Cardano’s core development team, Input Output Global (IOG), has secured the green light from the community to receive 96 million ADA, worth approximately $71 million, to support a year-long series of upgrades.
The proposal passed with a 74% approval rate, garnering 200 votes in favor, six against, and seven abstentions.
The vote marks the first time the Cardano community has directly approved treasury funding for core development.
The funding, which will be released in stages, is tied to delivery milestones overseen by Intersect, a member-based governance body for the Cardano ecosystem.
IOG will be required to submit monthly progress reports, detailed timesheets, and quarterly budget breakdowns.
Smart contracts and a dedicated committee will provide additional layers of oversight to ensure accountability.
Among the planned upgrades are enhancements to Hydra, Cardano’s scalability protocol designed for high-speed, low-cost transactions.
Project Acropolis, another major initiative, aims to redesign the Cardano node to make it more modular and developer-friendly, key to attracting and onboarding new core contributors.
IOG also plans to implement performance improvements to reduce RAM usage and operating costs for stake pool operators, while laying the groundwork for more advanced smart contract capabilities and seamless interoperability with other chains.
Currently, Cardano processes blocks in an average of 20 seconds, with a transaction cost of around 0.34 ADA, according to blockchain analytics firm Messari.
The proposed upgrades are expected to make the network more competitive and cost-efficient.
While the proposal ultimately passed, it did draw scrutiny from several community members.
Concerns centered around the size of the funding request, a perceived lack of transparency regarding how resources would be allocated, and whether breaking the proposal into smaller, separately voted sections would have been more appropriate.
A competing proposal from Cardano’s Technical Steering Committee was submitted but not endorsed by Intersect.
Intersect board member Adam Rusch emphasized that it was up to the community to choose the direction forward.
Cardano joins other major blockchain networks rolling out upgrades this year.
Solana recently increased its block capacity by 20% to 60 million compute units.
Ethereum, meanwhile, raised its gas limit to nearly 45 million and implemented the Pectra hard fork in May, with further upgrades planned for 2025.
Last month, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said an audit of Input Output Global’s (IOG) ADA holdings is nearly ready for public release, with plans to livestream the full report once finalized.
The audit follows a wave of accusations leveled earlier this year, including claims that Hoskinson misappropriated $600 million in ADA through manipulation of the Cardano ledger.
One allegation, made by NFT artist Masato Alexander, accused Hoskinson of using a “genesis key” to seize control of $619 million during Cardano’s 2021 Allegra hard fork. Hoskinson has denied the allegations.
