Withdraw ₳12,000,000 for Cardano Builder DAO administered by Intersect
189 DReps voted · 65 with a rationale · 5 changed their vote · 3 re-voted unchanged
Open a row to read the rationale.
Changed votes: 4 to yes, 1 to abstain, together voting with 92.8M ₳ of voting power.
- Abstain185K ₳No rationale
- Yes183.9K ₳No rationale
- Yes161K ₳Rationale
I am voting yes on all 39 Intersect Governance actions. The community has thoroughly reviewed the many proposals presented in the Intersect Budget Process for the 2025 budget. I was deeply involved in the entire process as an SME for the Budget Committee, and then as the Secretary for the Budget Committee.
The proposals presented represent an incredible amount of development for our ecosystem for the next year. The teams all received at least 50% on Ekklesia polling. The teams will face milestones in order to continue to receive funding. If a team fails to deliver, the process will stop them from enriching themselves without returning value.
If anything, we are spending too little on our community. We need to spend more to further develop our governance and our organized events. This is a liquid democracy. If you believe that all of these proposals deserve a chance to deliver, you can shift your delegation to my DRep ID.
- Yes157.8K ₳No rationale
- No149.8K ₳Rationale
While supporting live dApps is valuable, Cardano’s $659M treasury and Project Catalyst already provide robust funding for ecosystem growth. The 12M ADA request is substantial, and potential overlap with existing mechanisms like Catalyst or other proposals risks redundancy. I urge clearer justification on why current resources can’t support these projects and stronger evidence of execution feasibility to ensure ROI. Intersect’s governance is strong, but the scale of this proposal warrants further scrutiny.
- Yes138.6K ₳No rationale
- Yes124.6K ₳No rationale
- Yes106K ₳Rationale
Hell 'Yes'
GreenHealthyHouseDAO
$ghhdao_fund10
$ghhdao_product
$green-healthy - Yes102.5K ₳No rationale
- Abstain90.6K ₳Rationale
📋 Evaluation Checklist — Cardano Builder DAO (₳12M)
1️⃣ Ecosystem Essentiality → ✅ Yes
Evidence:
“This proposal seeks to address the lack of dedicated, sustainable financial support and strategic oversight for functioning dApps that drive real usage, transaction volume, and Total Value Locked (TVL) on the Cardano blockchain.”
Context:
The proposal focuses on sustaining active dApps with direct impact on adoption and network usage — a gap not currently addressed by Project Catalyst or infrastructure committees.
Its uniqueness is strategically important: Cardano’s funding model has been heavily centralized around Catalyst for almost five years, with no comparable ecosystem-wide grant mechanism for post-launch projects. Redundancy in grant programs and the absence of alternative funding channels represent a critical gap to be filled.
This is further amplified by Cardano’s weaker access to venture capital compared to other top-10 blockchains like Ethereum and Solana, making the treasury and alternative grant programs even more important for sustaining and expanding the application layer.
2️⃣ Budget Structure and Detail → 🟡 Partial
Evidence:
“$5.79M (11,580,000 ADA) — to direct project funding… $210K (420,000 ADA) — to DAO operational overhead.”
Overhead breakdown:- $50,000 (₳ 100,000) — Board member compensation (part-time stipends for 3–7 elected board members)
- $60,000 (₳ 120,000) — Legal & compliance (creation/maintenance of DUNA, contracts, legal consultancy, KYB oversight)
- $50,000 (₳ 100,000) — Service contracts (technical consultants, accounting, critical providers)
- $80,000 (₳ 160,000) — Infrastructure & tooling (hosting, storage, analytics, dashboards, daily technical coordination)
- $20,000 (₳ 40,000) — Contingency reserve (unforeseen operational needs)
Context:
While the operational overhead is itemized at a high level, it is not granular enough given the size of the request. There is no breakdown by man-hours, hourly rates, or detailed scope for each category. The range of “3–7 board members” without clear workload expectations prevents assessment of compensation fairness. Infrastructure costs are aggregated without unit pricing (e.g., GB/month, traffic volume). Service contracts are vague and not tied to specific deliverables.The ₳5.79M project funding allocation is presented as a lump sum without recipient-level breakdown, prioritization methodology, or cost-per-output estimates. For an ask of this magnitude, a granular budget with justifications would be expected.
3️⃣ KPIs or Impact Identifiers → ❌ No
Evidence:
“Projects must publicly report KPIs such as… transaction volume, user activity, and development contributions.”
Context:
The DAO will require funded projects to report KPIs, but the proposal does not define quantifiable KPIs, baselines, or target thresholds for its own performance. Without DAO-level metrics, it will be difficult to evaluate the systemic impact of allocating ₳12M to this mechanism.
4️⃣ Milestones and Deliverables → 🟡 Partial
Evidence:
“Initial Member Onboarding… Board Election… Legal Entity Formation… DAO Launch… First Funding Cycle Execution… KPI Impact Reports…”
Context:
The roadmap lists sequential milestones and broad timelines, but there are no explicit acceptance criteria for deliverables, no independent verification process, and no contingency plan if milestones are delayed or under-deliver. KPI reporting is mentioned but without a defined methodology for validation, and no baseline is provided for comparison.
5️⃣ Internal Consistency → ✅ Yes
Evidence:
“$6M USD (12,000,000 ADA)… ADA price assumption $0.50.”
Context:
Figures are consistent across sections; minor differences are explained by inclusion or exclusion of overhead in totals.
6️⃣ Team Visibility & Track Record → 🟡 Partial
Evidence:
“Our team… building and maintaining Clarity… smart contracts have governed over $10 million in TVL… used by four DAOs.”
Coalition members include: NMKR, ADA Handle, Dex Hunter, Flux Point Studios, Tap Tools, Wanchain, NFTCDN.io, Vespr, Tokeo, Xerberus, Minswap, Indigo, Iagon, Clarity.Context:
The participating teams include several projects with strong reputations and robust delivery histories. However, the proposal does not provide names of individual members or team leads for each development area. This absence of personal-level identification creates uncertainty in the evaluation and reduces the ability to assess individual accountability within the DAO’s operations.
7️⃣ Conflict of Interest → ✅ No material COI identified
Context:
No disclosed relationships that would materially compromise impartial evaluation.
📌 Critical Summary
The Cardano Builder DAO seeks ₳12M to establish a smart contract-governed funding mechanism for high-impact, live dApps. It builds on existing audited infrastructure (Agora, Clarity) and is supported by a coalition of major Cardano ecosystem players.
Strengths:
- Addresses a real, long-standing funding gap in Cardano’s ecosystem.
- High strategic value given Cardano’s over-reliance on Catalyst and lack of VC-level support compared to other top-10 chains.
- Team with proven governance infrastructure and operational capability.
- Transparent on-chain treasury with unused funds returned to the Treasury.
Weaknesses:
- Budget transparency: Overhead categories are too broad for the amounts requested, lacking man-hour estimates, hourly rates, or detailed scope. Project funding allocation (₳5.79M) has no per-recipient breakdown or prioritization criteria.
- KPIs: No DAO-level quantifiable KPIs or baselines to assess success.
- Milestones: Lacks acceptance criteria, independent validation, and contingency measures.
- Team detail: No disclosure of individual members or leads for key operational areas.
- Risk concentration: Without transparent allocation rules, funds could disproportionately benefit established incumbents.
🗳 Voting Recommendation: ABSTAIN
Rationale:
The proposal is strategically relevant for diversifying Cardano’s funding mechanisms beyond Catalyst, especially given the ecosystem’s VC scarcity. The DAO framework is credible and the team has relevant experience. However, approval should be paired with strict oversight to ensure:- A granular budget with justifications is implemented before fund disbursement.
- DAO-level KPIs and baselines are defined.
- Clear allocation criteria for the ₳5.79M in project funding are published.
- Named accountability for individuals in key roles is provided.
Suggested on-chain note:
“Supports diversification of funding beyond Catalyst — strategically important in a VC-scarce environment. Concerns: lacks DAO-level KPIs, detailed budget granularity, individual accountability, and transparent project allocation. Full rationale available on GitHub.” - Yes83.9K ₳Rationale
I am voting in favor of approving the treasury withdrawal for all 39 withdrawal actions that are part of the approved ecosystem budget administered by Intersect. I am voting this way for several reasons, as I will outline here. This rationale will be included in all 39 withdrawal votes.
First and foremost, I believe that we would be making a mistake in underfunding our community with our available treasury funds. The budget system as it currently stands has some flaws, as should be expected from a first version of any system. Of the current proposals, I voted to include several in the budget when it was being formed; however, I also did not vote in favor of several others. This is, of course, the case for most DReps. If I were to vote only for the proposals I initially favoured, and all other DReps did the same, we would likely approve only 2 or 3 proposals out of 39 due to the vote split. In my view, this is not an acceptable outcome for the community, and this is why I was also opposed to the idea of having 39 separate treasury withdrawal actions. I have reviewed all 39 requests, and they all have merit. Are they exactly in line with the priorities I wanted as part of the initial budget? No. Is that reason enough to vote no on several of these and end up approving only 2 or 3 proposals in the end? I certainly don't believe so.
In addition to this, the total amount of the intersect budget is roughly 10% higher than what I voted for, and I find that to be within an acceptable margin to approve all the withdrawals.
The individual proposals also all received at least 50% community approval to be included and will be subject to reviews and milestones to receive funds.
For these reasons, I am casting my vote to approve and am wishing the best of luck to all the teams waiting for funding through this process. - No77.2K ₳No rationale
- No65.9K ₳No rationale
- Yes63.1K ₳No rationale
- Yes58.7K ₳No rationale
- Yes56.4K ₳No rationale
- Yes56.1K ₳No rationale
- Yes53.3K ₳No rationale
- Abstain51.8K ₳No rationale
- Yes48.7K ₳No rationale
- No48K ₳No rationale
- No45.3K ₳No rationale
- Yes36.9K ₳No rationale
- Yes36.4K ₳Rationale
✅ Cardano Builder DAO – ₳12,000,000
Why I voted YES:
The Cardano Builder DAO establishes a sustainable, smart contract–governed funding mechanism to support live dApps driving real adoption, TVL, and usage on Cardano. Unlike early-stage funding via Catalyst, this DAO backs projects already delivering value and traction.Key benefits:
• 📈 Grows on-chain activity and ecosystem stickiness
• 💰 Supports working dApps with active users and locked value
• 🔁 Bridges funding gap between launch and scale
• 🛠️ Built on audited smart contracts already governing $10M+ TVL
• 📊 KPI-driven reporting ensures accountability and measurable ROI
• 🤝 Complements Catalyst by focusing on scale-stage projectsThis DAO empowers builders who are shipping, growing, and contributing to Cardano’s economic activity today — and it does so with transparency and structure.
- Yes26.7K ₳Rationale
Clarity is the one and only successful DAO on Cardano to date. They may have this funding.
- No14.3K ₳No rationale
- Yes6.8K ₳No rationale
- No5.7K ₳No rationale
- No3.6K ₳No rationale
- Yes1.7K ₳No rationale
- Yes1.6K ₳No rationale
- Yes688.8 ₳No rationale
- Yes675.6 ₳No rationale
- Yes379.6 ₳No rationale
- Yes335.9 ₳No rationale
- Yes13.5 ₳No rationale
- Yes0 ₳No rationale
- No0 ₳No rationale
- Yes0 ₳No rationale