ensurable Systems: Cardano Maintenance Initiative ❌ IO & Midgard Labs: L2 Scalability Initiative ➖ IO: Cardano High...
Overview of EDC vote on IO + Tweag proposals:
❌ IO: Developer Experience Initiative
✅ IO: Cardano Upgrades
✅ IO: Consensus Initiative
✅ IO & Ensurable Systems: Cardano Maintenance Initiative
❌ IO & Midgard Labs: L2 Scalability Initiative
➖ IO: Cardano High Assurance Technical Collaboration
✅ IO & VacuumLabs: Enhancing Plutus - Performance, Correctness, and Usability
❌ Blockfrost: Maintenance and Next Generation Indexing
❌ Pogun: Capital Without Compromise
❌ Tweag Core Cardano Infrastructure: Treasury Withdrawal 2026–2028
✅ IO: Cardano Vision 2026: Human Centred, Scalable, Post Quantum Secure - IO ResearchCombined:
✅ YES: 147.7m ADA / 35.5m USD
❌ NO: 74.0m ADA / 17.7m USD
➖ ABSTAIN: 13.1m ADA / 3.1m USDAll proposed initiatives sound like nice-to-haves for Cardano; some are essential for Cardano's momentum. The asks on almost all of the proposals are too high. That's why we had to triage and prioritize the essentials over the nice-to-haves, allow for a remainder on the NCL, and leave room for other vendors to enter the race for this year's budget.
We want to make it clear that a NO does not mean we are against the proposed tech. Quite the opposite, for example we'd love to look into Midgard and Pogun for Eternl. We also appreciate the work Blockfrost is doing, trying to replace itself with decentralized tech.
But we need to leave some part of the NCL for other vendors and initiatives.
SIPO DRep votes YES on Blockfrost: Maintenance and Next Generation Indexing. Governance Action ID: gov_action1w0shrfxqwv95kk0v4cn34wylz25a2cmqkq5jpc0e2yrahhqava3qwt8k9fx DRep: drep1yffld2866p00cyg3ejjdewtvazgah7jjgk0s9m7m5ytmmdq33v3zh Date: 2026-05-09 SIPO...
SIPO DRep votes YES on Blockfrost: Maintenance and Next Generation Indexing.
Governance Action ID: gov_action1w0shrfxqwv95kk0v4cn34wylz25a2cmqkq5jpc0e2yrahhqava3qwt8k9fx
DRep: drep1yffld2866p00cyg3ejjdewtvazgah7jjgk0s9m7m5ytmmdq33v3zh
Date: 2026-05-09SIPO supports this proposal as a coherent investment in Cardano's data-access infrastructure layer at exactly the moment Leios will make traditional full-chain indexing economically prohibitive. The proposal funds two complementary components: Project Cayley ($1,000,000) introducing decentralized slice indexing so SPOs and operators of all sizes can serve subsets of the chain rather than the entire dataset, and an operational subsidy ($900,000) sustaining the free-tier infrastructure that Blockfrost has carried alone since inception and that today serves approximately 90% of all free-tier Cardano API traffic.
Why SIPO votes YES
Cayley addresses the Leios-driven indexing cost explosion before it becomes a crisis. The proposal documents that at 150-350 TxkB/s throughput levels (within Leios's design envelope), a single full-chain indexer faces $3,162-$7,871 per year per indexer in cumulative growth costs — a 3,637-8,492% increase over current state. Without Cayley's slice indexing, this concentrates Cardano data infrastructure in a small number of well-capitalized providers and prices out smaller SPOs and operators. Decentralized data access is part of the same decentralization principle that motivates SIPO's continued support for SPO economic diversity, alt-clients, and node-diversity infrastructure.
The free-tier subsidy reflects an honest cost-sharing for public-good infrastructure. Blockfrost has voluntarily absorbed 100% of free-tier infrastructure costs since inception, and the proposal documents that approximately 90% of all free-tier Cardano API traffic flows through Blockfrost. This is not a request to start a free-tier subsidy — it is a recognition that ecosystem-critical infrastructure carried by a single entity is structurally fragile, and Treasury support is the appropriate way to share that responsibility. The $900,000 operational subsidy covers personnel (3 DevOps in follow-the-sun rotation, dedicated maintenance developer, support staff) and underlying infrastructure costs.
Multi-chain indexing architecture (Cardano + Midnight + Bitcoin) opens cross-ecosystem developer flow. Cayley's modular multi-chain architecture lets developers integrate with Cardano, Midnight, and Bitcoin through a unified API. This positions Cardano data infrastructure as a unified entry point across blockchains, broadening the addressable developer market and creating a structural reason for non-Cardano-native developers to engage with the ecosystem. This connects directly to the Cardano 2030 narrative of Cardano as a multi-chain-aware execution layer.
SPO Icebreakers create a new economic role for SPOs. By lowering the resource bar to participate in data infrastructure, Cayley enables SPOs to operate as data providers (Icebreakers) rather than only block producers. This diversifies SPO revenue beyond staking rewards and reduces delegation concentration risk over time. It is structurally aligned with SIPO's view that SPO economic diversity is a leading indicator of operational decentralization.
Governance and oversight structure is identical to the standard SIPO has approved on Amaru, Dingo, HLabs Pebble + Gerolamo, DeFi Liquidity Budget, and Orion Fund (Sundae Labs treasury-contracts framework, Intersect administration, 5-entity Oversight Committee, multi-signature disbursement, refund clause). 99.9% uptime SLA is committed quarterly across the delivery period (Q2-Q4 2026 milestones). Net Change Limit compliant.
Expectations (YES with binding operational commitments)
Cayley delivery transparency on Bitcoin indexer extension: The Q4 2026 Bitcoin indexer milestone is the multi-chain claim made tangible. SIPO expects publication of community-accessible benchmarks demonstrating real-world performance of the Bitcoin indexer extension, not internal demos only.
Blockfrost commercial model rework transparency: The proposal references Blockfrost actively reworking its commercial model to ensure future pricing does not create barriers or negative dependencies for the ecosystem. SIPO expects this rework to be documented publicly with explicit ecosystem-friendly design commitments before the operational subsidy enters its second cycle (if any) — preventing a scenario where Treasury subsidizes a commercial pricing structure the community cannot evaluate.
SPO Icebreaker onboarding monthly disclosure: The Icebreaker model is one of the structural promises of the proposal. SIPO expects monthly publication of the number of SPOs onboarded as Icebreakers, geographic distribution, and any economic data on Icebreaker viability that would inform other SPOs considering the role.
Free-tier 99.9% uptime SLA monthly reporting: The SLA is the operational backbone of the subsidy justification. SIPO expects monthly uptime reporting (not only quarterly milestone snapshots) so that any SLA breach or trending degradation surfaces early.
Quarterly reporting in stable format: SIPO expects the same reporting discipline already standard on Amaru, Dingo, and HLabs.
Closing
Cayley addresses a structural Leios-driven cost problem before it becomes a crisis, the free-tier subsidy reflects honest cost-sharing for ecosystem-critical infrastructure, and the multi-chain architecture opens cross-ecosystem developer flow that Cardano cannot achieve through Cardano-only data providers. With expectations above treated as binding operational commitments, SIPO DRep votes YES.
For these reasons, SIPO DRep votes YES.
SIPO DRepとして、本提案「Blockfrost: Maintenance and Next Generation Indexing」に賛成（YES）を投じます。
Governance Action ID: gov_action1w0shrfxqwv95kk0v4cn34wylz25a2cmqkq5jpc0e2yrahhqava3qwt8k9fx
DRep: drep1yffld2866p00cyg3ejjdewtvazgah7jjgk0s9m7m5ytmmdq33v3zh
Date: 2026-05-09SIPOは本提案を、Cardanoのデータアクセスインフラ層への一貫した投資として支持します。Leiosが従来のフルチェーンインデキシングを経済的に成立しなくする、まさにそのタイミングでの投資です。本提案は2つの相補的コンポーネントに資金提供します：Project Cayley ($1,000,000) は分散化スライスインデキシングを導入し、SPOと様々な規模のオペレーターが全データセットではなくチェーンの subset を提供できるようにします。運用助成 ($900,000) はBlockfrostがinception以来独力で負担してきた、現在Cardano無料層APIトラフィックの約90%を提供する無料層インフラを維持します。
SIPOがYESと判断する理由
CayleyはLeios駆動のインデキシングコスト爆発を危機になる前に対処する。本提案は150-350 TxkB/sスループットレベル（Leiosの設計envelope内）で、単一フルチェーンインデクサーが累積成長コストとして年間$3,162-$7,871/インデクサーに直面することを文書化しています — 現状から3,637-8,492%の増加。Cayleyのスライスインデキシングなしでは、Cardanoデータインフラは少数の十分に資本を持つプロバイダーに集中し、小規模SPOやオペレーターはpriceされ排除されます。分散化されたデータアクセスは、SIPOのSPO経済多様性、alt-clients、ノード多様性インフラへの継続支持と同じ分散化原則の一部です。
無料層subsidyは公共財インフラの正直なコストシェアリングを反映。BlockfrostはinceptionからFree tierインフラコストを100%自発的に吸収してきており、本提案はCardano無料層APIトラフィックの約90%がBlockfrostを経由していることを文書化しています。これは無料層subsidyを開始する要請ではなく — 単一エンティティが負担するエコシステム重要インフラは構造的に脆弱であり、Treasury支援はその責任を共有する適切な方法であるという認識です。$900,000運用助成は人件費（follow-the-sun rotationの3 DevOps、専任メンテナンス開発者、サポートスタッフ）と基盤インフラコストをカバーします。
Multi-chainインデキシングアーキテクチャ（Cardano + Midnight + Bitcoin）はクロスエコシステム開発者フローを開く。Cayleyのモジュラーmulti-chainアーキテクチャは、開発者がunified APIを通じてCardano、Midnight、Bitcoinと統合できるようにします。これはCardanoデータインフラをブロックチェーン横断のunified エントリーポイントとして位置づけ、addressable開発者マーケットを広げ、Cardano-native ではない開発者がエコシステムにエンゲージする構造的な理由を作ります。これはCardano 2030の multi-chain-aware execution layerとしてのCardanoのナラティブと直接接続します。
SPO IcebreakersはSPOに新たな経済役割を作る。データインフラに参加するためのリソースバーを下げることで、CayleyはSPOがブロックプロデューサーだけでなくデータプロバイダー（Icebreakers）として運用することを可能にします。これはSPOの収益をstaking報酬を超えて多様化し、時間とともに委任集中リスクを減らします。SPO経済多様性が運用分散化の先行指標であるというSIPOの見解と構造的に整合しています。
ガバナンス・監視構造はSIPOがAmaru、Dingo、HLabs Pebble + Gerolamo、DeFi Liquidity Budget、Orion Fundで承認した標準と同一です。99.9% uptime SLAがdelivery period（Q2-Q4 2026 milestones）で四半期ごとにcommitされています。Net Change Limit準拠。
期待事項（YESには拘束力のある運用上のコミットメントを伴う）
Bitcoin indexer extensionへのCayleyデリバリー透明性：Q4 2026 Bitcoin indexerマイルストーンは multi-chain主張の具体化。SIPOはBitcoin indexer extensionの実世界performanceを示すcommunity-accessibleベンチマークの公開を期待 — 内部デモのみではなく。
Blockfrost営利モデル再構築の透明性：本提案はBlockfrostが将来の価格設定がエコシステムにバリアや負の依存性を生まないよう、commercial modelを能動的に再構築していることを参照しています。SIPOはこの再構築が、運用助成が二次サイクルに入る前（あれば）にecosystem-friendly設計の明示的commitmentを伴って公開文書化されることを期待します — Treasuryがコミュニティが評価できない商業価格構造を補助するシナリオを防ぐために。
SPO Icebreakerオンボーディングの月次開示：Icebreakerモデルは本提案の構造的約束の1つ。SIPOはIcebreakersとしてオンボードされたSPO数、地理的分散、およびIcebreaker viabilityに関する経済データの月次公開を期待します — 役割を検討する他のSPOに情報を提供するために。
無料層99.9% uptime SLA月次報告：SLAはsubsidy正当化の運用バックボーン。SIPOは月次uptime報告を期待します（四半期マイルストーンスナップショットのみではなく） — SLA違反やトレンド劣化が早期に表面化するように。
安定フォーマットでの四半期報告：Amaru、Dingo、HLabsで既に標準となっている報告規律を期待。
結び
CayleyはLeios駆動の構造的コスト問題を危機になる前に対処し、無料層subsidyはエコシステム重要インフラの正直なコストシェアリングを反映し、multi-chainアーキテクチャはCardano-onlyデータプロバイダー経由では達成できないクロスエコシステム開発者フローを開きます。上記期待事項が拘束力のある運用上のコミットメントとして扱われることを前提として、SIPO DRep は本提案に賛成（YES）を投じます。
以上の理由により、SIPO DRepとして本提案に賛成（YES）を投じます。
Support because RPC and indexing are table-stakes infrastructure for developer onboarding and application continuity, and because the current ecosystem has too much concentrated dependency on Blockfrost as a core access provider. A PDF version of this...
Support because RPC and indexing are table-stakes infrastructure for developer onboarding and application continuity, and because the current ecosystem has too much concentrated dependency on Blockfrost as a core access provider.
A PDF version of this rationale is also made available.
Support because RPC and indexing are table-stakes infrastructure for developer onboarding and application continuity, and because the current ecosystem has too much concentrated dependency on Blockfrost as a core access provider. The important funding case is decentralization: Project Cayley, decentralized slice indexing, and a broader operator model can move Cardano away from one dominant hosted path toward resilient, lower-cost, independently operated data access. This should be treated as crucial public infrastructure if it demonstrably reduces single-provider risk rather than deepening it.