Eternl: Path to Sustainability - v2
189 DReps voted · 63 with a rationale · 5 changed their vote
Open a row to read the rationale.
- No298.9K ₳Rationale
After the Eternl withdrawal was deemed unconsitutional this minimal revision was submitted on chain. Being that my concerns were unrelated to the unconstitutionality of the withdrawal I am naturally maintaining my stance and again voting against this proposal.
- Yes294.4K ₳No rationale
- YesRevoted279.8K ₳History
Earlier votes
Yes1mo agoSuperseded
- Yes271.8K ₳No rationale
- No270.1K ₳Rationale
I am voting NO on “Eternl – Path to Sustainability – v2”. Eternl is an important Cardano wallet and governance interface, and I recognise the value of its infrastructure and long‑term contribution. However, this proposal again seeks a full year of broad operations funding for a closed‑source, commercial product that has already received substantial public support through Catalyst, Intersect, and the 2025 Treasury withdrawal.
The added audit and oversight clarifications in v2 improve transparency but do not change the fundamental structure of the ask: the Treasury is being asked to bridge general business risk while Eternl transitions to a paid Pro model, with conditional repayments and donations priced in fiat. In my view, repeated Treasury support for private products should be limited to clearly scoped public‑good maintenance work—such as hard‑fork readiness, CIP implementation, and governance‑critical compatibility—and should be accompanied by stronger open‑source commitments, not full commercial operations. For these reasons, I am maintaining my previous NO stance on this family of proposals. - No261K ₳Rationale
Governance Action Report: Eternl: Path to Sustainability (2026–2027) [EN]
1. Introduction
Eternl is a non-custodial Cardano light wallet available on web, browser extension, Android, and iOS. Users rely on Eternl for payments, staking, governance, and DApp interaction. This governance action requests ₳2,350,000, at approximately $0.1787 per ADA, to fund 12 months of operations from August 2026 to July 2027.
The proposal covers frontend and backend maintenance and development, backend infrastructure, user support, audits, administration, and day-to-day operations. The annual cost is presented as approximately $420,000, corresponding to 6.0 FTE distributed across 10 contributors at an average of $70,000 per FTE. The requested budget is allocated to frontend, backend, support, admin, and audits.
Eternl plans to introduce paid Pro plans for personal and company use. The proposal states that around 5,500 paying users, or about 4.2% of its install base, would be enough to cover the annual operating cost. It also includes conversion of up to $420,000 worth of ADA into stablecoins, public monitoring of the company wallet, return of excess ADA to the Treasury, periodic independent audits, oversight metrics, and repayment or donation mechanisms if Pro plan income exceeds defined thresholds.
2. Governance Action Analysis
Positive aspects
Eternl is one of the most relevant wallets in the Cardano ecosystem. It is widely used for payments, staking, DApp interaction, governance participation, power users, and daily blockchain access. The proposal also includes important positive elements, especially by attempting to establish a financial sustainability path through paid plans and by indicating mechanisms for possible return of funds to the Treasury.
The new version of the proposal incorporates relevant improvements compared to the previous version. Clarifications were added on audits, oversight metrics, financial transparency, and mechanisms for eventual return of funds to the Treasury. Eternl also changed its previous position and now declares that its DRep abstains from this vote. These changes represent concrete responses to criticisms raised during the evaluation of the previous proposal and should be positively recognized.
The attempt to build a financial sustainability model should be recognized as positive. This movement may have come late, but the explanation presented by the team should not be ignored. In an ecosystem where many large projects remain recurrently or structurally dependent on public subsidies, there is at least a declared attempt here to build an independent revenue source and reduce future dependence on the Treasury. This point counts in favor of the proposal.
The new version introduces an estimate that approximately 5,500 paying users, or about 4.2% of the installed base, would be enough to fully cover annual operating costs. This information helps contextualize the sustainability strategy and represents an improvement compared to the previous proposal.
In governance, the new proposal presents an important improvement. The previous version explicitly declared that Eternl would vote on its own proposal. That position raised significant concern, since the direct beneficiary of the funds intended to use delegated voting power to support a Treasury withdrawal for its own benefit.
The new version changes that position and states that the Eternl DRep abstains from this vote. This change should be recognized positively. Abstention by the direct beneficiary significantly reduces the concern related to the use of delegated voting power to approve self-funding and strengthens the legitimacy of the decision-making process.
Greater detail was also provided on independent audits, oversight metrics, custody of funds, financial transparency, and mechanisms for eventual return of funds to the Treasury. These changes increase predictability on how the funds would be administered and monitored during the funded period.
Eternl remains one of the main wallets used by the Cardano community. It is a reliable tool, with a relevant track record and an important role for advanced users, DeFi participants, DApps, staking, governance, and daily interaction with the network. The proposal also seeks to fund real maintenance: frontend, backend, infrastructure, support, hard fork compatibility, CIPs, hardware wallets, governance tooling, and daily operations.
Continuity of Eternl has value for the ecosystem. If Eternl stopped operating or drastically reduced its capacity, there would be an impact on a relevant portion of users. There are other wallets in the Cardano ecosystem, and perhaps even more wallets than necessary in some segments. Even so, Eternl probably would not be one of the wallets the ecosystem should want to lose. Its practical importance as an access interface is clear.
It is also positive that the proposal indicates an intention to return excess ADA if conversion occurs above the reference price, as well as a more detailed structure for eventual return of funds to the Treasury if the Pro plan generates surplus. This type of mechanism is better than a simple request for an operational subsidy without any sustainability or return plan. The existence of this concern with sustainability and possible repayment should be recognized.
Negative aspects
The relevance of Eternl as a product and access infrastructure does not eliminate the problems of the proposal as a Treasury withdrawal instrument. Evaluation of a Treasury Withdrawal Governance Action requires more than recognizing utility. It requires accountability, budget clarity, verifiable targets, proportionality, and adequate monitoring mechanisms. These elements continue not to be presented at a sufficient level to justify a favorable vote.
The first relevant problem is the absence of KPIs with verifiable targets. The proposal mentions alignment with core Cardano KPIs, such as TVL, monthly transactions, and active wallets / MAU. It also states that Eternl conducts between 10% and 18% of mainnet transactions. However, no verifiable source was presented for this metric, and no concrete targets were established in relation to it. If Eternl’s share of mainnet transactions is used as an argument for systemic relevance, it would be reasonable to expect the proposal to establish targets for maintaining or growing that share, as well as a measurement method and reporting cadence.
The absence of targets is especially problematic because this type of proposal could benefit significantly from clear KPIs. Unlike an exploratory or early-stage research proposal, an operational wallet has several measurable dimensions: usage, stability, revenue, conversion, support, governance, uptime, delegations, voting volume, releases, incidents, and feature adoption. The proposal does not turn its own impact claims into trackable commitments.
This problem also appears in governance. The proposal highlights the relevance of Eternl’s governance tools, including DRep dashboards, proposal browsing, in-wallet voting, and proposal creation directly through the interface. These points are relevant, but they were not accompanied by specific KPIs. Targets could have been included on the number of DReps viewed through the interface, number of delegations made through Eternl, voting power delegated through the wallet, number of votes cast through the interface, number of users interacting with governance features, percentage of users participating in delegation or voting, or metrics related to interface neutrality.
There is also a lack of clear targets for the financial sustainability plan. The proposal states that it intends to introduce paid plans and move toward self-sustainability. This is a positive point, but it is not accompanied by concrete targets for conversion, revenue, retention, break-even timeline, progressive reduction of Treasury dependence, or objective criteria to evaluate whether the plan is working.
Even with the estimate that around 5,500 paying users would be sufficient to cover annual costs, the proposal still does not establish formal conversion targets, timelines, monitoring milestones, or measurable commitments that would allow an objective assessment of whether the transition to self-sustainability is occurring as planned.
A positive intention does not replace verifiable targets. A sustainability plan without quantitative targets or clear success criteria remains insufficient to justify a new Treasury withdrawal.
The second relevant problem is the budget. The budget presented remains excessively high-level. The new version clarifies that the funding corresponds to approximately six FTEs distributed across ten contributors and that the average cost considered is approximately $70,000 per FTE. This information adds useful context and represents an improvement compared to the previous version.
However, the main problem is not the average value itself, but the lack of granularity.
The proposal still does not allow an adequate evaluation of which roles are being funded, the seniority of each person, the working hours dedicated to each workstream, the strategic importance of each function, which activities require which FTEs, and how effort will be distributed across maintenance, infrastructure, support, governance tooling, development of new features, and the Pro plan.
In a company, not all professionals usually receive the same amount or have the same level of responsibility, seniority, or strategic contribution. The aggregated budget presentation creates an impression of generalization and makes it harder to evaluate the precision of the request.
Without greater granularity, it is not possible to identify whether the workload and effort required for the described features actually justify the number of FTEs and the requested amount. It is also not possible to clearly evaluate how much of the budget relates to essential ecosystem maintenance and how much relates to commercial roadmap development or features that should be funded through own revenue, paying users, private investment, or other funding mechanisms.
The proposal became stronger by clarifying the number of FTEs and the average cost considered, but it still does not explain with sufficient precision the roles, responsibilities, seniority, time distribution, and relationship between team and deliverables. The total number of FTEs provides some sense of cost and scale, but does not allow an adequate assessment of proportionality. In a Treasury withdrawal, especially to fund operations of a private company, this lack of detail continues to reduce confidence in the accuracy of the budget.
The third problem is the partially commercial and closed nature of the proposal. Eternl is a relevant and reliable wallet, but its main product is not open source. The proposal states that some libraries will be published, but the main wallet interface will not be open. This weakens the public good thesis.
A tool does not need to be fully open source to have public value, but when a private company requests recurring Treasury funding to maintain and develop a closed product, the standard for transparency, accountability, and public return needs to be higher.
This does not mean that Eternl has no value for the ecosystem. It does. But there is a difference between funding open public infrastructure and funding the operational continuity of a proprietary product. The more closed the product is, the harder it becomes to justify broad public funding without very clear counterparties, a well-delimited scope, and strong monitoring mechanisms.
Risks and concerns
The absence of governance KPIs is especially sensitive because wallets can influence users’ delegation behavior. In a context where there are already concerns in the ecosystem about wallets using nudges or interfaces that favor certain DReps linked to the wallet’s own maintaining entity, it would be important for a public funding proposal for a wallet with integrated governance to establish explicit commitments to neutrality, transparency, and reporting. Eternl could have used this proposal to increase public trust on this point. It did not.
Although the decision by the Eternl DRep to abstain reduces a major concern, it does not eliminate all potential conflicts, since the beneficiary entity remains both the executor and administrator of the funds. The change removes one of the main institutional concerns present in the previous proposal and represents a relevant governance improvement, but the remaining structure still requires strong accountability.
Despite the improvements, the central problems related to operational accountability and financial evaluation remain largely present. The proposal advanced in important aspects related to governance, audits, financial transparency, and return mechanisms. However, it still does not present KPIs accompanied by verifiable targets and still presents an excessively aggregated budget for an adequate assessment of proportionality, efficiency, and necessity of the requested funds.
3. Vote and Rationale
Vote: NO.
The vote NO should not be interpreted as a rejection of Eternl as a product or as a denial of its importance to Cardano. Eternl is relevant, possibly essential in certain areas of use. The vote NO is a negative evaluation of the proposal as presented: absence of KPIs with verifiable targets, insufficiently granular budget, limitations in the evaluation of financial sustainability, and broad scope for a partially closed product funded by Treasury resources.
The new version shows that part of the concerns raised previously was taken into account. The clarification on audits, financial transparency mechanisms, the structure for eventual return of funds to the Treasury, and the decision by the Eternl DRep to abstain represent concrete improvements. Even so, the proposal still does not provide verifiable targets for its objectives and still presents an excessively aggregated budget for an adequate assessment of proportionality and efficiency in the use of resources.
The positive points do not overcome the identified problems. As long as these gaps remain, the proposal continues not to meet the necessary standard to receive support.
4. Conclusion
Eternl has clear practical importance for Cardano and the revised proposal includes real improvements in governance, audits, transparency, and possible repayment. However, the absence of verifiable KPI targets, insufficient budget granularity, limited assessment of the sustainability plan, and broad scope for a partially closed product continue to prevent support. The vote is NO.
Relatório de Ação de Governança: Eternl: Path to Sustainability (2026–2027) [PT]
1. Introdução
A Eternl é uma carteira light não custodial da Cardano disponível para web, extensão de navegador, Android e iOS. Usuários dependem da Eternl para pagamentos, staking, governança e interação com DApps. Esta ação de governança solicita ₳2.350.000, a aproximadamente US$0,1787 por ADA, para financiar 12 meses de operação entre agosto de 2026 e julho de 2027.
A proposta cobre manutenção e desenvolvimento de frontend e backend, infraestrutura de backend, suporte a usuários, auditorias, administração e operações diárias. O custo anual é apresentado como aproximadamente US$420.000, correspondente a 6,0 FTE distribuídos entre 10 colaboradores, a uma média de US$70.000 por FTE. O orçamento solicitado é alocado entre frontend, backend, suporte, administração e auditorias.
A Eternl pretende introduzir planos Pro pagos para uso pessoal e empresarial. A proposta afirma que cerca de 5.500 usuários pagantes, ou aproximadamente 4,2% de sua base instalada, seriam suficientes para cobrir o custo anual de operação. Também inclui conversão de até US$420.000 em ADA para stablecoins, monitoramento público da carteira da empresa, devolução de ADA excedente ao Tesouro, auditorias independentes periódicas, métricas de supervisão e mecanismos de repayment ou doação caso a receita do plano Pro exceda limites definidos.
2. Análise da Ação de Governança
Aspectos positivos
A Eternl é uma das carteiras mais relevantes do ecossistema Cardano. Trata-se de uma wallet amplamente utilizada para pagamentos, staking, interação com DApps, participação em governança, uso por power users e acesso cotidiano à blockchain. A proposta também apresenta elementos positivos importantes, especialmente ao tentar estabelecer um caminho de sustentabilidade financeira por meio de planos pagos e ao indicar mecanismos de possível retorno de recursos ao Tesouro.
A nova versão da proposta incorpora melhorias relevantes em relação à versão anterior. Foram adicionados esclarecimentos sobre auditorias, métricas de supervisão, transparência financeira e mecanismos de eventual devolução de recursos ao Tesouro. Além disso, a Eternl alterou sua posição anterior e passou a declarar que seu DRep se abstém desta votação. Essas mudanças representam respostas concretas a críticas levantadas durante a avaliação da proposta anterior e devem ser reconhecidas positivamente.
A tentativa de construir um modelo de sustentabilidade financeira deve ser reconhecida como positiva. Talvez esse movimento tenha vindo tarde, mas a explicação apresentada pela equipe não deve ser ignorada. Em um ecossistema onde muitos projetos grandes continuam recorrente ou estruturalmente dependentes de subsídios públicos, ao menos existe aqui uma tentativa declarada de construir uma fonte de receita própria e reduzir dependência futura do Tesouro. Esse ponto conta a favor da proposta.
A nova versão introduz uma estimativa segundo a qual aproximadamente 5.500 usuários pagantes, ou cerca de 4,2% da base instalada, seriam suficientes para cobrir integralmente os custos anuais da operação. Essa informação ajuda a contextualizar a estratégia de sustentabilidade e representa uma melhoria em relação à proposta anterior.
No campo da governança, a nova proposta apresenta uma melhoria importante. A versão anterior declarava explicitamente que a Eternl votaria em sua própria proposta. Essa postura foi objeto de preocupação significativa, uma vez que o beneficiário direto dos recursos pretendia utilizar delegated voting power para apoiar uma retirada do Tesouro em seu próprio benefício.
A nova versão altera esse posicionamento e informa que o DRep da Eternl se abstém desta votação. Essa mudança deve ser reconhecida positivamente. A abstenção do beneficiário direto reduz significativamente a preocupação relacionada ao uso de voting power delegado para aprovar financiamento próprio e fortalece a legitimidade do processo decisório.
Também foi fornecido maior detalhamento sobre auditorias independentes, métricas de supervisão, custódia dos recursos, transparência financeira e mecanismos de eventual devolução de recursos ao Tesouro. Essas mudanças aumentam a previsibilidade sobre como os recursos seriam administrados e monitorados ao longo do período financiado.
A Eternl continua sendo uma das principais carteiras utilizadas pela comunidade Cardano. É uma ferramenta confiável, com histórico relevante e papel importante para usuários avançados, participantes de DeFi, DApps, staking, governança e interação cotidiana com a rede. A proposta também busca financiar manutenção real: frontend, backend, infraestrutura, suporte, compatibilidade com hard forks, CIPs, hardware wallets, governance tooling e operação diária.
A continuidade da Eternl possui valor para o ecossistema. Se a Eternl deixasse de operar ou reduzisse drasticamente sua capacidade, haveria impacto para parte relevante dos usuários. Existem outras carteiras no ecossistema Cardano, e talvez até mais carteiras do que o necessário em alguns segmentos. Ainda assim, a Eternl provavelmente não seria uma das carteiras que o ecossistema deveria querer perder. Sua importância prática como interface de acesso
- Yes260.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes245.5K ₳Rationale
Same rationale as the first submission: As a user of Eternl from the beginning, I see Eternl as critical infrastructure for the entire ecosystem and I find its maintenance costs to be very reasonable. The extra features that Eternl provides over other Cardano wallets are actually crucial for many such as myself. That is justification enough for my Yes vote. I would like to see Eternl move towards profit generation, however as a product manager myself I cannot see a realistic path to this. I do believe that someone will usually come around to offer a free version of any paywalled service, though I acknowledge that the lifespan of the free version is usually not long. All that is to say, I am interested to see where Eternl will take the paid features and how many users will pay for them.
- No234.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes233.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes232.7K ₳No rationale
- Yes228.3K ₳No rationale
- Yes215.5K ₳No rationale
- Yes191.1K ₳No rationale
- Yes182.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes178.9K ₳No rationale
- Yes171.1K ₳No rationale
- Yes142.5K ₳No rationale
- Yes131.9K ₳No rationale
- Yes129.1K ₳No rationale
- Yes118.7K ₳Rationale
This is a re-vote. I am still voting yes because... Eternl has become one of the most important pieces of user-facing infrastructure in the Cardano ecosystem. For many ADA holders, delegators, DReps, and DeFi participants, Eternl serves as a primary gateway to staking, governance, payments, and decentralized applications. Maintaining reliable wallet infrastructure is just as important as funding protocol upgrades, because users ultimately interact with Cardano through tools like Eternl.\n\nI appreciate that this proposal is focused on sustainability rather than indefinite dependence. The team is introducing paid subscription plans, establishing a path toward self-sufficiency, committing to transparency around revenue, and outlining mechanisms to repay treasury funds if adoption meets expectations. The request is designed to bridge operations while that transition occurs, helping preserve a wallet that supports governance participation, hardware wallet integrations, DApp connectivity, and ongoing protocol upgrades.\n\nI recognize concerns surrounding treasury funding for products that are not fully open source and the fact that Eternl has previously received ecosystem funding. However, I believe the wallet's demonstrated adoption, broad ecosystem integration, governance tooling, and long track record of reliability justify continued support during this transition period. Cardano benefits from having strong, independent wallet providers, and maintaining that diversity strengthens the resilience of the ecosystem as a whole.
- No110.9K ₳No rationale
- Yes107.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes92.6K ₳No rationale
- Abstain71.3K ₳No rationale
- Abstain64.4K ₳No rationale
- Yes55.9K ₳No rationale
- Yes50.5K ₳No rationale
- Yes49.6K ₳Rationale
To continue with the original ETERNL sustainability proposal vote I choose to vote YES ~Lourde Ouroborus Imperator Aeternalis ~
- Yes45.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes26.7K ₳Rationale
Wont pass but yes
- Yes15.3K ₳No rationale
- Yes11.3K ₳No rationale
- Yes10.8K ₳No rationale
- Yes9K ₳No rationale
- Yes8.1K ₳No rationale
- Yes6.7K ₳No rationale
- Yes682 ₳No rationale
- YesChanged0 ₳History
Earlier votes
No1mo agoSuperseded