Pogun: Capital Without Compromise

220 DReps voted · 81 with a rationale · 17 changed their vote

Open a row to read the rationale.

• Clarity Cofounder dRep

  AbstainChanged2M ₳History

  Earlier votes

  Yes3mo agoSuperseded

• CAMP

  No2M ₳No rationale
• taichiyokoyama

  Abstain1.9M ₳No rationale
• drep1yf045kunwe4...

  Yes1.9M ₳No rationale
• Viet_Cardano_Community

  No1.8M ₳Rationale

  While the prospect of Bitcoin's liquidity coming to Cardano is very attractive, voting NO is the safest and most logical choice at the moment for three core reasons:

  • Incredible technical risk: The project's underlying technology, the BitVM bridge, has not yet proven its stability in practice. Funding nearly $3 million for an "unfinished" product carries very high execution risk.
  • Misdirection of Treasury purpose: We believe the Treasury should prioritize public goods and core infrastructure. Commercial and highly profitable projects like Pogun need to demonstrate their capabilities by raising private capital or through specialized venture capital funds instead of relying on the treasury.
  • Risk of capital recovery: The promise of repayment based on EBITDA (Earnings Before Tax, Depreciation, and Interest) is a major loophole. We found that the project team could easily inflate salary, operating, or legal costs to reduce EBITDA, potentially leading to the Treasury never recovering its invested ADA.

  Given the limited resources of the ecosystem, we believe money should be spent more prudently.

• matticus_kiwi

  Yes1.8M ₳No rationale
• Dan

  Yes1.8M ₳Rationale

  This was the most difficult of the IO proposals to vote for, given that it is an early-stage initiative, which normally I would not see as a good candidate for a treasury withdrawal. However, the Bitcoin DeFi narrative is worth pursuing given the significant opportunity it represents.

  The proposal also appears well thought-out. What convinced me to vote yes was the commitment to return a portion of revenue to the treasury. While no product is live yet, and there is no guarantee of it being a success, I believe it is a risk worth taking. Bitcoin DeFi is not being ignored by the wider crypto industry. If Cardano does not make a move now, we may miss the opportunity to take a meaningful slice of the market.

• HyperlinkPool_SPO

  Yes1.7M ₳No rationale
• This Corrosion

  Yes1.7M ₳No rationale
• drep1ytkz2ha7m9n...

  Yes1.6M ₳No rationale
• Nimuë Lady of the Lake Pool

  Abstain1.6M ₳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.

• Michele_Harmonic

  Yes1.6M ₳No rationale
• geeky.d

  Yes1.4M ₳No rationale
• drep1yf9z2h2v433...

  Yes1.4M ₳No rationale
• NTSYSS

  Yes1.4M ₳No rationale
• Lucas.Macchiavelli

  No1.4M ₳Rationale

  Vote Rationale — No

  I want to start by saying that I genuinely like the direction of this proposal and, in particular, the idea of treasury return mechanisms tied to EBITDA. I believe this is exactly the kind of thinking Cardano governance should encourage going forward. Treasury-funded initiatives should increasingly explore ways to create sustainable return flows back into the ecosystem rather than relying exclusively on one-way funding. On that principle, I strongly agree with the team.

  That said, I ultimately voted NO for structural and execution-related reasons.

  First, I believe the proposal tries to do too many things at once. The infrastructure layer, lending system, yield/RWA components, and commercial business model all carry different levels of risk, maturity, and public value. In my view, these should have been separated into smaller and more focused proposals so the community could evaluate each component independently.

  Second, I do not believe the POGUN team did enough outreach and ecosystem engagement relative to the scale of the ask, especially when compared to other teams inside the IO budget proposal that made extensive efforts to engage stakeholders, host discussions, gather feedback, and build broader ecosystem alignment ahead of voting. For a proposal requesting significant treasury funding, I expected much stronger efforts around community visibility, public discussions, feedback collection, and broader relationship-building across the ecosystem before moving to a vote. Building confidence and alignment is just as important as building the technology itself.

  Importantly, this NO vote is not a rejection of the vision itself. I actually believe this idea could become a major win for Cardano if executed correctly. The proposal contains several innovative concepts, and I appreciate the willingness to experiment with treasury-aligned economic models.

  I would absolutely be willing to revisit and reconsider a future version, particularly one that is more modular, more community-aligned, and more narrowly scoped in its initial phase.

• drep1yfpgzne56ky...

  No1.4M ₳No rationale
• Next Epoch

  No1.3M ₳No rationale
• Kevin_ALBERT

  Abstain1.2M ₳No rationale
• RABIT

  No1.2M ₳No rationale
• drep1y26dxtv63ax...

  Yes1.1M ₳No rationale
• TriangleForces

  No1.1M ₳Rationale

  There is strategic relevance in bringing BTC liquidity to Cardano, and the narrative has been bandied around for a while now with some efforts rather going the way of the Dodo and just extracting all liquidity (BitcoinOS, anybody?).

  But relevance is not necessity, and ambition is not alignment. I see three speculative businesses wearing one public-goods costume: a non-margin credit market, a yield application, and a custom BitVM bridge. Each one is hard. Each one has different market, compliance, liquidity, and security assumptions. Bundling them together creates a grand narrative, but it also blurs accountability and inflates the ask. In my opinion, Cardano’s treasury shouldn't bankroll an entire integrated Bitcoin DeFi thesis just because the story is elegant. Getting all dreamy about lofty stories… we've been here before, weren't we? Didn't we learn anything? Hope isn't a strategy!

  In private markets, a complex cryptography-heavy build certainly costs hard dough. But treasury reasonableness is NOT about whether a team can spend it; it is about whether ADA holders should pay for it. We're asked to "pre-fund" a large commercial platform built around future revenue hopes, institutional adoption assumptions, and a promise that BTC capital will arrive at scale. That is not the same as funding an indispensable ecosystem primitive with imminent commercial value. For this stepping stone, the ADA 12M ask is oversized relative to the evidence of necessity.

  I also do not accept the implied scarcity argument. The proposal itself acknowledges that on-chain lending already exists in other forms and that bridge designs already exist, even if the team criticizes them. This proposal therefore is not filling a vacuum, but instead entering an active design space and claiming superiority. We mustn't spend treasury withdrawals merely because a team woke up this morning and believes it can reinvent the wheel with a better architecture. I want proof that Cardano lacks a credible alternative path or that this work is uniquely public, unavoidable, and ecosystem-wide in benefit. None of that is in this proposal.

  The promised return of 20% of EBITDA until repayment, followed by 5% perpetual, sounds attractive on first read, but, just pointing out for those not versed in economy aspects: EBITDA is an accounting outcome, not a constitutional safeguard. It depends on future operations, future market adoption, future cost allocations, and future management choices. Don't confuse contingent upside with hard accountability. If the core proposal does not justify the withdrawal on its own merits, a back-ended revenue-sharing promise does not rescue it! Again: Hope is not a strategy!

• RobertJTokay

  Yes964.1K ₳No rationale
• ACL-CardanoLand

  No955.7K ₳Rationale

  High ask, a more conservative approach warrants starting with smaller, milestone-gated pilot funding rounds rather than an immediate top-tier capital injection

• Yosh

  No949.1K ₳No rationale
• BRIAN

  Yes931.8K ₳No rationale
• Pavol Korvas

  Yes861.5K ₳No rationale
• Latam Cardano

  Yes825.2K ₳Rationale

  The inclusion of a structured repayment mechanism and a perpetual 5% protocol dividend fundamentally changes the economic profile of this governance action. As a DRep representing the Latam Cardano community, one of our fundamental pillars is ensuring the long-term financial viability and resilience of the network. Transitioning the treasury into a productive asset allocator that builds external revenue streams directly mitigates the risk of treasury depletion. While the off-chain accounting and governance of EBITDA distributions present a distinct challenge that the community must rigorously audit, the strategic macroeconomic value of anchoring Bitcoin liquidity within Cardano via a self-repaying structure warrants an affirmative vote.

• Christopher Erckert | Dotare

  Yes798.6K ₳Rationale

  Bitcoin is a $1.5T asset sitting largely idle. Pogun gives it a productive home on Cardano. Borrow against it, earn on it, bridge it with genuine trust-minimized security. This is the kind of external capital Cardano needs to grow TVL materially. The treasury return structure, 20% of EBITDA until repaid then 5% in perpetuity, makes this an investment not a grant. That alone sets a standard worth supporting.

• Cardano Cypherpunks

  YesChanged798.4K ₳History

  Earlier votes

  Abstain2mo agoSuperseded

  1. Core thesis — correct, but not unique

  They’re right about the opportunity:

  Bitcoin = largest idle collateral pool in crypto
  Lending = highest monetization layer
  Current solutions = structurally flawed (margin-based, oracle risk)

  That part is solid.

  But:

  This is not a unique insight anymore.
  There are already:

  BitVM-based designs
  BTC L2s (Stacks, Botanix, etc.)
  Wrapped BTC ecosystems on Ethereum and others

  So you’re not funding a category creation — you’re funding a race.

  1. The biggest red flag: execution risk (very high)

  This is a 3-layer stack with tight coupling:

  Credit market (moderate difficulty)
  Yield routing (moderate difficulty)
  BitVM bridge (extreme difficulty)

  The proposal only works economically if ALL THREE succeed.

  That’s a classic failure pattern:

  bundled dependency risk

  Especially:

  BitVM is still early-stage engineering
  Their custom BABE + Groth16 + Mithril stack is non-trivial to productionize
  “1-of-N security” sounds great, but operational reality is messy

  If the bridge fails → entire thesis collapses

  1. Return model: looks good, but is weak in practice

  On paper:

  20% EBITDA until repayment
  then 5% perpetual

  Sounds attractive. In reality:

  EBITDA is fully gameable
  Costs can be inflated (engineering, infra, “growth”)
  No enforcement mechanism beyond reporting

  So economically:

  This is still a grant with a soft promise of returns

  If you want real treasury ROI, you need:

  revenue share on gross fees, not EBITDA
  or on-chain enforced fee split
  4. Institutional narrative is overstated

  They lean heavily on:

  “institutions want non-liquidation credit”

  True in TradFi.

  But in crypto:

  Institutions already use:
  OTC desks
  CeFi lenders
  structured products

  And critically:

  They care more about custody risk than liquidation mechanics

  So the real blocker is:

  bridge + custody trust model

  Which is the hardest part of this proposal.

  1. KPI projections are aggressive to the point of being unreliable

  They claim:

  Base case: $450M TVL by 2027
  Bull case: $765M TVL

  That implies:

  capturing a meaningful share of BTCfi
  onboarding institutional capital
  beating competitors on other chains

  Given Cardano’s current position in DeFi:

  This is optimistic bordering on unrealistic

  1. What is actually good here

  To be precise — there are strong elements:

  Non-margin lending model → genuinely differentiated
  Bond-token concept → interesting primitive
  Treasury return framing → directionally correct
  Milestone-based funding → good structure

  If this were just the credit market, I’d likely say yes.

  1. Strategic evaluation (this is the key)

  You need to think like a capital allocator:

  What are you actually funding?

  Not:

  a product

  But:

  a high-risk venture bet in a competitive market
  Does treasury have edge here?

  No.

  Treasury:

  cannot pick winners reliably
  cannot enforce execution
  cannot capture upside effectively
  8. What would make this a YES

  You could fix this proposal with 3 changes:

  Split the proposal
  Fund credit market first (~₳3–5M)
  Bridge only after proven traction
  Hard revenue share
  % of protocol fees on-chain (not EBITDA)
  Kill or isolate BitVM dependency
  Or make it a separate, later governance action
  Bottom line
  Concept: strong
  Market: real
  Design: ambitious
  Execution risk: extremely high
  Treasury structure: insufficiently protected

• ADAR_Chris

  No794.5K ₳No rationale
• Scientific-Analytical-Tools

  YesRevoted763.4K ₳History

  Earlier votes

  Yes3mo agoSuperseded

  Yes3mo agoSuperseded

• phillerino

  No759K ₳Rationale

  Idea is good. Catalyst or similar funds would be more suitable.

• AdaLovelace777

  YesChanged705.1K ₳History

  Earlier votes

  No2mo agoSuperseded

  As a DRep, I voted NO on Pogun: Capital Without Compromise. While the Bitcoin bridge concept is interesting, this proposal mainly funds a commercial DeFi business with lending, yield, and revenue-generating products using Treasury funds. I do not believe the Treasury should absorb this level of private business risk without stronger protections or clearer upside for the ecosystem. The proposal is also extremely ambitious technically and combines too many different components into one large funding request. I would be more open to supporting the public infrastructure pieces separately in a smaller proposal. For these reasons, I voted NO.

• Cardano Feed

  No705.1K ₳Rationale

  No.

• jonahkoch

  Yes625.9K ₳Rationale

  Total ask: ₳12,290,000
  Budget breakdown: Product, Engineering & R&D: ₳6,267,900 = 51%
  Growth: ₳2,335,100 = 19% = $560,500
  Security Audits: ₳1,597,700 = 13%
  Legal & Compliance: ₳1,229,000 = 10%
  Ops & Infrastructure: ₳860,300 = 7%
  Revenue return: 20% of EBITDA quarterly until $2.95M, then 5%

  A PDF version of this rationale is also made available.

  I'm voting yes because this is structured as an investment, not a grant. Pogun commits to returning 20% of quarterly EBITDA to the Cardano Treasury until the full $2.95M is repaid, followed by a 5% perpetual return drawn from on-chain protocol revenue that any community member can independently verify. The treasury isn't spending $2.95M, it's seeding a credit infrastructure protocol and receiving an equity-style return in exchange. If Cardano's treasury is going to move beyond grant dependency toward commercial sustainability, this is what that model looks like.
  The strategic case stands on its own merits regardless of the return structure. The non-margin credit market concept was originally developed by Russell Shapiro (Fallen Icarus), whose peer-to-peer financial architecture I've supported as consistently superior to pool-based models that sacrifice borrower protection for liquidation mechanics. Pogun's implementation comes with an oracle-free, bilateral, collateral at risk only upon definitive default, structured exactly like the private credit markets that institutional capital actually uses and this is the on-chain realization of that thesis. The eUTxO architecture is not a marketing claim here: flash-loan self-liquidation in a single atomic transaction only works with Cardano's deterministic execution model. The "no MEV, no front-running" guarantee for collateral is structural, not aspirational. The BitVM bridge's 1-of-N security model, now institutions can self-custody as one of the N operators. This solves the precise trust problem that keeps serious Bitcoin capital out of DeFi. The Cardinal paper and Bitcoin 2025 mainnet demonstration show the BABE witness encryption architecture has been tested, not just theorized.
  The legitimate concern is execution risk. Pogun has no prior Cardano treasury receipts. The Growth line at 19% ($560K) lacks the granular breakdown that would let the community verify it funds liquidity incentives rather than marketing overhead, that specificity should be published before first disbursement. The Phase 1 disburses 33% of total funding upon ratification, is a meaningful commitment before the credit market has launched. These concerns are real, and the milestone gate structure, where all subsequent tranches require verified delivery against explicit pass thresholds reviewed by an independent administrator is the right response to them. If Phase 1 gates don't pass, Phases 2 through 4 don't release. The refund clause covering technical infeasibility of the BitVM bridge is specifically written: bridge-specific funds return, credit market and yield DApp funds already spent on delivered work do not. That's an honest accounting I can get behind.

• MREDGARCROSS

  No605.7K ₳Rationale

  🚫 MY ANSWER ON POGUN — NO

  Pogun is asking for ₳12.29 million ADA from the Cardano Treasury, roughly $2.95 million, to build Bitcoin DeFi infrastructure: a credit market, a yield application, and a Bitcoin bridge through BitVM.

  The idea sounds strong on paper:
  bring BTC into Cardano, give it credit utility, create a bridge, yield, and a new liquidity market.

  But my answer as a DRep is simple:

  No.

  First, let the team build the product with their own money.
  Let them show real demand, real users, real fees, real security, and a clear economic model.

  Only after that should Treasury funding be discussed.

  The Cardano Treasury is not a venture fund for beautiful presentations.
  It is a shared ecosystem resource, and it should not be distributed based on promises, even when the idea looks promising.

  ₳12.29 million ADA is a serious amount of money.
  For that kind of funding, there must be more than a roadmap — there must be proven viability.

  Cardano needs strong projects.
  But a strong project proves itself through execution first, not by immediately asking for millions from the Treasury.

  My position:

  Product first.
  Metrics next.
  Trust after that.
  Only then — funding.

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• Crypto Eats Legacy

  Yes589.7K ₳Rationale

  Accessing the gateway to Bitcoin capital on Cardano through this proposal is a small price to pay for success. Popgun has the potential to unlock attention, liquidity and momentum where Cardano needs it most, making this a strategic yes.

• Leo of the Brothership (@BrothershipPool)

  No535.2K ₳Rationale

  I am deeply disappointed in the pogun lack of clarification around issues critical to their planed implementation of the DefiKernel, the Kernel is the one Defi innovation that has ever gotten me excited about Defi after almost 10 years in the crypto space, it is critical that it is implemented correctly.

  Additionally the team does not seem to realize critical shortcomings in their planned technology, or is pretending to not realize them in an effort to push them down the line.

  The inclusion of every high-fame developer in their advisors roster to boost their credibility is something I do not appreciate

  And while the revenue sharing is a very good mechanism, the offered % are subpar to what I would hope and expect.

• AustinAnthony

  Yes533.9K ₳Rationale

  Huge revenue generating platform that will bring sustained income to the Cardano Treasury. Cardano is positioned to be the DEFI layer for Bitcoin. To do it natively is the key and they will deliver.

• Maureen

  No501K ₳Rationale

  The revenue return model is also genuinely novel for Cardano governance. 20% EBITDA until repaid, then 5% in perpetuity. If it works, the treasury gets its money back plus a permanent income stream. That's a different conversation from every other proposal.
  But here's what bothers me:
  The timeline is aggressive to the point of being uncomfortable. Credit market Q2 2026, yield layer Q3, bridge mainnet Q4. They're asking you to fund a BitVM bridge — one of the hardest unsolved engineering problems in crypto on a 6 month timeline. BitVM itself only became practically implementable recently. Building a production custom implementation in that window while simultaneously shipping two other products is either visionary or a setup for missed milestones.
  Another problem is complexity. This is not one product. It is three major products stapled together while also trying to become a new treasury investment model for Cardano. Credit market. Yield app. BitVM bridge. Institutional onboarding. Revenue return mechanism. Governance framework. Reporting infrastructure. Basically “we are building a bank, a bridge, and a political philosophy at the same time.” That is where my blood pressure rises.
  Execution risk here is not high. It is Olympic.

  Especially the bridge. Every time someone says “trust-minimized Bitcoin bridge” I instinctively reach for holy water. Bridges are where optimism goes to die. BitVM is promising, yes, but it is still a brutal engineering battlefield, not some solved problem with a ribbon on it. Betting treasury money on bridge feasibility plus adoption plus institutional trust plus operational perfection is… ambitious in the way jumping off a roof with confidence is ambitious.

  I also hate when proposals use giant TAM numbers like emotional support animals. Yes, Bitcoin is huge. Yes, lending is huge. Yes, institutions exist. Amazing. None of that proves product-market fit on Cardano specifically. It proves PowerPoint works. Cardano has seen enough “this will bring billions in TVL” promises to qualify for group therapy.
  So my no is simple:

  I do not believe treasury should be taking this level of execution and bridge-risk at this size, at this stage. The proposal is intellectually strong but operationally too ambitious and too dependent on multiple difficult assumptions succeeding at once. The repayment model is attractive but not enough to offset the uncertainty around delivery, profitability, and institutional adoption. Treasury should fund infrastructure with clear necessity and proven dependency first, not act as first-loss capital for highly complex commercial DeFi ventures.

• Dynamic Strategies

  No499K ₳Rationale

  A PDF version of this rationale is also made available.
• drep1yg26cdg85c2...

  Yes487.7K ₳No rationale
• Kurdopia

  Yes479.9K ₳No rationale
• @gersongomes

  Yes478.3K ₳No rationale
• Marius Georgescu

  Yes466.2K ₳No rationale
• Holland

  Yes438.7K ₳No rationale
• THOR

  No414.2K ₳No rationale
• KryptoLabs

  Abstain385.2K ₳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.

• VNEconomics

  No383K ₳No rationale