DeltaDeFi: Hydra Trading Infrastructure Budget (₳1,500,000)
163 DReps voted · 67 with a rationale · 3 changed their vote
Open a row to read the rationale.
- No10.9M ₳No rationale
- No10.4M ₳No rationale
- Abstain8.8M ₳Rationale
本提案は、Hydraを活用した取引インフラの強化や、Vision 2030に紐づくKPIを測定・可視化しようとする点において、方向性そのものには一定の意義があると考えます。
一方で、将来的に公共的インフラとして位置づけられる可能性のある領域について、どの程度まで中立性や持続性を担保すべきかという点は、現時点では賛否を明確に判断する性質のものではないと考えます。そのため、本提案の趣旨には理解を示しつつも、棄権します。\n\nI recognize the value in the overall direction of this proposal, particularly in strengthening Hydra-based trading infrastructure and in its effort to measure and visualize KPIs aligned with Vision 2030. However, with regard to areas that may potentially be positioned as public infrastructure in the future, I consider the question of how far neutrality and long-term sustainability should be ensured to be not something that can be clearly judged for or against at this stage. Therefore, while I understand the intent of this proposal, I vote Abstain. - No8.1M ₳No rationale
- No7.6M ₳Rationale
DeltaDeFi has built a very interesting and innovative Hydra-based DeFi platform and I've been following discussions around it. I also helped test it early on and was impressed by its speed and ease of use. I appreciate that the team is asking DReps to signal whether this direction (Hydra-based trading infrastructure) - is a good direction.
Let me add that I have voted for SIDAN Lab's proposals in Catalyst previously, I appreciate their role as an SPO and DRep and their leadership role in the Cardano HK community. Additionally, I love their committment to open source and great track record.
Thank you for taking the time to consult DReps (I have seen your requests on social media) and I understand this Info Action also as a temperature check. So I am happy to voice my feedback.
The team wants to harden and scale DeltaDeFi into a production-grade Hydra trading venue for ADA and key CNT pairs. What I do not see here is a deep dive by the team into the product-market fit: as far as I understand it - using Hydra involves some trust assumptions. Someone called it a "Delegated Authority Hydra Topology". Namely, someone has to open and close the Hydra Head and - namely someone has to be the operator.
Which Hydra topology is DeltaDeFi today (beta) and which is targeted in 6 months? Hydra apparently gives strong guarantees to head participants. The moment end users are not participants and instead rely on a small set of “delegates/operators,” they are (if I understand well) in a delegated/managed topology where the user experience can inherit extra trust assumptions. What are the exact failure modes (operator down, partial signer collusion, network partition)? Can a user unilaterally exit to L1 if the operator is offline? Etc...
I have seen some equally respected members of the ecosystem point out that Hydra gives L1-equivalent security only to those who are running a node as a participant in that Hydra head. So, not to everyone. If not running the Hydra Head, but just participating, funds are in the custody of the head participants. I may be wrong, but then again - this might be the soft spot of a Hydra Dex and it should be clear to me - what is coming regarding the soft spot in the future.
Why do I mention this - well, because of product market fit. I wonder who is the end customer of the DeltaDeFi Dex. If I am right, the team hosts currently all nodes. DeltaDeFi says that it will become more and more decentralized as time go by - according to the docs, but this info action does not go into this.
Are there any in-depth decentralization milestones that are auditable (not just “over time”)?
Without a specific and clear and understandable component of this plan regarding security of user funds, the trust model and what does it mean for end users - I cannot signal support for this info action - not to speak of a Treasury Withdrawal. For Treasury Withdrawals, I am also limited by my self-imposed "no more funding except for emergencies" rule for the first year of governance - and by my general tendency not to support situations where we are asked to pick winners in a competitive market.
Yes, unlike existing AMM Dexes, in this case, we have innovation in the form of a Hydra Dex, but if the DeltaDefi team wants to increase the chance of getting a Treasury Withdrawal approved by DReps in general, they might be well served by delving more into how they intend to address the issues above. Yes - they do state that the proposal aligns with "Pillar 1: L2 Integration – "High-frequency, low-latency transactions with L1 security". Does DeltaDeFi directly offer L1 security? If not, how much security does it offer and - please offer a clear, roadmap with milestones about the statement from your documents: "DeltaDeFi will become more and more decentralized as times go by, and eventually a fully decentralized DApp for the community."
Finally, the Hydra benefits are very clear for all. What may be unclear for end users - potential customers - are the tradeoffs. From this Info Action, I am not convinced that a Hydra-based Dex is the right approach for a commercial project building on Cardano. If I am not convinced, others may not be either. It's up to the proposer to focus equally on the benefits and how to address the tradeoffs.Finally, I may have misunderstood some things and/or wrongly interpreted - if I did so, it was unintentional. And thank you for building on Cardano.
- Yes5.9M ₳Rationale
Voting yes - in support of open-sourced components of this project that the ecosystem can benefit from as a whole as well as providing additional support for Hydra use case dapps and this one looks strong and can support the DeFi ecosystem. They've included 2030 KPIs into their proposal as well.
6-mo seems like an aggressive timeline, and I may have questions in the future how deeper liquidity and making DeltaDeFi a source of that liquidity for other dapps is supposed to be achieved. For now, however, I'm supportive of this budget action as is. - No5.8M ₳No rationale
- Yes5.4M ₳No rationale
- Yes5.3M ₳Rationale
The DeltaDeFi team have written a great proposal and we should encourage innovators in the Cardano community. The product is live on main net and have clear KPIs - voting yes.
- No5.3M ₳Rationale
STORM Partners votes NO on the DeltaDeFi Budget Info Action. We recognize the high caliber of the SIDAN Lab team, whose delivery capabilities we have validated through our ongoing impact analysis of their prior grants. Furthermore, we view the maturation of Hydra-based infrastructure as a strategic imperative for Cardano’s scaling roadmap and fully support initiatives that advance Layer 2 viability. Our decision to oppose this proposal is not a reflection on the team’s technical competence, but rather a principled stance on fiscal discipline, market strategy, and the appropriate use of Treasury resources for commercial ventures.
Our primary objection lies in the financial structure of the request. Providing a non-dilutive grant of ₳1.5M to a single commercial exchange for core product development creates a risk of competitive distortion, effectively asking the Treasury to "pick winners" in a dynamic market. For projects with clear profit potential, we believe Treasury support must evolve beyond pure subsidies toward more sustainable financial instruments, such as loans or revenue-sharing agreements, a standard recently established by the governance ecosystem in the SNEK proposal, which we voted in favour of. Additionally, we view the allocation of 20% of the budget to a proprietary KPI measurement program as an inefficient use of capital, given that neutral ecosystem reporting tools are already sufficient to track these metrics without this dedicated project funding.
From a business perspective, the proposal focuses heavily on engineering delivery while neglecting the commercial realities required for a successful exchange. The strategy relies on an assumption that infrastructure alone will drive adoption, yet it lacks a concrete plan for bootstrapping liquidity or incentivizing market makers, which are the primary drivers of any DEX’s success. Furthermore, the current "managed" Hydra topology introduces custodial trust assumptions that, without a clear and binding roadmap to decentralization, present a governance risk. We encourage the team to refine the proposal by addressing these commercial gaps and restructuring the financial request to separate open-source common goods from private commercial advancement.
- No4.7M ₳No rationale
- No4.6M ₳No rationale
- No4.4M ₳Rationale
This proposal is better suited for a Catalyst submission rather than a direct treasury withdrawal. While I admire the DeltaFi team, the requested amount seems excessive at this time, especially since numerous teams have already received substantial ADA funding for Hydra implementations, and we are still awaiting tangible results from them.
- No4.1M ₳Rationale
[Portuguese]
Optamos por votar "NÃO" nesta ação de governança "DeltaDeFi: Hydra Trading Infrastructure Budget (₳1,500,000)" (gov_action15ce4qnwug759939wqv782pvh6qg68khspg8kh02gmex99mcsytwqqqr7jkr), pois não conseguimos visualizar de forma clara como os recursos solicitados poderão, de fato, desbloquear liquidez adicional relevante para o ecossistema Cardano. Entendemos que a proposta carece de maior detalhamento quanto aos mecanismos concretos de geração de impacto econômico e de atração de liquidez. Diante disso, sugerimos que o projeto busque financiamento de forma incremental por meio do Catalyst, permitindo validações progressivas antes de um eventual apoio via tesouro.
[English]
We chose to vote "NO" on this governance action "DeltaDeFi: Hydra Trading Infrastructure Budget (₳1,500,000)" (gov_action15ce4qnwug759939wqv782pvh6qg68khspg8kh02gmex99mcsytwqqqr7jkr), because we are unable to clearly see how the requested funds would effectively unlock meaningful additional liquidity for the Cardano ecosystem. We believe the proposal lacks sufficient detail regarding concrete mechanisms for economic impact and liquidity generation. Therefore, we suggest that the project seek incremental funding through Catalyst, allowing for progressive validation before considering treasury-level support. - No4M ₳No rationale
- No3.8M ₳No rationale
- No3.4M ₳No rationale
- Abstain3.1M ₳Rationale
As I have not had time yet to properly review this proposal, I am voting Abstain for now.
- No2.7M ₳No rationale
- No2.6M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.6M ₳Rationale
本提案は Treasury Withdrawal ではなく、今後の方向性に対する意思表示を問う Info Action であり、現時点で資金移動を伴いません。Hydraを用いた低遅延・板取引インフラは、Cardanoにおいて依然として不足している重要な基盤領域です。DeltaDeFiチームは、MeshJSをはじめとする中核的な開発者向けツールを長年オープンソースで提供し、Catalystにおいても実績を積んできました。実装力と継続的なエコシステム貢献が確認できるチームによる、Vision 2030に沿った検証的提案として、本Info ActionにYesを投じます。
This proposal is an Info Action, not a Treasury Withdrawal, and does not involve any movement of funds at this stage.
Low-latency, order-book trading infrastructure using Hydra remains an important but still underdeveloped area for Cardano.
The DeltaDeFi team has a proven track record, including long-term open-source contributions such as MeshJS and successful Project Catalyst deliveries.
As an experimental proposal aligned with Vision 2030 and backed by a capable team, I vote Yes on this Info Action. - No2.5M ₳No rationale
- No2.5M ₳Rationale
I am not sure this makes sense for treasury funds, would like to see this in catalyst.
- No2.3M ₳No rationale
- No2.3M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.1M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.1M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.1M ₳No rationale
- Abstain2M ₳No rationale
- Abstain1.9M ₳No rationale
- No1.8M ₳Rationale
Voting No. While I support the work DeltaDeFi is doing with Hydra, the amount requested is significant for the current stage of the project. The proposal is also better suited for Catalyst (with a trimmed down request) rather than a treasury withdrawal.
- No1.8M ₳Rationale
I am voting NO on the DeltaDeFi: Hydra Trading Infrastructure Budget because projects funded by the Treasury should demonstrate clear, durable, ecosystem-wide benefits. While the proposal is ambitious and technically interesting, the benefits appear to accrue primarily to a specific team and product rather than to the broader Cardano ecosystem in a neutral, public-goods sense. The proposal does not yet make a sufficiently strong case that the resulting infrastructure would be widely reusable, permissionless, and adopted beyond this single implementation. At this funding level, I expect clearer guarantees of open access, shared utility, and long-term ecosystem value before committing Treasury resources.
- No1.7M ₳No rationale
- No1.7M ₳No rationale
- No1.7M ₳No rationale
- No1.6M ₳No rationale
- No1.6M ₳Rationale
Go to Catalyst or get voted in a consolidated budget pls.
- No1.6M ₳Rationale
It is our stance that any treasury funding given to a private, for-profit entity, in the pursuit of growing a for-profit product, should be denied unless there is a clear and risk-adjusted repayment schedule. The treasury may invest in public infrastructure with no repayment schedule, and it may make strategic investments in companies with a repayment schedule, but we do not see it as viable to fund projects in the way this proposal requests.
- No1.5M ₳No rationale
- No1.4M ₳No rationale
- No1.4M ₳No rationale
- No1.4M ₳No rationale
- No1.3M ₳No rationale
- No1.2M ₳Rationale
This proposal requests 1.5M ADA to upgrade DeltaDeFi, a Hydra-based platform for fast off-chain trades.
Pros: open-source GitHub tools (Apache license) reusable for DeFi (trading without banks), ties to 2030 goals with KPIs like $10M TVL (locked money) and 1,000 traders, built on 650K ADA from Project Catalyst, and quarterly reports for accountability.
Cons: seeks more funds without proving users or liquidity, no clear plan for attracting traders beyond "build it and they come," which failed most Cardano DEXs except Minswap per adastat.net. The 20% budget (300K ADA) for custom metrics tracking is wasteful given Cardano's Dune partnership for cheap TVL/volume data. Without a loan or profit share like SNEK (required repayment per intersectmbo.org), it feels like funding private business over ecosystem infrastructure.
- No1.2M ₳No rationale
- No1.1M ₳Rationale
My experience in tech leadership and analysis makes me look beyond all the flashy terms and really dig into what's being proposed here. Essentially, we’re being asked to support a business venture that’s being dressed up as "core infrastructure." This term is starting to feel like a way to avoid the usual scrutiny that comes with for-profit decentralized apps (DApps).
I get that Cardano could really use a solid, high-performance order-book solution, especially with Hydra in play. But **the financial details of this proposal raise some serious red flags for me. The Treasury is taking on all the operational risk for developing this product! **Spending 250,000 ADA a month just to "harden" a beta and set everything up is a tough pill to swallow, especially since there’s no mention of any equity or revenue sharing coming back to the Treasury. So, we’re acting like a venture capital firm that isn’t getting a slice of the pie—just the "privilege" of using the end product. That feels totally out of sync with sustainable economics. If this product is supposed to be a real game-changer, like a "Binance killer," then where’s the private investment? Why should ADA holders have to foot the entire bill for a private company’s competitive edge?
Looking at it from a constitutional standpoint, this proposal goes against Tenet 8: "The Cardano Blockchain shall not unreasonably spend resources." Throwing such a huge amount of money for just six months, especially when some of that is going to redundant reporting, feels completely unreasonable to me!
Voting "Yes" on this proposal could set a really risky precedent where private companies can treat the Treasury like their own personal slush fund instead of a source for public good projects. Just because something is "helpful for the ecosystem" doesn’t automatically make it "public infrastructure." DeltaDeFi is a business, and it should operate like one.
- Yes971.5K ₳Rationale
We support this Budget Info Action.
The DeltaDeFi team has a strong and proven track record within the Cardano ecosystem, including long-standing contributions to developer tooling and infrastructure. Their work has been closely aligned with advancing Hydra as a practical Layer-2 scaling solution, helping move it from theory toward real-world adoption.
If successful, this initiative does not only benefit a single application. A production-grade Hydra trading venue lowers the barrier for other dApps and projects to adopt Hydra, accelerating ecosystem-wide scaling, performance, and user experience improvements.
Importantly, the proposal defines clear, measurable KPIs and deliverables. This provides transparency and allows the team to be held accountable for outcomes.
For these reasons, we believe this proposal represents a constructive and ecosystem-positive direction, and we vote Yes.
- No964.1K ₳No rationale
- Yes955.7K ₳No rationale
- No931.8K ₳No rationale