IO: Hydra
196 DReps voted · 58 with a rationale · 4 changed their vote
Open a row to read the rationale.
- Yes14.1M ₳No rationale
- Yes13.3M ₳Rationale
RCADA votes YES on IO: Hydra.
RCADA supports this proposal because Hydra is one of Cardano’s most mature Layer 2 scaling technologies and already has real production usage. The proposal identifies live or active Hydra-related use cases including Delta DeFi, Masumi, Intersect voting infrastructure, VTech Labs, Blockfrost, Hydra Doom, Glacier Drop, and others. This makes the proposal less speculative than many infrastructure requests, because the work is based on real user feedback and existing ecosystem demand.
Cardano needs more than Layer 1 scaling alone. Improvements such as Leios and Peras are important for the base layer, but some applications require sub-second interaction, near-zero fees, high parallel throughput, and reliable off-chain execution with settlement back to Cardano L1. Hydra can help support categories such as high-performance DeFi, agent-to-agent commerce, micropayments, gaming, point-of-sale, and verifiable information processing that are difficult or uneconomic on L1 alone.
The Treasury ask of ₳5,100,781 is relatively focused compared with many recent infrastructure proposals. The proposal funds four clear workstreams: performance optimization, operational excellence, ecosystem support, and maintenance/developer experience. RCADA views these as practical production-hardening activities rather than open-ended research. The budget is also heavily weighted toward development, with ₳4,386,671, or 86%, allocated to development work.
RCADA also considered whether this work could reasonably be deferred to another ecosystem team. While RCADA supports broader competition and more distributed development across Cardano’s Layer 2 landscape, this proposal concerns core Hydra production hardening, not only applications or integrations built on top of Hydra. At present, no alternative team has submitted a comparable proposal to deliver this specific body of protocol-level performance, operations, maintenance, and developer-experience work. Rejecting this proposal may therefore not create a more decentralised delivery path in the near term; it may simply slow progress on Cardano’s most mature L2.
RCADA recognises the concerns around repeated IO Treasury funding. The proposal discloses that IO and affiliated entities have already been allocated ₳130,708,860 across Treasury-funded projects, with ₳84,909,073 withdrawn to date. This does not disqualify the proposal, but it does raise the standard for accountability, transparency, and delivery reporting.
For that reason, RCADA’s support is conditional on strong execution discipline. We expect milestone-gated disbursement, independent assurance, public progress reporting, clear adoption metrics, transparent reconciliation with prior IO Treasury allocations, and evidence that Hydra improvements translate into measurable ecosystem value.
RCADA is also cautious about Treasury-value capture claims. Hydra can increase Cardano L1 settlement activity through head opening, settlement, and closure transactions, and applications may be able to route some internal fees to the Treasury. However, this depends on adoption and application design. RCADA supports Hydra because it can expand Cardano’s usable application surface and retain builders, not because future Treasury revenue is guaranteed.
Overall, RCADA believes this is a focused and strategically relevant proposal that helps convert prior Hydra R&D into production-ready infrastructure. Hydra is not the only scaling path Cardano should pursue, and RCADA continues to support broader L2 competition and ecosystem diversity. However, given Hydra’s maturity, existing usage, and the absence of a comparable alternative proposal for this core hardening work, RCADA supports funding this proposal.
For these reasons, RCADA votes YES.
RCADA's full vote assessment can be found here: "https://brolloks.github.io/rcada-drep-votes/."
- Yes12.1M ₳No rationale
- Yes12.1M ₳Rationale
We support this proposal because Hydra is one of Cardano’s most mature and strategically significant scaling solutions, with a demonstrated track record of development, testing, and real-world deployment. Unlike early-stage research initiatives, Hydra is already operational and actively being integrated by ecosystem participants. Continued investment at this stage focuses on improving performance, reliability, developer tooling, and ecosystem readiness, all of which are necessary to move from technical capability to meaningful adoption.
The proposal addresses a genuine challenge facing Cardano: the need to support applications that require high throughput, low latency, and cost-efficient transactions. As blockchain adoption expands into areas such as payments, gaming, decentralized finance, and machine-to-machine interactions, scalable infrastructure becomes increasingly important. Hydra provides a pathway for Cardano to support these use cases while preserving the security and settlement guarantees of the main chain. We believe strengthening this capability is essential to Cardano’s long-term competitiveness and growth.
We also view the proposal positively because it goes beyond protocol engineering and includes operational excellence, ecosystem support, and improvements to the developer experience. Technical infrastructure alone does not drive adoption; developers and businesses require reliable tools, documentation, support, and production-ready systems. By investing across these areas, the proposal takes a holistic approach to ecosystem enablement rather than focusing solely on feature development.
The budget appears reasonable when considered in the context of the importance of the infrastructure being developed and the potential ecosystem-wide benefits it can unlock. A significant majority of the requested funding is allocated directly to development activities, and the proposal incorporates milestone-based funding and oversight mechanisms that provide accountability for delivery. Furthermore, the Hydra team has already demonstrated its ability to execute on previous commitments, which increases confidence in the likelihood of successful implementation.
While we acknowledge that long-term success will ultimately depend on adoption by developers, businesses, and end users, we believe the ecosystem cannot expect meaningful growth without continued investment in foundational infrastructure. Hydra represents a critical component of Cardano’s scaling strategy, and this proposal advances the network’s ability to support future demand, attract new applications, and improve the overall user experience.
- Yes10.9M ₳No rationale
- Yes10.8M ₳No rationale
- No10.4M ₳Rationale
IOG is again not transparent with the costs. Too much expenditure for too little return
- No9.6M ₳No rationale
- Yes9.2M ₳No rationale
- Yes8.8M ₳Rationale
私はこの提案に賛成します。私は以前、「IO & Midgard Labs: L2 Scalability Initiative」に反対票を投じました。L2技術の重要性は理解していましたが、Hydraに加えてMidgardやデータ可用性戦略など複数の取り組みが含まれており、それぞれを個別に評価することが困難であったためです。一方で、HydraそのものについてはCardanoにおける重要なスケーリング技術として継続的に注目してきました。正直なところ、長年の研究開発にもかかわらず、本番採用はまだ十分な規模に達しているとは言えません。しかし、本提案はHydra単体に焦点を当て、本番利用に向けた改善を目的としています。既に多くの時間と資金が投じられてきたことを踏まえると、この段階で過去の投資を保護し、それを持続的な本番採用へ転換する機会として価値があると判断し、本提案に賛成します。\n\nI am voting Yes on this proposal. I previously voted No on "IO & Midgard Labs: L2 Scalability Initiative." While I understood the importance of Layer 2 technologies, that proposal combined Hydra with several different initiatives, including Midgard and a data availability strategy, making it difficult to evaluate each component independently. At the same time, I have consistently viewed Hydra itself as an important scaling technology for Cardano. To be honest, despite many years of research and development, Hydra has not yet achieved what I would consider a sufficient level of production adoption. However, this proposal is focused specifically on Hydra and aims to improve its readiness for production use. Given the significant amount of time and funding already invested, I believe there is value in protecting that investment at this stage and helping convert it into sustainable real-world adoption. For that reason, I support this proposal.
- Yes8.1M ₳No rationale
- Yes7.6M ₳Rationale
Voting YES on Hydra
Lots of legitimate talk about Infra dominance in the Treasury Withdrawals of 2026. I'm a small DRep unlikely tp sway the vote. I think the infra aspect is dominating because of a perception 9right or wrong) that Cardano is doomed with the current infrastructure - if it does not a more robust, more powerful version of itself that can at least theoretically offer a path for long-term sustainability. Yes, we are currently not maxing out our blocks, but what if we were maxing out our blocks in 3-4 months. The Cardano can't scale headlines start all over again.
Now back to this proposal, I voted NO on the bundled Hydra + Midgard proposal stating that Midgard needed to catch up to declared MVP stage and Mainnet readiness stage from earlier funding proposals. As this proposal is for Hydra only and expands the practical capabilities of Cardano in a unique way - while also benefiting teams that are using Hydra right now, I vote Yes.
- Yes7.6M ₳No rationale
- Yes7.2M ₳No rationale
- Yes5.9M ₳Rationale
I am voting Yes on this proposal because I believe Cardano should continue improving infrastructure that gives builders more viable options for commercial products and services. Hydra remains a niche solution today, and its broader adoption is not guaranteed, but the proposal is focused on hardening, performance, operations, and developer support rather than making an overly broad new bet. At this funding level, I view it as a reasonable investment in preserving optionality for use cases that may need lower costs, faster interactions, or application-specific scaling while still settling value back to Cardano.
- Yes5.8M ₳No rationale
- Yes5.4M ₳No rationale
- Yes5.3M ₳No rationale
- Yes4.8M ₳No rationale
- Yes4.7M ₳No rationale
- Yes4.6M ₳No rationale
- Yes4.4M ₳Rationale
Hydra is currently in a strong state, and this is not the time to slow our momentum.
This is a well crafted proposal regarding the future of Hydra and I fully support it. - Yes4.2M ₳No rationale
- Yes4.1M ₳Rationale
[Portuguese]
Optamos por votar "SIM" nesta ação de governança "IO: Hydra" (gov_action1fah9m7dxu99af8jqdc4mkrgs3va790nyh9tfhycq2wsvrm47p4rsqtcm6ry), pois compreendemos que a escalabilidade é uma necessidade estratégica para o futuro da Cardano. Avaliamos que a Hydra já deixou de ser apenas uma iniciativa experimental e passou a demonstrar utilidade prática em diversos casos de uso, como DeFi, pagamentos, agentes autônomos, jogos, infraestrutura de votação e aplicações comerciais. Ao oferecer liquidação com finalidade em menos de um segundo, taxas próximas de zero e segurança ancorada na camada principal da rede (L1), a Hydra fortalece a capacidade da Cardano de atender aplicações de alto desempenho e competir pela atração de novos usuários, desenvolvedores e projetos. Também apoiamos a proposta porque ela apresenta entregas objetivas, organizadas em frentes de trabalho voltadas à otimização de desempenho, excelência operacional, suporte ao ecossistema e melhoria da experiência dos desenvolvedores. Consideramos positivo que o financiamento esteja condicionado ao cumprimento de marcos, com administração pela Intersect e verificação independente, aumentando a transparência e reduzindo os riscos de execução. Entendemos que investir na evolução da Hydra protege investimentos anteriores, amplia o uso efetivo da rede, contribui para o crescimento do TVL, do volume de transações e da receita gerada pelo protocolo, além de fortalecer a adoção da Cardano e reduzir o risco de que aplicações migrem para ecossistemas concorrentes por limitações de escalabilidade.
[English]
We chose to vote "YES" on this governance action "IO: Hydra" (gov_action1fah9m7dxu99af8jqdc4mkrgs3va790nyh9tfhycq2wsvrm47p4rsqtcm6ry), because we believe scalability is a strategic necessity for Cardano’s future. We consider Hydra to have evolved beyond an experimental initiative, demonstrating practical value across multiple real-world use cases, including DeFi, payments, autonomous agents, gaming, voting infrastructure, and commercial applications. By providing transaction finality in under one second, near-zero fees, and settlement secured by the Layer 1 blockchain, Hydra strengthens Cardano’s ability to support high-performance applications and compete for new users, developers, and ecosystem projects. We also support the proposal because it presents clearly defined deliverables organized around performance optimization, operational excellence, ecosystem support, and improvements to the developer experience. We view positively that funding is tied to milestone-based disbursements, with administration by Intersect and independent verification, increasing transparency and reducing execution risk. We believe that investing in Hydra’s continued development protects previous infrastructure investments, expands real network usage, contributes to higher TVL, transaction volume, and protocol revenue, while strengthening Cardano’s adoption and reducing the likelihood that applications migrate to competing blockchain ecosystems due to scalability limitations. - Yes4M ₳No rationale
- Yes3.8M ₳Rationale
As with every IO proposal this year - I DO NOT feel this went through a proper nor robust procurement process. There is not enough pushback on the vendor from experts looking at a wholistic budget with prioritization, comparative cost benchmarks and KPIs. We can not simply accept vendors submitting proposals direct to the treasury without oversight, pushback or inclusion in a total budget.
However, I see the key flaw as how governance was designed, and the processes which have been built. Blocking all progress on Cardano until that is done properly is not an option.
In looking at the proposal itself - I see many obvious problems in pricing, timing, KPIs, etc, due to the above - but I can not fix those by simply voting no. Hydra itself is critical core infrastructure for the Cardano I believe we need to compete in this competitive marketplace, and thus I must vote to continue to fund and expand its functionality, even with the problems in the process and pricing. I'm choosing the lesser evil by approving.
- Yes3.7M ₳No rationale
- Yes3M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.8M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.8M ₳No rationale
- No2.8M ₳Rationale
I see the value in Hydra but I am worried that we are continuing to fund something that is not producing immediate value for Cardano.
In alignment with previous rationales, I will be voting NO on this proposal due to a lack of budgetary clarity. This proposal lacks a general understanding of FTE rates and overhead costs. Funding any proposal lacking these two items would irresponsible spending,
- Yes2.7M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.7M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.6M ₳Rationale
私は本提案に条件付きで賛成します。HydraはCardanoにおける実運用段階のLayer 2基盤であり、DeFi、AI agent commerce、micropayments、gaming、POS決済など、L1単独では難しい領域をCardano上に引き留める重要な役割を持つと評価します。
本提案は、Hydra v2の性能改善、運用品質、エコシステム支援、DevX改善に範囲が絞られており、「広報・抽象的戦略」ではなく、かなり実装寄りの支出です。₳5.1Mという要求額も、Cardanoのスケーリング基盤を強化する投資としては妥当な範囲と考えます。
一方で、実需拡大、L1手数料発生、Treasuryへの経済的還流は自動的に保証されるものではありません。したがって、成果物・支払額・第三者保証・実利用KPI・未使用資金返還条件の明確な公開を求めます。これらの説明責任を前提に、私はYESを投じます。
I conditionally support this proposal. Hydra is a production-stage Layer 2 infrastructure for Cardano, and I see it as important for keeping use cases such as DeFi, AI agent commerce, micropayments, gaming, and point-of-sale applications within the Cardano ecosystem, where L1 alone is not sufficient.
This proposal is focused on Hydra v2 performance, operational quality, ecosystem support, and developer experience. It is not a marketing or abstract strategy proposal, but a largely implementation-oriented expenditure. I consider the ₳5.1M ask reasonable as an investment in Cardano’s scaling infrastructure.
At the same time, real adoption, L1 fee generation, and economic return to the Treasury are not automatic. Therefore, I ask for clear public reporting on deliverables, payment amounts, third-party assurance, real usage KPIs, and unused fund return conditions. Based on this accountability, I vote YES.
- Yes2.5M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.5M ₳Rationale
Due to rationales becoming stressful and the bear market vibes - I will not be providing rationale. I voted the way that I did bc we need a 'no stress' environment more than ever.
- Yes2.4M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.3M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.3M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.1M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.1M ₳Rationale
Hydra is one of Cardano's core technologies.
- Yes2.1M ₳No rationale
- Yes2.1M ₳Rationale
I am voting YES on IO: Hydra because I believe Hydra is strategically important public infrastructure for Cardano.
Hydra directly supports Cardano’s long-term scalability by enabling faster, lower-cost, higher-throughput application environments while remaining anchored to Cardano. This is important for real-world use cases such as DeFi, payments, gaming, AI agent transactions, enterprise workflows, and other applications that require speed and low fees beyond what the L1 alone can practically provide.
I also view this proposal differently from the previous bundled L2 request. This is a more focused, standalone Hydra proposal, which makes it easier to evaluate on its own merits. I believe the community feedback around bundling was valid, and this revised approach is a better governance pattern.
My support is not a blank cheque. Treasury funding must be treated seriously, especially in the current budget environment. However, where a proposal funds core scaling infrastructure, has clear strategic relevance, supports developers, strengthens Cardano’s competitiveness, and is structured around milestone-based delivery and accountability, I believe it is reasonable for the treasury to support it.
Hydra is not a speculative marketing exercise. It is a technical capability that can help unlock more practical usage of Cardano. For that reason, I believe this proposal is aligned with Cardano’s constitutional principles around usability, predictable costs, developer access, and long-term sustainability.
On balance, I believe funding this work is in the best interests of the Cardano ecosystem, and I am voting YES.
- Yes2.1M ₳No rationale
- Yes2M ₳No rationale
- Abstain1.9M ₳No rationale
- Yes1.8M ₳Rationale
We decided to vote YES because investing in scalability infrastructure is a core investment that cannot be delayed. Hydra is the key to Cardano's rise to become a leading high-performance, low-cost transaction processing platform. Although this proposal incorporates many large items, we need to put our trust and resources in the hands of technology experts to complete this vision. Having an L2 solution ready now will ensure that the Cardano ecosystem is ready to explode when money and users flood in in the next cycle.
- Yes1.8M ₳No rationale
- Yes1.8M ₳Rationale
Hydra enables use cases on Cardano that are not possible with the base network. It has a proven track record, having been used for the Midnight Glacier Drop and DeltaDeFi, and the Hydra Doom and Hydra vending machine demos. This proposal funds the development required to make it easier for builders to utilise.
- Yes1.7M ₳No rationale