IO: Cardano Upgrades
245 DReps voted · 79 with a rationale
Open a row to read the rationale.
- Yes 2.4M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 2.3M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 2.1M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 2.1M ₳ Rationale
- Abstain 2.1M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 2.1M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 2.1M ₳ Rationale
I voted YES on IO: Cardano Upgrades because the proposal funds strategically important platform-level improvements that directly support Cardano adoption, DeFi usability, treasury resilience, and ecosystem growth. CIP-159 account address enhancements can unlock micro-fees, cheaper DeFi batcher models, wallet revenue models, and L2 reserve patterns. Multi-Asset Treasury design is an important step toward reducing treasury exposure to ADA volatility and enabling more sustainable budgeting. Babel Fees removes a major onboarding barrier by allowing users to pay transaction fees in native assets rather than needing ADA first. The ask of ₳13.1M is meaningful but proportionate to the protocol-wide impact and remains well within the current Net Change Limit. I recognise concerns around bundling, budget granularity, and the wider IO package, but this specific proposal is strongly aligned with long-term utility, adoption, and Cardano’s competitiveness.
- Yes 2.1M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 2M ₳ Rationale
To maintain a competitive advantage over other smart contract platforms, Cardano needs foundational upgrades. This proposal brings three revolutionary improvements, directly addressing the biggest economic and user experience bottlenecks today.
First, the Babel Fees feature allows users to pay transaction fees with any token (such as USDC or BTC) instead of being required to hold ADA. This completely eliminates the barrier to entry for new users. Second, the account address upgrade (CIP-159) will enable micro-fees and support Layer 2 scaling, making DeFi transactions significantly cheaper. Finally, allowing the Treasury to hold multi-assets (including stablecoins) will protect Cardano's development fund from the brutal price volatility of the crypto market. We recognize these as critical milestones.
Although the amount of 13.1 million ADA is a massive investment, we evaluate that the economic potential it unlocks (for example, a multi-billion dollar cross-chain DeFi market) is fully justified. Therefore, we believe that a YES vote is the optimal choice to elevate Cardano's technological and financial position
- Yes 2M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 2M ₳ No rationale
- Abstain 1.9M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.8M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.8M ₳ Rationale
Babel fees and micro fees will substantially improve the experience for both users and developers, and enable new types of apps to be built on Cardano that are not currently possible.
Less interested in the multi-asset treasury, it could be beneficial for the treasury to hold stablecoins, but holding other CNTs comes with issues. Particularly around which tokens are included and which are not. I would only support holding non-stablecoin assets if it were part of some kind of overall market index. However, this still comes with the question of how the selection criteria is determined, as ideally the treasury shouldn’t invest in scam projects. But it could get political very quickly if we extend it beyond stablecoins, so I suggest we just start with that.
- Yes 1.7M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.7M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.7M ₳ Rationale
Excellent improvements. Lets get them done
- Yes 1.7M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.5M ₳ Rationale
I support this proposal because it delivers meaningful infrastructure improvements that strengthen Cardano’s long-term usability, scalability, and economic flexibility. CIP-159 enables lower-cost wallet and DeFi interactions, Babel Fees significantly improves onboarding by removing the requirement to hold ADA for transaction fees, and the Multi-Asset Treasury initiative advances more sustainable treasury management options.
The proposal is strategically aligned with Cardano’s 2030 goals around adoption, ecosystem resilience, and treasury sustainability. While there are implementation dependencies and technical risks, the workstreams address real limitations in the current ecosystem and provide foundational capabilities that can unlock broader growth across wallets, DeFi, L2s, and cross-chain participation.
For these reasons, I am voting YES.
- Yes 1.5M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.4M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.4M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.4M ₳ No rationale
- No 1.4M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.2M ₳ Rationale
I vote YES because Cardano Upgrades targets concrete adoption and usability barriers at the protocol level. Allowing users to pay transaction fees in any currency or asset they already hold could make onboarding much smoother by removing the need to first acquire ADA, while CIP-159 can improve micro-fees, wallet economics, and Layer 2 reserve patterns. I also see value in exploring a multi-asset Treasury for better long-term treasury resilience, although asset selection and governance around that must be handled carefully. The proposal is expensive, and I would have preferred more granular budget detail, but these are one-time infrastructure upgrades rather than ongoing operational subsidies. My YES comes with the expectation that Babel Fees moves beyond a closed single-provider MVP toward a permissionless multi-provider model, and that IO/Intersect report clearly per workstream.
- Yes 1.2M ₳ Rationale
IOG certainly asks for a lot, although some of the proposals are collaborations with other companies. I will go over the different proposals separately.
✅ Developer Experience
It’s important that developers who want to build on Cardano can do so as easily as possible. While I think this proposal could be done more cheaply, not getting it done would be much worse.✅ Cardano Upgrades
These upgrades will be beneficial for Cardano.✅ Consensus
Implementing Leios is important to handle the transaction volume we’ll have once Cardano is used for many use cases. I would have preferred to see Simple Leios implemented directly (with a longer time frame), though, rather than first spending time and resources on Linear Leios.✅ L2 Scalability
We need solid L2 solutions for high transaction volume applications that would be too expensive on L1 (in terms of resources and fees).❌ Cardano High Assurance
I like this proposal, but unfortunately, under the current available NCL and taking other proposals into account, difficult choices need to be made. I will approve this proposal if it is resubmitted under a new NCL.✅ Cardano Maintenance
This proposal is too expensive for what it delivers, but alternative nodes are not yet mature enough to risk stalling the development of cardano-node.✅ Plutus
Further improvements and extensions of smart contract capabilities are important.➖ Blockfrost
I think the free tier should be subsidized by the revenue Blockfrost generates from its paid tiers, like any other company using a freemium model. I do recognize the decentralization efforts made, although funding for this was already received in the past; hence I will abstain.➖ Pogun
There are multiple alternatives for Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano being developed, and it remains to be seen which one will perform best and attract the most users. The treasury should not provide a grant for this, but since the earnings would be used to repay the funds, it is essentially a loan. Given that additional revenue would later be shared with the treasury, it could even be considered an investment. However, I am not sure whether the current NCL allows for this kind of investment at the moment. If a higher NCL becomes available, I would vote in favor of this proposal, but for now I will abstain. - Yes 1.1M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.1M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 985.7K ₳ Rationale
(WS1) provides the ledger-level account primitives that underpin CPS-23 Multi-asset Treasury design (WS2). Babel Fees (WS3) operates at the application layer on top of the separately funded CIP-118 Nested Transactions primitive, enabling fee payment in any native asset which is important for adoption.
- Yes 955.2K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 947.9K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 941.2K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 922.9K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 920K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 860.4K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 818K ₳ Rationale
Our primary mandate as a Latin American Delegated Representative is to secure the long-term viability, immutability, and security of the Cardano blockchain. Without a highly performant, securely maintained, and frequently updated layer-1 protocol, regional goals—such as boosting local transactional volume, expanding builder networks, and securing institutional adoption in Latin America—cannot succeed.
This operational upgrade proposal aligns precisely with our established voting record of prioritizing core systemic health over non-essential expansions. Furthermore, this allocation safely adheres to the operational guardrails of the current Net Change Limit (NCL) period, preventing an over-extended treasury liability. Assuring a stable network layout directly translates into a secure sandbox for Latin American enterprise deployment. Therefore, casting a YES vote is the most responsible action for both the global ecosystem and our local community.
- Yes 804.1K ₳ Rationale
This removes the need to hold ADA before transacting, lowers DeFi costs, and starts the work to stabilize Treasury funding. Milestone-based with unspent funds returned.
- No 793K ₳ Rationale
Sounds great, but I don't care. IO was funded during the last major Intersect budget cycle with a long list of deliverables. Why wasn't all of this in competition for funding at that time if it was so bloody important. I'm not interested in cutting any more big checks from the Treasury with ADA at these price levels. Get your shit together and tell us what you want to accomplish as part of the primary budget cycle.
- Yes 785.2K ₳ Rationale
Removes a core adoption barrier (Babel Fees) → highest impact on user onboarding.
Improves economic primitives (CIP-159) → enables viable wallet/DeFi business models.
Strengthens long-term treasury design (multi-asset), though less urgent than other components.
Strong strategic coherence across workstreams; combined effect > individual parts.
Execution risk exists due to dependencies and scope, but upside justifies it. - Yes 765.1K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 762.8K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 762.6K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 738.5K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 733.1K ₳ Rationale
I support this proposal as it improves usability, expands economic flexibility, and strengthens long-term resilience within the Cardano ecosystem.
- Yes 670.2K ₳ Rationale
I’m voting yes because these upgrades improve some of Cardano’s most important long-term usability and infrastructure problems. CIP-159 enables cheaper DeFi interactions, micro-payments, better wallet revenue models, and stronger Layer 2 functionality. The Multi-Asset Treasury helps protect the treasury from ADA volatility by allowing stablecoins and other assets to eventually be held alongside ADA. Most importantly, Babel Fees could fundamentally improve crypto onboarding by letting users pay transaction fees in assets they already hold instead of requiring ADA first. That removes one of the biggest friction points in crypto. Over time, fee abstraction combined with technologies like Midnight could allow transactions to settle using tiny “dust” amounts in the background, making blockchain interactions feel effectively free and seamless to normal users. That kind of user experience is critical for mainstream adoption.
- No 654.5K ₳ Rationale
no
- Yes 624.8K ₳ Rationale
Total: ₳13,103,039
Development: ₳11,268,614 (86%) WS1 (CIP-159 Micro Fees): ₳7,069,985 | WS2 (CPS-23 Multi-Asset Treasury): ₳2,356,662 | WS3 (Babel Fees): ₳3,676,392 Implied FTE cost: ~$2.7M development ÷ estimated 10–12 senior protocol specialists over 9 months ≈ $250–300K annualized per engineer.A PDF version of this rationale is also made available.
I'm voting yes because these three workstreams collectively remove the economic constraints that limit what Cardano can do for wallets, DeFi protocols, and anyone arriving from Bitcoin or a stablecoin. CIP-159 Account Address Enhancement lifts the minUTxOValue barrier that has prevented Cardano wallets from collecting micro-fees at all, the average transaction costs ~0.39 ADA, but the minimum UTxO requirement forces wallets to charge at least
1 ADA in overhead, making micro-fee revenue economically indefensible. That single constraint suppresses wallet product-market fit, inflates DeFi batcher costs across the entire ecosystem, and blocks the L2 reserve patterns that scaling solutions need. Fixing it is protocol infrastructure, much more than a simply product enhancement.$3.1M at the proposal's $0.24/ADA reference rate), with 86% of the budget allocated to development across three clearly separated workstream allocations, the cost structure is proportionate. Implied annualized cost per senior protocol engineer runs approximately $250–300K, within range for ledger-level specialists. The execution risks worth naming are honest ones: WS3 (Babel Fees) has a hard dependency on CIP-118 (Nested Transactions), which is separately funded and not yet on testnet, and the Babel Fees MVP launches as a single closed-network provider with the operating entity still an open decision because, permissionless multi-provider architecture arrives in a later iteration. Both are disclosed in the proposal's own risk table and are appropriately managed by the milestone structure rather than the vote.
Two of the three workstreams align directly with governance priorities I've stated publicly. CPS-23 Multi-Asset Treasury begins the design work that makes it possible for the Cardano Treasury to hold stablecoins, directly addressing the ADA price volatility problem that undermines every treasury-denominated governance proposal, including this one. Babel Fees takes the principle of meeting users where they are and applies it to DeFi onboarding: BTC holders and USDC users should be able to transact on Cardano the moment they arrive, without first acquiring ADA. That is the public-utility promise of this network made real for the next generation of users.
At ₳13,103,039 ( - Yes 589.2K ₳ Rationale
IO got us this far, so let's back them to continue the job. Bears are for building - we're going for #1!