Enacted Cardano Governance Actions

This governance action requests the withdrawal of ₳23,000,000 (USD 5,750,000 based on $0.25c) from the Cardano Treasury to cover a focused ‘Year 2’ contracted cost and a 12-month enhancement & maintenance program for the critical integrations already delivered or currently being integrated under the first Cardano Critical Integrations Budget (“CCI V1”): Circle (USDCx), LayerZero, Pyth Price Feeds, Dune Analytics, and a new full native integration of Fireblocks. The CCI V2 initiative provides the necessary funding for the ongoing operation and optimization of infrastructure previously established. While CCI V1 was responsible for delivering the primary foundational framework and launch readiness, CCI V2 ensures that this infrastructure remains functional, reliable, and equipped with advanced features to support the expanding needs of the ecosystem. ### Fund administration Funds will be administered by Intersect under the Treasury Reserve Smart Contract Framework over a 12 month delivery window. Drawdowns occur only after signed agreements and Statements of Work are submitted and verified. Funds are expected to be ringfenced and held in stablecoins, until such time that they are needed. ### Prior Treasury Receipt Disclosure Pursuant to Article II, Section 7, Item 2 of the Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Constitution, the proposer discloses that the prospective recipient of this Treasury Withdrawal, acting through the Pentad steering structure with Intersect as Administrator, received ₳70,000,000 from the Cardano Treasury in the prior 24 month period under the “Cardano Critical Integrations Budget” (gov_action1lqun78lcznfa2gek49m3ydslakfnm8heargfp8sax9fk54yl6ghsqp042zv). The following integrations have either been successfully launched on mainnet or are currently in the implementation phase under CCI V1: Circle (USDCx on Cardano), LayerZero cross-chain messaging and bridge infrastructure, Pyth pricing oracles, and Dune Analytics coverage. V2 exists only to sustain, optimize and extend what V1 built, with the addition of Fireblocks institutional custody as a new integration funded within this withdrawal.

**Proposal as pdf:** [here](https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmbrCWbfcJYUeBVzTkqRFUNej86YAcEwiDkQNgY2gWrq1X) Cardano Vision 2026 (CV26) delivers a structured, end-to-end innovation pipeline that translates foundational research into deployable system capabilities and measurable impact. Building on CV25, where delivery exceeded targets by 20%, the programme is executed through an integrated IO Research delivery model combining research (IOR), applied engineering (ARC), and product alignment (Cardano Business Unit). CV26 is anchored around 3 priorities. * **Human-centred design** improves usability, incentives, and governance participation through enhanced DevEx (e.g. decentralized APIs), better SPO alignment, and reduced user friction via intent-based interaction. * **Scalability** is addressed through a layered architecture combining consensus improvements (Leios/Peras integration), L2 execution and ZK-enabled scaling, and mid-term research like sharding. * **Post-quantum security** ensures long-term resilience through evaluation and migration of quantum-resistant cryptographic primitives, supported by a cross-cutting roadmap spanning security, transaction efficiency, ZK/L2 infrastructure, and partner chains. The programme is organised into 7 work packages aligned to ecosystem outcomes: WP1 Trust, Security & Reliability Infrastructure; WP2 Scalability & Execution Layer; WP3 Developer Platform & User Experience; WP4 Applications, Adoption & Liquidity; WP5 Economic Systems & Incentives; WP6 Governance, Identity & Social Infrastructure; and WP7 Delivery, Dissemination & Partnerships. CV26 delivers **42 outputs across the innovation pipeline**: 38 papers and technical reports at early TRL; 8 Cardano Problem Statements (CPS) and 12 prototypes at mid-TRL (including Leios/Peras integration designs, dynamic fee mechanisms, SPO incentive models, and a decentralised Babel fee marketplace); and 5 Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIPs) enabling implementation in identity services, ZK-enabled L2 scalability, and post-quantum security. The ₳32.916M (\$7.9M) funds a consortium of 9 R&D partners led by IOR, including leading universities (Edinburgh, Tokyo, Oxford, Buenos Aires) and ecosystem contributors (Eryx). In total, 36 FTEs operate as a research network under the leadership of Aggelos Kiayias, positioning Cardano for sustained, research-driven growth.

Harmonic Laboratories (HLabs for short) is an R&D firm born and focused solely on the Cardano ecosystem. Harmonic Laboratories supports and maintains a considerable portion of the TypeScript tooling for the Cardano ecosystem, which the majority of Cardano developers use, either directly, or indirectly via other libraries that depend on code written and maintained by HLabs. The mission of HLabs is for true decentralization to become the baseline of application development, not only a nice-to-have feature. This proposal funds two complementary engineering tracks: - **[Pebble](https://github.com/HarmonicLabs/pebble)**: the first production-ready imperative smart-contract language on Cardano. Pebble brings to UPLC a programming paradigm Aiken structurally cannot deliver, ships a TypeScript-shaped surface syntax that the largest developer community on earth already uses, and (per HLabs' published benchmarks) produces on-chain code that strictly outperforms Aiken and is competitive with Plutarch, while remaining dramatically more readable than either. - **Tooling maintenance**: keeping HLabs' TypeScript stack (`cardano-ledger-ts`, `ouroboros-miniprotocols-ts`, `plutus-machine`, `uplc`, etc.) synchronized with protocol upgrades. This stack is not optional infrastructure: it is what production projects across the ecosystem already depend on, including [Mesh](https://meshjs.dev/), [Lucid Evolution](https://github.com/Anastasia-Labs/lucid-evolution), and L2 systems like [Midgard](https://github.com/Anastasia-Labs/midgard). When HLabs ships a hard-fork update, the rest of the TypeScript ecosystem ships with it; when HLabs lags, every downstream project lags. A separate proposal funds the [Gerolamo light node](https://github.com/HarmonicLabs/gerolamo) at 5 FTE and is voted on independently. ### Duration & Milestones This proposal spans over **12 months**, throughout which there will be several deliveries and demos. Amongst the key deliveries, we note: - maintenance for an upcoming hard fork; - a production-ready, imperative and efficient, programming language for smart contracts ([Pebble](https://github.com/HarmonicLabs/pebble)). ### Total Budget Ask The estimated USD budget is of **`$1,000,000`** (or **`₳4,000,000`**) + 15% in refundable contingency (**`₳600,000`**); for a total ask of **`4,600,000 ADA`**.

This proposal seeks to catapult the Cardano ecosystem into the global spotlight at TOKEN2049 Singapore, the world’s premier crypto event and the ultimate nexus for industry amplification. The proposal requests **3,303,750 ada** (equivalent to **$792,900 USD**, calculated at an estimated rate of $0.24 per ada) to establish a high-impact, community-centric presence that serves as a dedicated stage for Cardano’s builders. A strategic takeover of Asia's most influential blockchain hub. By securing the second largest booth and a dedicated Cardano stage, we're giving builders something no other ecosystem offers at this scale. Free conference tickets, a stage to present, undeniable access to 25,000+ decision makers, high-value networking, and post-event photography and video coverage, all within the ‘Platinum’ sponsorship. Built by the community, for the builders, ensuring Cardano's technical superiority is matched by an unmissable physical presence. Putting Cardano builders at the forefront. The decision to present this as an independent proposal reflects EMURGO's direct response to community feedback. Following the submission of the combined Cardano Summit 2026 and TOKEN2049 proposal, DReps and community members raised legitimate concerns about the scale of the budget. In response, we have restructured the proposal, lowering the sponsorship from ‘Title’ to ‘Platinum’. This change reduces the overall budget while preserving the core strategic value of the sponsorship, demonstrating a collaborative approach to treasury management. EMURGO, headquartered in Singapore and holding a multi-year partnership with TOKEN2049 spanning 2022 through 2025, is very well-positioned to execute this sponsorship with maximum efficiency and impact.

**Proposal as pdf: [https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmYKV7vbX9pwNxst2qWpmtM2k6LRJB4NKKNFJSQyh7zojz](https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmYKV7vbX9pwNxst2qWpmtM2k6LRJB4NKKNFJSQyh7zojz)** Every feature, upgrade, and innovation proposed for Cardano depends on a stable, secure, and well-maintained platform underneath. This proposal funds that foundation — continuous core maintenance and operational support from Q3 2026 through Q1 2027. Maintenance is not discretionary. It covers nine functional areas that together constitute the full support envelope for Cardano: bug fixing and security reviews, CI/CD and infrastructure operations (including disaster recovery per CIP-135), mainnet and mempool monitoring, the Cardano Blueprint documentation project, open-source community support, systematic performance analysis and optimization, quality assurance and release sign-off, full node release management with L1/L2/L3 incident response, and component maintenance across Plutus Core, DB-Sync, guardrails scripts, APIs, and CLI tools. The value is both protective and enabling. On the protective side, this work ensures network uptime, swift incident resolution, and proactive security hardening through collaboration with the Intersect Security Council. On the enabling side, it delivers the Cardano Blueprint — implementation-independent specifications that lower the barrier for alternative node implementations — and continuous performance optimization that safeguards throughput gains and release quality. IO is collaborating with Ensurable Systems to distribute infrastructure stewardship. Intersect administers funds through milestone-based smart contracts with independent third-party assurance and transparent on-chain dashboards. Unspent funds return to the Treasury. **Treasury Ask:** ₳62,134,630

**Proposal as pdf: [https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmQBhjELHaMKhYZjwuskHS9NRyvUdiGv69aK8C1H787c5A](https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmQBhjELHaMKhYZjwuskHS9NRyvUdiGv69aK8C1H787c5A)** Cardano's strongest differentiator is its focus on security and correctness, but the tools that deliver on that promise have so far been the domain of auditors and formal methods experts. This proposal lowers the barrier: it brings automated formal verification, and the full high-assurance toolkit, within reach of every Cardano developer. Two workstreams deliver this. The first extends Blaster, IO's open-source automated formal verification tool, from single-script verification to full DApp-level verification. Blaster has already been used to prove correctness properties on production DApps including Djed and USDCx, and has received strong feedback from the Cardano developer community. Today, extending those results to an entire DApp requires manually decomposing properties and verifying each script in isolation. This proposal removes that manual work by automating verification at the DApp level. It also connects Blaster to four smart contract languages (Aiken, Pebble, Scalus, and Futura), so developers can invoke verification directly from their native toolchain. It delivers a VS Code extension with visual counterexample exploration and inline verification feedback, creates a Common Vulnerability Library with ready-made security templates for major DApp categories, and adds an equivalence checking tool that formally proves two UPLC programs are semantically identical, enabling safe and aggressive optimization. The second workstream delivers a Container-Based Developer Environment (CBDE) that packages the complete high-assurance toolkit into a single-command setup, compressing environment configuration from days into one click. The outcome is a stronger foundation for everyone who depends on Cardano: DeFi users get DApps whose correctness has been mathematically proven, developers get tools that make high-assurance engineering practical, and the ecosystem gets a toolkit maintained collectively by multiple teams. The work is structured as a technical collaboration: IO, Lantr, Harmonic Labs, SAIB, Midgard Labs, TxPipe, and No.Witness Labs each contribute defined components, distributing delivery and long-term maintenance across the ecosystem. Intersect administers funds via milestone-based disbursement with independent oversight, and unspent funds return to the Treasury. **Treasury Ask:** ₳13,078,578

**Proposal as pdf:[https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmXD6eoaFWrRoubFfvB2vSmLGbhVa66DbM9xw2dH1htRYK](https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmXD6eoaFWrRoubFfvB2vSmLGbhVa66DbM9xw2dH1htRYK)** This proposal delivers three coordinated initiatives that together expand Cardano's economic models, strengthen long-term Treasury resilience, and remove one of the biggest barriers to mainstream adoption, the requirement to hold ADA before you can transact. Each workstream targets a different dimension of this opportunity. First, CIP-159 Account Address Enhancement upgrades how Cardano handles account addresses. This enables wallets to collect micro-fees (currently blocked by a minimum deposit requirement), makes DeFi applications cheaper for end users, and provides building blocks for Layer 2 scaling solutions to manage user funds. Second, Multi-Asset Treasury begins the design work to let the Cardano Treasury hold stablecoins and other native assets alongside ADA, protecting the funding process from price volatility and opening new financial models for the ecosystem. Finally, Babel Fees lets users pay transaction fees in any Cardano native asset (such as USDC or bridged BTC) instead of requiring ADA, removing a key friction point for new users entering the ecosystem. Together, these initiatives unlock new wallet and DeFi revenue models, strengthen the Treasury's financial position through asset diversification, and reduce friction for users entering Cardano's DeFi ecosystem, where cross-chain bridging alone represents an estimated $1–2 billion annual market. IO is collaborating with Ensurable Systems on delivery. Intersect administers funds via milestone-based smart contracts, with independent oversight, and any unspent funds will be returned to the Treasury. **Treasury Ask:** ₳13,103,039

**Proposal as pdf: [https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=Qmd7G7L6xinunTLU9JorPLYyFCLGRarXEn7RngdNYgNH3B](https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=Qmd7G7L6xinunTLU9JorPLYyFCLGRarXEn7RngdNYgNH3B)** This proposal strengthens Cardano’s smart contract platform across three critical and closely connected areas: language capabilities, formal correctness, and developer experience. It funds targeted expansion to the Plutus language with new syntactic forms and new primitives to reduce script costs, improve expressiveness, and unlock more efficient contract patterns; formal specification, conformance testing, and structured security review to support correctness as node diversity grows; and a better compiler and tooling experience that lowers setup friction, improves error reporting, and makes smart contract development more accessible. Together, these workstreams make Plutus cheaper to use, more trustworthy to build on, and easier for developers to adopt, helping Cardano support a broader range of applications while also providing stronger foundations for alternative node implementations and other ecosystem tooling. This is a technical collaboration with Input Output and VacuumLabs, distributing Plutus stewardship across expert teams. Intersect administers funds via milestone-based smart contracts with independent oversight. All unspent funds return to the Treasury. **Treasury Ask:** ₳11,877,575

**Proposal as pdf: [https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmPdBp8QjKaPdYdvwLxzDiCxX85hGx8H6rxbSvTTuLkcx2](https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmPdBp8QjKaPdYdvwLxzDiCxX85hGx8H6rxbSvTTuLkcx2)** Cardano needs a step change in throughput to meet its 2030 ambitions, and Leios is how it gets there. This proposal funds the path from public testnet to a mainnet-ready release candidate — delivering a 10–65x increase in transaction capacity. Why this scale matters: Cardano's 2030 strategy targets growth from roughly 800,000 monthly transactions to over 27 million. At sustainable utilization levels, that requires at least 6x current capacity. Leios delivers 10x or more — giving significant room to grow. It works by enhancing Cardano's existing Ouroboros Praos consensus with Endorser Blocks and committee-based validation, increasing throughput without compromising decentralization or making stake pool operations unviable. The current budget cycle (ending June 2026\) delivers an early public testnet. This proposal picks up from there and focuses on three objectives. First, a release candidate: maturing the implementation through substantial engineering, conformance testing against formal specifications, and integration into the primary node. Second, high confidence: systematic validation through parameter exploration, load testing, and adversarial red-teaming on the public testnet. Third, hard-fork enabling: everything within IO's control to make the Leios hard fork possible, including stable interfaces for ecosystem tools (DB-Sync, Mithril, Blockfrost), SPO and developer workshops, governance artifact preparation, and contingency procedures. The proposal explicitly excludes external dependencies like the community hard-fork vote from its acceptance criteria — those are captured as risks, not promises. Intersect administers all funds through milestone-based smart contracts with independent oversight. Unspent funds return to the Treasury. **Treasury Ask:** ₳27,714,342

**Proposal as pdf: [https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmQPLwjTwZeGrzsgs2QiC6crJLcMg64fU2kDYZmPZ9o7wf](https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=QmQPLwjTwZeGrzsgs2QiC6crJLcMg64fU2kDYZmPZ9o7wf)** Cardano's long-term utility depends on attracting and retaining developers — and this proposal accelerates that by making it dramatically easier to build on the platform. The target: a 30%+ improvement in developer growth rate within 12 months. Why this matters: Cardano currently has roughly 550 active developers, with no signs of growth, whereas Ethereum added nearly 2,000 new developers per year on average over the last 6 years. Survey data from 109 Cardano builders points to a clear set of barriers — fragmented tooling, scattered documentation, lack of coordination, and a steep learning curve. These are solvable issues, and solving them unlocks the ecosystem flywheel: more builders lead to more DApps, which attract more users and generate more protocol revenue, which attracts more builders. The initiative delivers five practical outcomes. First, community alignment paired with a bounty program that incentivizes improvements to ecosystem tools and libraries where pain points are greatest. Second, a setup tool ("cardano-init") that lets a new developer go from zero to a working project in minutes, regardless of their preferred tech stack. Third, an OpenZeppelin-style collection of ready-to-use smart contracts that gives builders a solid starting point. Fourth, a unified, simplified onboarding experience in the Developer Portal, built in collaboration with Intersect and coordinated with the team responsible for the Developer Portal. Fifth, a measurement hackathon designed to quantify progress and identify the next priorities. IO is collaborating with Intersect's Developer Advocate Program and exploring a partnership with TxPipe to broaden delivery capacity. Intersect serves as the designated administrator, with milestone-based disbursement and independent third-party assurance. Unspent funds are returned to the Treasury. **Treasury Ask:** ₳3,601,926