IO: Consensus Initiative
248 DReps voted · 80 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 the IO Consensus Initiative because Leios is a critical base-layer scaling upgrade for Cardano. The proposal funds the path from public testnet toward a mainnet-ready release candidate, including formal conformance testing, adversarial validation, parameter exploration, and hard-fork enabling work. Cardano’s 2030 adoption targets require a major throughput increase at L1, not only L2 scaling, and Leios directly addresses that requirement while preserving Cardano’s security and decentralisation principles. The ask is significant but proportionate to the strategic importance of the work and remains within the applicable Net Change Limit.
- Yes 2.1M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 2M ₳ Rationale
Cardano's biggest challenge today is overcoming the transaction throughput bottleneck. If it cannot process a massive volume of data on a global scale, the network will lose the opportunity to access capital from DeFi and traditional financial institutions (Real World Assets), gradually phasing itself out before its competitors. Ouroboros Leios is the most excellent 'solution' to the blockchain trilemma: it brings a breakthrough in processing speed without forcing Cardano to trade off security or decentralization — the core identities that defined the network's reputation.
More importantly, this is a mandatory puzzle for economic sustainability. As the Reserve used for rewards gradually depletes in the future, Cardano must survive based on transaction fee revenue. Without owning a core infrastructure powerful enough to handle tens of millions of transactions per month, the network will run out of resources to maintain node operations
- Yes 2M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 2M ₳ No rationale
- Abstain 1.9M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.8M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.8M ₳ Rationale
Leios is absolutely necessary to move Cardano forward and deliver a user experience that rivals other top L1s.
- Yes 1.7M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.7M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.7M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.7M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.5M ₳ Rationale
I voted YES because I believe Leios is one of the most strategically important upgrades currently proposed for Cardano. If Cardano is serious about supporting meaningful long-term adoption, DeFi growth, and global-scale transaction demand, then improving throughput and settlement capacity at the consensus layer is essential.
What I appreciate most about this proposal is that it focuses on strengthening the core protocol itself while preserving Cardano’s decentralization and security assumptions rather than pursuing shortcuts. The proposal is technically ambitious, but it is also grounded in years of research, formal methods, testnet work, and incremental engineering progress already underway.
I also appreciate that the proposal clearly identifies risks, dependencies, and operational constraints rather than overselling certainty. While the treasury ask is substantial, I believe core protocol scalability is one of the few areas where large investments are fully justified because the benefits compound across the entire ecosystem.
In my view, Leios is foundational infrastructure for Cardano’s future competitiveness and long-term sustainability.
- Yes 1.5M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.4M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.4M ₳ No rationale
- Abstain 1.4M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.4M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 1.2M ₳ No rationale
- 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 ₳ Rationale
This proposal bankrolls the continuation of Layer 1 research and engineering by Input Output. **Work that many, myself included, would argue should've been part of their foundational mandate. **Yet, let's push this argument aside and have a look at the brutal economic reality of the network.
Currently, Cardano processes roughly 800k transactions monthly. **To survive the rapidly diminishing treasury reserves and achieve economic self-sufficiency, Cardano must scale to generate substantial fee revenue. No brainer. **This proposal promises, but doesn't sufficiently validate, a 10 to 65-fold throughput increase, which is a structural necessity if Cardano is to capture serious DeFi volume and enterprise adoption. **Without capacity, the network will choke further growth and starve the ecosystem's economic engine.
**
I remain fiercely protective of the treasury, as evidenced by the many NOs I've handed out so far, but starving Layer 1 of its necessary evolutionary leap is false economy. Cardano must invest strategically in its core capabilities to ensure the network stays a tier-one smart contract platform capable of absorbing global demand. - Yes 1M ₳ No rationale
- Yes 985.7K ₳ Rationale
This proposal focuses on Leios, which delivers the throughput capacity Cardano bypreserving Cardano’s security guarantees while dramatically improving performance which is must for adoption.
- Yes 955.2K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 947.9K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 922.9K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 920K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 860.4K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 818K ₳ Rationale
YES. Our primary motivation as a DRep is to safeguard user trust and ensure Cardano's longevity. The consensus layer represents the fundamental security and operational core of the blockchain. Ensuring it is adequately funded guarantees technical continuity and minimizes systemic risk. This baseline network stability is non-negotiable for driving institutional adoption, public awareness, and real-world utility within the Latin American region and the global ecosystem. Furthermore, this core expenditure aligns appropriately within general sustainable parameters relative to the network's active Net Change Limit (NCL) boundaries.
- Yes 804.1K ₳ Rationale
Cardano's 2030 targets are unreachable without more throughput. Leios delivers 10 to 65x current capacity by building on Praos rather than replacing it, preserving the security guarantees the network is known for. This proposal takes it from public testnet to a mainnet-ready release candidate. That is the work that needs to happen and this funds it.
- 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
Throughput is a hard constraint; without it, all other initiatives (DeFi, DevX, onboarding) bottleneck.
Leios is the only proposal here that directly addresses L1 scalability at protocol level → existential importance.
10–65x capacity increase materially overshoots 2030 needs → creates strategic headroom.
Builds on Ouroboros Praos rather than replacing it → lower systemic risk vs redesign.
Execution risk is high (complexity, HF dependencies), but not funding this is a guaranteed long-term failure mode. - Yes 765.1K ₳ Rationale
Leios yes.
- Yes 762.8K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 762.6K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 738.5K ₳ No rationale
- Yes 733.1K ₳ Rationale
This proposal advances an important step toward scalable infrastructure for the Cardano network.
- Yes 718.3K ₳ Rationale
The proposal is rightly addressing the scaling of Cardano to meet the future tx demands, it is an investment in the future where these blocks are hopefully filled.
A great analysis was done by Yuta and https://adatool.net/io-proposals.
A PDF version of this rationale is also made available.
The proposal is rightly addressing the scaling of Cardano to meet the future tx demands, it is an investment in the future where these blocks are hopefully filled.
A great analysis was done by Yuta and https://adatool.net/io-proposals.
Yuta's reasoning is the same as mine:
"I am voting YES on the "IO: Consensus Initiative" governance action.
Leios is necessary for Cardano to compete with rival L1s whose scalability already far exceeds ours.
I hold three significant concerns about this proposal, but on balance I still recognize that this work is needed.- Trade-offs imposed on SPO operations are not quantified
The disclosure on this point is, in my view, insufficient. Parameters will of course be chosen carefully, but based on the publicly available information, the impact on SPOs is unlikely to be small, and the possibility that some smaller SPOs are pushed out cannot be ruled out. There may well be internal data that would refute this concern, but none of it is visible in the proposal.
That said, ultimately these are parameter-level questions and therefore tunable. Even taking these possibilities into account, the necessity of Leios outweighs them. - Cardano does not currently have transaction volume that demands Leios-level capacity
This has been a long-standing critique. However, this may well be a chicken-and-egg situation: it is plausible that projects requiring that level of throughput are not being built on Cardano precisely because the chain does not offer that capacity. At the very least, without being able to demonstrate capability on par with competing L1s, Cardano cannot win. - Mainnet activation of Leios is explicitly outside the scope of this proposal's commitments
Given the heavy parameter-consensus work and governance work that will be required, this is unavoidable. In fact, my recollection is that the current timeline is already considerably more aggressive than what Well-Typed originally envisioned — to the point that several developers have voiced the opposite concern, that the schedule is too rushed. Because this is a foundational change to the protocol, we should not hold excessive expectations about activation timing."
- Trade-offs imposed on SPO operations are not quantified
- Yes 670.2K ₳ Rationale
I’m voting yes because Leios is what makes Cardano capable of supporting the next major wave of crypto usage: AI agents doing transactions at scale. As agent-based systems start interacting with DeFi, payments, trading, and on-chain services, they won’t transact occasionally like humans — they’ll generate constant, high-frequency activity. Without a major throughput increase, blockspace becomes the limiting factor. Leios’ 10–65x capacity expansion ensures the network can handle machine-speed transaction flows while still keeping fees low and confirmations fast. This matters even more when combined with the broader ecosystem direction: AI agents, automated wallets, and cross-chain systems will need infrastructure where thousands or millions of micro-actions can happen per second without congestion. Leios is essentially preparing Cardano to be usable not just by people, but by autonomous systems operating continuously in the background. That’s the kind of demand shift that turns blockchains from financial platforms into full execution layers for digital economies. Let's get this thing passed!
- No 654.5K ₳ Rationale
CARDANO TREASURY IS NOT AN ENDLESS ATM 🏦
The proposal asks for ₳27,714,342 from the Cardano Treasury to fund IO / IOG work on Leios — a major scaling upgrade for Cardano.
Leios is important.
Nobody denies that.It is designed to increase Cardano’s throughput by 10–65x, help the network move toward the 2030 target of more than 27 million monthly transactions, and prepare the path from public testnet to a mainnet-ready release candidate.
But here is the problem.
This proposal does not guarantee mainnet activation.
It funds preparation, testing, engineering, documentation, workshops and hard-fork readiness — but the actual hard fork still depends on external factors, ecosystem readiness and future governance approval.That means Cardano is being asked to pay again before the final result is secured.
IOG and related entities have already been allocated ₳130,708,860 across Treasury-funded projects, with ₳78,459,777 already withdrawn.
My position is clear:
NO. Refusal.
First finish what was already funded.
First show completed results.
First prove delivery.Only after that should new large Treasury withdrawals be considered.
Cardano needs scaling.
Cardano needs Leios.
But Cardano also needs discipline, accountability and protection of the Treasury.The Treasury belongs to the ecosystem, not to permanent contractors.
I registered as a DRep and am ready to help shape the future of the ecosystem.
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- Yes 624.8K ₳ Rationale
Total ask: ₳27,714,342
Development: ₳23,834,334 = 86%
Team: Cross-functional IO engineering (consensus, ledger, networking, cryptography, formal methods, performance, comms) + ModusCreate + SundaeLabs
FTE estimate: $5.72M dev ÷ ~30 engineers ÷ 7.5 months × 12 ≈ $305–366K/engineer/yearA PDF version of this rationale is also made available.
Leios is the protocol change that makes Cardano's 2030 transaction targets structurally achievable. Without it, scaling from
800K to 27M monthly transactions is impossible. I'm voting YES.$6.65M at $0.24) with 86% allocated to development. For 6–9 months of consensus layer work, with a cross-functional team doing simultaneous rewrite of consensus components, Agda conformance testing against the formal specification, adversarial red-teaming, and full hard-fork ecosystem preparation, the implied engineering cost lands in the right range for this caliber of distributed systems work. This is high-difficulty protocol engineering, not commodity development.
The financial case is sound, ₳27,714,342 (
This proposal builds on demonstrated delivery. The 2025/26 cycle produced CIP-164 (merged), an alpha feature-complete Leios implementation, and a public testnet deployment. The 26/27 cycle has a clear objective: progress from SRL 5 through SRL 8 to a mainnet-ready release candidate. Development tracker and monthly review meetings with public demos are established and ongoing.
What specifically resonates: The Agda formal specification conformance testing is the right level of rigor for a protocol change at this scale because, you don't want to make a consensus-layer-upgrade to Cardano without it. Leios enhances Praos rather than replacing it, preserving Cardano's security model and SPO economic viability while delivering a 10–65x throughput increase. The hard-fork enabling workstream explicitly includes preparation of updated guardrails and governance rationale documents, IO is scoping the full governance pathway, not just the engineering milestone.
Honest disclosure on known limitations: The Delta EB adversarial stake assumption has a ceiling at 25% adversarial stake, meaning maximum throughput parameters may not be achievable at day-one hard fork. Higher SPO operational costs are acknowledged. External dependencies, HFWG acceptance, third-party infrastructure readiness, governance timing, are explicitly out of IO's control, with success defined by completing the engineering activities, not by mainnet activation. This scoping is appropriate and honest. - Yes 589.2K ₳ Rationale
Leios is how Cardano can be the world's financial layer, and there takes us one step closer to a future where Crypto Eats Legacy