Blockfrost's transformation to not-for-profit
6 of 7 committee members voted
- Ace Alliance71aa5b3a…8f04YesActive · term ends epoch 726Rationale
Ace Alliance finds the proposed "Blockfrost's transformation to not-for-profit" Treasury Withdrawals Governance Action constitutional. Rationales are archived at https://github.com/ace-alliance/ace-voting/
A PDF version of this rationale is also made available.
"Blockfrost's transformation to not-for-profit" (gov_action12su...457vgq) 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. The Action seeks to withdraw 9,832,979 ada from the Cardano Treasury, valued by the proposer at 1,868,266 USD at a rate of 0.19 USD per ada, to fund an eighteen-month transition of Blockfrost, the hosted API through which a majority of Cardano transactions are submitted in most epochs, into a free, community-governed public good: the source code, trademarks, and domains transfer to an independent not-for-profit under a five-seat community-elected board, with a named preliminary board guiding formation and elections planned by the end of Q1 2027. Blockfrost joined IOG in 2024 and the delivering party is Input Output; we note this connection once and apply identical constitutional scrutiny regardless of origin. Whether the Treasury should subsidize a free public API, and whether the not-for-profit or vendor-backed sustainability models sketched in the proposal are the right ones, 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 with the on-chain blake2b-256 hash 775d70c9fc9589ee2531e1e7b9ed3f6d9a3ff1e0a600fb35dce5412b60bbd275, a content-addressed form that is immutable once posted, and the metadata supplies the title, abstract, motivation, rationale, itemized budget, quarterly milestone schedule, and supporting references that Article II.6.2 requires.
Article II.7.1 (Terms of the Withdrawal). The terms-of-withdrawal requirement is met. The proposal specifies the purpose (the not-for-profit transition and eighteen months of operations enumerated above), the period for delivery (a milestone schedule running from entity establishment in Q3 2026 through board election, service transition, sustainability consultation, and sustained operations across 2027), the relevant costs and expenses (7,780,347 ada for staffing, 1,894,737 ada for operations and infrastructure, and 157,895 ada for legal and accounting, totalling 9,832,979 ada), and the circumstances of refund: all funds not disbursed by the end of the delivery period return to the Cardano Treasury, unspent funds associated with cancelled or reduced deliverables are returned proportionally, and any unspent post-transition infrastructure budget is returned, with a final reconciliation published in the oversight reporting cycle.
Article II.7.2 (Prior Treasury Funding Disclosure). The disclosure requirement is satisfied. The proposal discloses the prior treasury receipts of IO and its affiliated entities in tabular form with corresponding governance action identifiers, 130,708,860 ada allocated across the 2025/26 Treasury Smart Contract workstreams with 85,552,881 ada withdrawn to date, including the 1,137,500 ada Blockfrost maintenance workstream itself.
Article II.7.3 (Net Change Limit). A Net Change Limit of 350,000,000 ada is in force for the period spanning epochs 613 through 713, and it operates cumulatively: after the withdrawals already enacted this period, 14,389,704 ada of headroom remains, which is less than the Treasury Withdrawals expiring at the end of epoch 646 collectively request. For this governance action, Ace Alliance examined the amount of DRep delegated stake it has attracted, in accordance with the method announced in advance in our published voting statement (ipfs://QmdLDoTQ1hnZFTeTfAnq5V4BNchCFPNqfXSZVX5cVQzRFM): six hours before the end of epoch 645 we assess DRep support and vote constitutional on the actions that have received the requisite level of delegated stake for enactment, in order of submission, until the remaining headroom is exhausted. However, having assessed the three governance actions in line with that statement, we have determined that it is exceedingly unlikely that all three will be enacted and result in exceeding the Net Change Limit. We therefore find this governance action constitutional under Article II.7.3, satisfying guardrails TREASURY-01a and TREASURY-02a, and leave it to the DReps to make the final decision on which governance actions should pass. The withdrawal is denominated in ada, satisfying TREASURY-03a.
Article II.7.4 (Audit and Oversight Allocation). The proposal allocates ada for audit and oversight as part of the funding request. Audit and oversight costs are included within the overhead applied to the proposal, the Intersect administration fee covers administrative oversight, milestone acceptance is supported by a third-party assurer whose work the proposal states is funded from a portion of this treasury withdrawal, and oversight metrics are provided through quarterly reports, a public usage dashboard, a 99 percent monthly uptime service level obligation verifiable against published dashboard data, and the treasury.sundae.fi dashboard through which the community can audit TRSC and PSSC activity on-chain.
Article II.7.5 (Designated Administrator). The proposal designates Intersect as administrator, an entity distinct from the recipient. As with the Anvil ticketing platform withdrawal this Committee reviewed in the same expiry window, the Action was submitted on-chain directly by the proposer rather than by Intersect, and Intersect nonetheless serves as administrator by established agreement: the metadata states as settled terms that a written off-chain Legal Contract between Input Output and the Cardano Development Holdings, administered by Intersect, governs delivery and dispute resolution, and it carries the full 2026 Treasury Reserve Smart Contract configuration, including the current cycle's TRSC and Project-Specific Smart Contract addresses, the five-admin and three-leadership role structure, the six-entity external Oversight Committee, and the published multi-signature authorization rules for each TRSC action type. Funds move to the Project-Specific Smart Contract only once the Legal Contract is prepared, against milestones outlined in the metadata.
Article II.7.6 (Custody and Delegation of Held Funds). The on-chain withdrawal destination is the 2026 TRSC stake address stake1784sdxt6jjennmstphgdu7l7c2scf5d02a6cve2dgn5s2kq5u3j9v, a script-locked stake address (CIP-19 mainnet header byte 0xf1) that is auditable by the community, which this Committee has repeatedly verified on-chain in the current cycle's withdrawals as not delegated to any stake pool and delegated to the predefined always-abstain DRep. The proposal expressly commits that all TRSC and PSSC instances cannot be staked with an SPO and are delegated to the auto-abstain predefined DRep, satisfying the requirement that held funds sit in separately auditable, non-SPO, abstain-delegated accounts.
Appendix I (Guardrails). Only the Treasury Withdrawal guardrails in Appendix I.3 are engaged, and each is met as set out under Article II.7.3 above. The parameter, hard-fork, no-confidence, constitution, and committee guardrail groups are not engaged by a Treasury Withdrawals action.
Ace Alliance finds the proposed "Blockfrost's transformation to not-for-profit" Treasury Withdrawals Governance Action constitutional.
- Cardano Japan Council725d4d44…7b31YesExpired · term ends epoch 653Rationale
We consider this governance action to be constitutional.
This proposal is a Treasury Withdrawal Governance Action to withdraw ₳9,832,979 from the Cardano Treasury in connection with Input Output Global's "Blockfrost's transformation to not-for-profit" initiative. 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 transition Blockfrost into a free, community-governed public good, with an implementation period of 18 months. It also provides a breakdown of costs for personnel, operations and infrastructure, legal, and accounting, and outlines the conditions for the return of any unpaid funds at the end of the implementation period, as well as any unused funds resulting from partial implementation or a reduction in scope. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 2, this proposal discloses the total amounts allocated and withdrawn, as well as the amounts received, percentages of allocation, and corresponding Governance Actions for each workstream regarding past Cardano Treasury funding received by IO and its affiliated entities. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 3, this proposal confirms that the requested amount of ₳9,832,979 falls within the applicable Net Change Limit. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 4, this proposal outlines progress monitoring by Intersect; review and approval of completed work for each milestone by a third-party assurer; verification by an Oversight Committee composed of external, independent third-party organizations; metric tracking via a public dashboard; reporting obligations; and milestone-based payment management. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 5, this proposal states that Intersect will manage the legal contract as well as the Treasury Reserve Smart Contract and the Project-Specific Smart Contract, and monitor project progress. It also states that a third-party assurer will review and sign off on the completion of each milestone against the corresponding deliverables. Regarding Article 2, Section 7, Paragraph 6, this proposal states that funds received through the Treasury Withdrawal will first be managed in the Treasury Reserve Smart Contract and then transferred in stages to the Project-Specific Smart Contract. It also provides for auditing and metric tracking through a public dashboard, as well as on-chain verifiability. Furthermore, it states that these Smart Contracts will not be staked with an SPO but will instead be delegated to the predefined abstention voting option. 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…10ecYesActive · term ends epoch 726Rationale
We have determined that this treasury withdrawal governance action is constitutional.
The governance action with ID "gov_action12su...457vgq" and title "Blockfrost's transformation to not-for-profit" 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 transitions Blockfrost into a free, community-governed public good, owned by the people who build on it where the Blockfrost source code, trademarks, and domains are transferred into community stewardship under an independent, community-governed not-for-profit."
- The period for delivery of proposed activities as "a 18-month transition".
- The relevant costs and expenses in the Budget Allocation section.
- The circumstances under which funds may be refunded to the Cardano Treasury as "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."
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 "IO and its affiliated entities have been accountable for delivery of work funded by the Cardano Treasury over 2025/26. The total funds allocated has been ₳130,708,860 across a number of projects within Treasury Smart Contract, to date IOG has withdrawn ₳85,552,881.". 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: 302733167 ada
- D. Amount of this Treasury Withdrawal: 9832979 ada
- E. "C" plus "D" = 312566146 ada
- F. "A" minus "E" = 37433854 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 "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.", 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 "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.", 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:
- stake1784sdxt6jjennmstphgdu7l7c2scf5d02a6cve2dgn5s2kq5u3j9v
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.
- KtorZ64f97568…3a49YesExpired · term ends epoch 653Rationale
Ok
The proposal identifies the administrator, defines legal contracting, milestone-based delivery, custody arrangements, refund conditions, prior Treasury funding, and is compliant with the applicable Net Change Limit. It also provides a detailed transition plan, governance milestones, and a commitment to transfer the Blockfrost intellectual property into community stewardship.
The proposal intentionally leaves certain governance decisions to the future community-governed board, including the final legal structure and long-term sustainability model. While this reflects the nature of a transition project rather than a completed organization, it means that some aspects of the future governance framework remain to be determined after approval. In addition, several usage metrics relied upon in the motivation are presented without supporting references in the governance metadata. Neither observation, however, establishes a clear constitutional violation.
Hence, I do not identify a clear constitutional violation and consider the proposal constitutionally compliant.
- Phil_uplc68bb0b42…8746YesActive · term ends epoch 799No rationale
- Tingvard646d1b3a…be43YesActive · term ends epoch 726Rationale
Tingvard judges the “Blockfrost's transformation to not-for-profit” Treasury Withdrawal governance action constitutional.
This governance action requests 9,832,979 ADA from the Cardano Treasury to fund an 18-month transition of Blockfrost into a free, community-governed public good under an independent, community-governed not-for-profit structure. The proposal states that Blockfrost source code, trademarks, domains, and associated assets will be transferred into community stewardship.
The proposal identifies the purpose of the withdrawal, the amount requested, and the intended delivery period. It describes the transition to not-for-profit ownership, continued operation of the public API, governance formation, board election, service transition, sustainability consultation, and sustained operations through 2027.
The proposal provides a budget allocation. It identifies a total request of 9,832,979 ADA, covering 18 months of operations, with allocations for staffing, operations and infrastructure, and legal and accounting costs.
The proposal includes refund circumstances. It states that any unspent post-transition infrastructure budget will be returned to the Treasury, and later states that all funds not disbursed by the end of the delivery period will be returned, with proportional return of unspent funds in the event of partial delivery or scope reduction.
The proposal identifies Intersect as administrator. It states that a written off-chain legal contract will be created and administered by Intersect, that project progress will be monitored through Intersect’s delivery assurance function, and that acceptance of work will be supported by a third-party assurer.The proposal addresses custody and delegation. It uses the Sundae Labs Treasury Reserve Smart Contract and Project-Specific Smart Contract framework, states that the TRSC and PSSC cannot be staked with an SPO, and provides that funds will be delegated to the auto-abstain predefined DRep while held before disbursement.
The proposal includes prior funding disclosure. It states that IO and affiliated entities have been accountable for delivery of treasury-funded work over 2025/26, identifies total funds allocated and withdrawn, and provides a table of relevant workstreams including Blockfrost.
The proposal states that the requested amount does not, at the time of submission, breach the applicable 350M Net Change Limit covering epochs 613 to 713.
The proposal includes audit and oversight provisions. It states that audit and oversight costs are included within the overhead, that the Intersect administration fee covers administrative oversight, and that independent oversight will be provided through Intersect and a technically capable third party, including reporting obligations and milestone-based disbursement controls.
Tingvard therefore finds that the proposal satisfies the relevant constitutional requirements for a Treasury Withdrawal governance action.
Tingvard finds the “Blockfrost's transformation to not-for-profit” Treasury Withdrawal governance action constitutional.
The proposal identifies the purpose, amount, delivery period, costs, refund circumstances, administrator, custody and delegation arrangements, audit and oversight provisions, prior funding disclosure, and NCL position.
Tingvard therefore judges this governance action constitutional.
- Cardano Curia84feba94…6bd5Not votedActive · term ends epoch 799No rationale