IO: Cardano Upgrades
245 DReps voted · 87 with a rationale · 3 changed their vote · 7 re-voted unchanged
Open a row to read the rationale.
Changed votes: 3 to yes, together voting with 100M ₳ of voting power.
- No501.3K ₳Rationale
- Yes488.9K ₳No rationale
- Yes481.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes479.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes466.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes438.6K ₳No rationale
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- Yes371K ₳No rationale
- Yes366.6K ₳No rationale
- No356.1K ₳Rationale
Babel Fees and CIP-159 are features worth building, however due to the lack of budget transparency I must vote no. There's no FTE count, no per-role cost breakdown, and no individual compensation figures. Therefore it is impossible to judge whether this is a fair price or not.
- No342.8K ₳No rationale
- Yes338.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes330.6K ₳Rationale
I support all IO projects.
- Yes329.7K ₳No rationale
- Yes321.6K ₳No rationale
- Yes318.6K ₳No rationale
- Abstain318.1K ₳Rationale
Abstaining, as I’m part of the Cardano Constitution Committee Tingvard.
Reading proposals and staying updated, just like you.
Thanks to all fellow DReps who are also doing the hard work.
Follow and DM me on X: @kenerik if you have any questions. - Yes314.4K ₳Rationale
I'm voting YES on the IO: Cardano Upgrades proposal. Implementing Babel fees, Account Addresses, and a Multi-Asset Treasury are crucial for DeFi, L2 scaling, and treasury resilience. However, I continue to urge IO to provide greater budget granularity in future funding requests.
A PDF version of this rationale is also made available.
I am voting YES to fund the IO: Cardano Upgrades initiative. This proposal encompasses three highly anticipated and fundamentally important technical upgrades that I am eager to see implemented.
First, Babel fees have been a promised feature for years - in fact, it was one of the core technologies that initially drew my excitement to Cardano. While it has been a long time coming, I am optimistic that we will finally see this materialize, at the very least as a production-ready MVP, through this funding.
Second, the account address enhancement is critical. It unlocks the ability to implement micro-fees and significantly reduces operational costs for DeFi applications, which are currently relatively high. Leveling up our DeFi ecosystem is an absolute necessity right now. Furthermore, this upgrade provides the amount-based patterns essential for robust Layer 2 scaling solutions.
Third, implementing a Cardano Multi-Asset Treasury is a profound strategic enhancement. Had the Treasury been able to hold a portion of its funds in stablecoins, its current fiat value would be substantially larger. Beyond stablecoins, this feature will allow the Treasury to hold Cardano Native Tokens (CNTs). This effectively transforms the Treasury into a stakeholder in promising ecosystem projects - a powerful mechanism for ensuring our ecosystem remains strong, resilient, and mutually invested.
However, despite my strong support for these technologies, I remain concerned by the lack of cost granularity provided by IO. The budget is once again presented as a financial "black box" divided into three broad workstream buckets. While this lack of detail might be acceptable for a private corporation operating on its own capital, it is not an acceptable standard when requesting external public funding from the Treasury. As I have stated in previous rationales, I strongly urge IO - and all proposers - to adopt greater transparency in their funding requests.
Nevertheless, the technological merit of these three upgrades is undeniable, and I am highly motivated to see all of them implemented. The long-term benefits to the ecosystem far outweigh my reservations regarding the budget presentation.
- Yes313.8K ₳No rationale
- Yes308.2K ₳No rationale
- YesChanged301.3K ₳Rationale
I’m a big fan of IO and everything they’ve accomplished over these nearly 10 years regarding Cardano. I believe it’s a top-tier company in terms of research, implementation, and blockchain, and I don’t question their capabilities at all.
However, as an observer—since I’m not deeply involved, but would still like to share my perspective. I feel that IO owes the community a clear, solid, and concise explanation of what has been achieved in previous governance actions. From my point of view, it’s very confusing; it feels like there are overlaps between this year’s proposals and last year’s, and it’s not clear at all.
It creates a lot of confusion, raising questions like: “Didn’t we already pay for this last year?” or “Why are we paying again if this was supposed to have been implemented already?” This starts to generate distrust across the community.I would like to see clear, measurable frameworks and informative checkpoints for all these governance actions something like a “Messari-style” State of Cardano report. I understand that a report like that isn’t cheap, but considering that we are about to spend nearly $40 million, the minimum expectation would be a clear report outlining what is intended to be achieved and what was accomplished last year.
This is a humongous amount of money, and it’s unreasonable for there to be so much confusion especially knowing that IO does very good work, yet their efforts start to be questioned. I wouldn’t like to see that happen. If producing such a report costs $50,000 or $100,000, then include it in the budget it doesn’t matter. There needs to be clarity and a formal way to track the return on what is being done. It’s simply too much money for this to remain so informal.
This time, I will support the proposal. However, I want to express that if clarity fails again in future proposals if ambiguity and confusion persist regarding what was delivered versus what was supposed to be delivered—then unfortunately I won’t be able to support with my vote. Cardano is no longer what it was five years ago; now it’s up to us to ensure that what gets done is logical and properly scrutinized.
Earlier votes
Abstain4mo agoSuperseded
Abstain4mo agoSuperseded
- Yes297K ₳Rationale
Voting YES on ALL IOG Withdrawals
May 20th 2026
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Summery
Nine treasury withdrawals from IOG totalling
162M ada ($40M USD)Important Citation
https://x.com/EdnStuff/status/2051321214728118360
EdnStuff said the following on May 4th 2026
I see the IO proposals as a package deal. But by all accounts I see most dreps only voting yes on a small selection of the 9. This is going to lead to some extremely lopsided, fragmented, and piecemeal results that will fall short of what we need on #Cardano $ADA.Charles quote tweeted saying
https://x.com/IOHK_Charles/status/2051376829949464792
Sadly, this is the end result of a piecemeal roadmap. It's an iPhone by committee, with people deciding whether they prefer the fingerprint sensor to wireless charging. You end up with a bizarre, useless product.Statement
There are a handful of people who, when they speak, I think it unwise not to listen to. Charles is one such person. His statement above makes this choice pretty easy.
While we need to foster a wide ecosystem of R&D firms, we cannot afford to jeopardize our relationship with our biggest contributor. It is obvious and undeniable that the long-term success of Cardano remains dependent on the continued efforts of IO.
I am voting for all of these IO proposals because Charles has made it clear that he does not believe Cardano can be successful without each of them, and it would be unwise to disregard his intuition.
Signed,
William DoyleYour friendly neighbourhood DRep!
$computerman
drep1yfpgzfymq...pzw3nt
https://x.com/william00000010 - NoRevoted285.2K ₳History
Earlier votes
No3mo agoSuperseded
- Yes275.2K ₳Rationale
I am voting YES on “IO: Cardano Upgrades” at 13,103,039 ADA, because it funds three tightly scoped protocol‑level improvements that directly target long‑standing economic and UX limitations on Cardano. CIP‑159 account address enhancements unlock true micro‑fees, cheaper batchers, and better L2 reserve patterns; CPS‑23 multi‑asset Treasury design is a necessary first step toward holding stablecoins and other native assets in the Treasury, improving long‑term financial resilience; and Babel Fees builds on CIP‑118 to let users pay transaction fees in native assets like USDC or bridged BTC, removing the “buy ADA first” barrier that has hurt onboarding. These workstreams are well‑timed with the Dijkstra/Euler eras and the arrival of BTC bridges and USDC, and they align closely with 2030 KPIs for TVL, transactions, MAU, protocol revenue, and Pillar 5’s focus on financial stewardship.
At the same time, I share several concerns raised by other DReps. IO and affiliates have already been allocated around 130.7M ADA via prior treasury actions, with ~78.46M ADA withdrawn, and this proposal sits alongside larger IO asks for Leios and maintenance in the same Net Change Limit window. While this ask is smaller and its scope is much cleaner than the maintenance bundle, the budget detail is still weaker than I would like: we see per‑workstream amounts (≈7.07M ADA for CIP‑159, 2.36M for CPS‑23, 3.68M for Babel Fees) but no FTE rates, team sizes, or cost per role, despite smaller teams routinely providing that level of breakdown. I therefore treat this as a conditional YES: I support these specific upgrades because they address critical gaps and are well‑structured and time‑bound, but I expect any follow‑on funding in these areas to come with (1) clear delivery on the milestones promised here, (2) demonstrable adoption and impact, and (3) more granular, benchmarkable budgets so that IO can be evaluated to the same standard as other ecosystem teams.
- Yes272.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes268.9K ₳No rationale
- Yes254.2K ₳No rationale
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- Yes161.1K ₳No rationale
- Yes157.8K ₳No rationale
- No157.8K ₳No rationale
- Yes155.7K ₳No rationale
- No149.8K ₳Rationale
I'm increasingly concerned about Cardano's overall treasury spend rate, especially following the recent approval of the Draper/Dragon Orion Fund. To provide a necessary counter-balance, I am defaulting to NO on treasury withdrawals at this time.
This proposal (₳13 M) is important Treasury related improvement work, but it does not meet my strict criteria for approval right now. It is not core/critical infrastructure such as IO Hydra L2 production hardening or deliverables directly required to advance the Midnight partnership.
I will continue voting YES only on the highest-priority items that directly strengthen essential scaling and partnership infrastructure.
To be clear, I do support this initiative, just not right now. - Yes142.9K ₳Rationale
I want to be able to pay my fees with anything that has value.
- Abstain138.6K ₳No rationale
- Yes128.4K ₳No rationale
- Yes127K ₳No rationale
- Yes126.4K ₳No rationale
- Yes124.6K ₳No rationale
- Yes122.8K ₳Rationale
I’m voting yes because I believe Babel Fees meaningfully reduces friction for adoption by allowing users to transact with assets they already hold, rather than requiring ADA upfront. I see this as an important step toward making Cardano more accessible, improving onboarding, and supporting broader ecosystem growth.
Specifically, these goals are worthwhile:
- Removing onboarding friction: New users (BTC holders, stablecoin users) can participate immediately.
- Improving UX: Better user experience often matters more than technical elegance for adoption.
- Strengthening DeFi competitiveness: Competing ecosystems increasingly abstract away complexity.
- Potential new SPO revenue streams: Babel providers could diversify income beyond staking.
- Long-term ecosystem growth: More transactions → more activity → potentially stronger network effects.
I recognize the cost and delivery risks, but I believe reducing transaction friction through Babel Fees—and the broader infrastructure this proposal enables—is strategically important enough for Cardano’s long-term adoption to justify funding.