Cardano Global Listing Expansion - Powered by Snek
7 of 7 committee members voted
- Cardano Atlantic Council07e0eb70…5bdeNoResigned · term ends epoch 580Rationale
The proposed Treasury Withdrawal, as written, is Unconstitutional.
Article IV, Section 3 of the Cardano Constitution states:
No withdrawals from the Cardano Blockchain treasury shall be permitted unless such withdrawals have been authorized and are being made pursuant to a budget for the Cardano Blockchain that is then in effect as required by the Cardano Blockchain Guardrails Appendix, and which has not been determined by the Constitutional Committee to be unconstitutional.
Given that this Treasury Withdrawal has been made without an actively approved budget action as specified in Article IV, we must find this proposal Unconstitutional.
- Cardano Foundation6796d87d…c280NoExpired · term ends epoch 580Rationale
The proposed Treasury Withdrawal Governance Action “Cardano Global Listing Expansion - Powered by Snek” is unconstitutional.
A PDF version of this rationale is also made available.
This Treasury Withdrawal governance action (gov_action1fl6...9tgrd5) proposes to use treasury funds to support the listing of the SNEK token on major centralized exchanges, with the stated goal of increasing visibility and liquidity for the entire Cardano ecosystem. While the strategic rationale is detailed, the action does not meet the requirements for treasury withdrawals established in the Cardano Constitution.
Constitutional Violations
The proposal is unconstitutional based on two clear violations:
- Article IV, Section 3 & Appendix I, Guardrail TREASURY-04a (Absence of an Approved Budget): The Constitution mandates that "No withdrawal of ada from the Cardano Blockchain treasury shall be permitted unless it is authorized by an active Cardano Blockchain ecosystem budget." This proposal is a direct treasury withdrawal and does not reference any previously approved Budget Info Action that authorizes it. This contradicts the required two-step constitutional process for funding (i.e., a budget is first approved via an Info Action, and only then can withdrawals be made against it).
- Article III, Section 5 (Failure of Content Identicality): The Constitution requires that the on-chain action's content be "identical to the final off-chain version." The off-chain proposal text and rationale clearly and repeatedly state a funding request for 5,000,000 ada. However, the on-chain governance action specifies a withdrawal of 5,000,000 lovelace, which is equivalent to only 5 ada. This discrepancy between the documented intent and the on-chain instruction breaches the content identicality rule, making it impossible for voters to know which content is being proposed and to make an informed decision.
Due to non-compliance with constitutional provisions under Articles III and Appendix I, this Treasury Withdrawal Governance Action is Unconstitutional.
- Cardano Japan Council (ICC)4012cab5…0755NoExpired · term ends epoch 580Rationale
Cardano Global Listing Expansion - Powered by Snek --> Unconstitutional
We have concluded that this Governance Action is unconstitutional under the Cardano Constitution, primarily in relation to Article IV, Section 4, which requires clear provisions for independent auditing and transparent budget management of treasury withdrawals. The proposal fails to provide a sufficient budget breakdown and financial transparency. Without clear allocation or detailed expenditure plans, it does not meet the standards of accountability required for a constitutional treasury withdrawal action. Moreover, this action does not explicitly designate any external audit entity, nor does it establish a binding framework for independent oversight, which constitutes a violation of Article IV, Section 4 that explicitly requires the establishment of independent audits. In addition, the action has been submitted as a Treasury Withdrawal Governance Action (TWGA) despite lacking essential details, with indications from the proposer that it may need to be resubmitted. Such a premature submission confirms the absence of readiness and completeness. We believe that these missing elements should have been reviewed and corrected at the Info Action stage before being submitted as a Governance Action.
- Eastern Cardano Council2ea7a78e…10ecNoExpired · term ends epoch 580Rationale
We have determined that this treasury withdrawal governance action is unconstitutional.
Article IV, Section 3 of the Cardano Constitution states "No withdrawals from the Cardano Blockchain treasury shall be permitted unless such withdrawals have been authorized and are being made pursuant to a budget for the Cardano Blockchain that is then in effect as required by the Cardano Blockchain Guardrails Appendix, and which has not been determined by the Constitutional Committee to be unconstitutional."
The governance action with ID "gov_action1fl6...9tgrd5" and title "Cardano Global Listing Expansion - Powered by Snek", has no corresponding budget Info governance action associated with it.
Therefore we find this governance action Unconstitutional.
This governance action does not sufficiently fulfil the criteria specified for treasury withdrawals in the Cardano Constitution, so is deemed unconstitutional.
- Emurgodc2b0706…89b8NoExpired · term ends epoch 580Rationale
EMURGO as a Constitutional Committee member determines that the governance action titled "Cardano Global Listing Expansion – Powered by Snek" is Unconstitutional.
Article IV, Section 3 of the Cardano Constitution states:
"No withdrawals from the Cardano Blockchain treasury shall be permitted unless such withdrawals have been authorized and are being made pursuant to a budget for the Cardano Blockchain that is then in effect as required by the Cardano Blockchain Guardrails Appendix, and which has not been determined by the Constitutional Committee to be unconstitutional."
This proposal is not accompanied by any budget Info action that authorizes the requested withdrawal.
As this requirement is not met, EMURGO determines this treasury withdrawal governance action to be Unconstitutional.
- Input | Output3c9ebce6…1e4cNoExpired · term ends epoch 580Rationale
Input | Output finds “Cardano Global Listing Expansion - Powered by Snek” unconstitutional.
The Cardano Constitution prohibits Treasury Withdrawal Actions that are not authorized by a previously approved budget Info Action (Article IV, Section 3; Appendix I, TREASURY-04a). The Treasury Withdrawal action under consideration is not authorized by any previously approved budget Info Action, thus violating Article IV, Section 3 and guardrail TREASURY-04a of the Cardano Constitution.
We hope it will be helpful to highlight some other major components the action’s authors should consider:
Explicitly allocate funding for independent audits and oversight metrics. Any governance action requesting ada must include a funding allocation for periodic independent audits and oversight metrics (Article IV, Section 4).
Name the administrator of the previously approved budget. Budgets must specify the oversight process and designate one or more administrators; the withdrawal should point to that budget detail (Article IV, Section 2).
Articulate compliance with constitutional requirements for the custody of ada received. If an administrator will hold ada prior to disbursement, it must be in separate, auditable accounts, not delegated to an SPO and delegated to the auto-abstain DRep (Article IV, Section 5).
We hope that the Snek team will consider renewing their proposal with DReps, following constitutional procedures.
- Intersect Constitutional Council85c47dd4…bf64NoExpired · term ends epoch 580Rationale
The Intersect Constitutional Council votes the treasury withdrawal governance action, “4ff43f1eab5252...559a#0”, to be unconstitutional.
This is the first of two governance actions submitted on August 2 2025 requesting a treasury withdrawal of 5 million ada. These treasury withdrawal actions were submitted without a previously approved budget info action as mandated by Article IV Section 3. “No withdrawals from the Cardano Blockchain treasury shall be permitted unless such withdrawals have been authorized and are being made pursuant to a budget for the Cardano Blockchain that is then in effect as required by the Cardano Blockchain Guardrails Appendix, and which has not been determined by the Constitutional Committee to be unconstitutional.” This immediately renders both actions unconstitutional but there were other areas where the proposals failed and we outline those areas here to help inform the proposers ahead of any future proposals that they may be considering to put forth.
The governance action assessed in this rationale requested 5 million ada from the Cardano treasury. While the metadata and proposal text requested 5 million ada, the on-chain input only accounted for 5 ada. This is likely attributed to a confusion between denomination in lovelace and ada. The Cardano CLI denominates everything in lovelace (1 ada = 1,000,000 lovelace) and so entering “5,000,000” would have resulted in 5 ada instead of 5 million ada. The entry in this case should have been “5,000,000,000,000” in order to be correct on-chain. Therefore this governance action also falls short of Article III Section 5 where “The content of every on-chain governance action must be identical to the final off-chain version of the proposed action”. This is also likely to be the reason a second proposal was submitted almost one hour later with near identical wording but a correct on-chain request amount.
The proposal contains a section titled “Governance and Oversight” and lists a “Board of Advisors” along with their responsibilities, however it fails to “specify a process for overseeing use of funds from Cardano Blockchain treasury withdrawals including designating one or more administrators who shall be responsible for such oversight” as mandated by Article IV Section 2.
The Intersect Constitutional Council considers this governance action to be unconstitutional.