Cardano Core Budget Proposal

Governance Budgets 2025
1

Core Budget

Here you can find all the details about the proposed Core budget for 2025

The budget process and supporting documentation represent a collaborative work-in-progress, compiled from inputs across Intersect committees and working groups. All figures, timelines, and proposals are strictly indicative and subject to community feedback, market conditions, and on-chain approvals. Nothing herein is finalized.

More details can be found here and the detailed spreadsheet can be found here for Technical Steering Committee and here for Open Source Committee

Committee members

This proposal was defined by the Technical Steering Committee and the Open Source Committee via community consultation

Technical Steering Committee

Chair (Interim): Kevin Hammond
Secretary: Duncan Soutar
Non- Voting Seat: Duncan Coutts
Voting Seat: Adam Dean
Voting Seat: Neil Davies
Voting Seat: Nicholas Clarke
Voting Seat: Markus Gufler
Voting Seat: Ben Hart
Voting Seat: Johnny Kelly

Open Source Committee

Chair: Pedro Lucas - 45B
Vice Chair: Adam Dean - DripDropz (DDZ)
Intersect Open Source Office(OSO) Representative: Christian Taylor, Head of Open Source Office
Secretary: Terence McCutcheon (Tex) - Intersect, Open Source Office

Committee Seat: Sandip Pandey - Dquadrant
Committee Seat: Sebastian Pabon - GimbaLabs
Committee Seat: Johnny Kelly - Intertree
Committee Seat: Robin Boening
Committee Seat: Nicolas Henin
Committee Seat: Georg Link - Bitergia
Committee Seat: Moritz Angermann - IOG

Proposal Summary

The proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal period will encompass all funding requests made by the Technical Steering Committee and the Open Source Committee. The primary mandate for the allocation of these requested funds is to ensure that they are dedicated specifically to the ongoing development and maintenance of the Cardano blockchain. This includes not only the enhancement of existing features but also the implementation of new advancements that will contribute to the overall stability, security, and efficiency of the Cardano network. By prioritizing these areas, the committees aim to foster innovation and support the continued growth of the Cardano ecosystem.

The proposed Core Budget is ₳ 125,304,400. This is to be managed by one Treasury withdrawal action using a smart contract to lock funds until the following dates:

June 2025: ₳ 70,000,000

July 2025: ₳ 13,000,000

August 2025: ₳ 13,000,000

September 2025: ₳ 29,304,400

Technical Steering Committee Proposal

The Technical Steering Committee (TSC) has put forward the following request and supporting breakdown for the 2025 budget process. To assist in visualizing the TSC proposal, the following breakdown has been put forward, which if necessary, is scalable in part to the approved finalized budget.

The budget breakdown shown below has been created following an analysis of the 2024 spend on core Cardano, engineered for expected changes and growth in 2025.

Note: the ADA values shown above represent a potential full year funding, this may be scaled in the final budget request

The TSC has requested an additional ₳9m as an emergency/contingency fund but notes this may be handled directly by the budget committee, and has not been included in the outline above

With the exception of the Research element under Roadmap, all funding is expected to come from the Core budget. The funding bucket is a consideration of the Budget Committee and not directly from the TSC.

Potential Roadmap Projects

The following project cards have been submitted by the community and technical working groups and have been triaged through the Core Infrastructure Roadmap working group.

This process reviews and validates the information provided before being included on the following list for community prioritization.

Final selection will be allocated from the categories above, such as ‘roadmap - core roadmap’ and ‘roadmap - research’.

Full project cards can be viewed here.

Note I: Project cards are regularly updated and subject to change.

Note II: Funding is dependent on prioritization, technical readiness and technical programming. No project should assume funding has been agreed at this stage.

A project card is designed to hold relevant and useful information for the community to be able to support prioritisation discussions and recommendations.

When a potential project is submitted for review and inclusion to the backlog, we will ask that this information is provided or an explanation as to why it cannot be.This will enable the community to make informed prioritization decisions.

Project cards outline the overall project goal and benefit, as well the likely deliverable(s) to be funded.

It is expected that throughout the duration of this budget that project prioritization may change and that new initiatives and projects may also need to be considered. To be able to factor this in some allocation has been made above to be prioritized at a later date, categories such as ‘Uncommitted - Uncommitted core development’.

Technical Steering

Once the goals and the projects have been prioritized then the Technical Steering Committee will recommend how best to implement them and oversee the technical delivery supported by Intersect delivery assurance teams.

The TSC is a rallying point for members, suppliers, and third parties to coordinate the delivery of development services to support the Cardano blockchain. As per the committee remit, the TSC will carry out the following:

  • Recommending the execution details of the backlog

  • Drafting of milestone deliverables, acceptance criteria, and quality assurance for the execution recommendation

  • Facilitating a tender/award evaluation process for major contracts with members

Further details on the Technical Steering Committee are available via the knowledge base.

Further Information

Full details on the processes and participation in the TSC budget can be found in the following Knowledge Base pages.

How to participate in shaping the Technical Roadmap: Knowledge base

Technical Roadmap explained: Knowledge base

Potential Roadmap Projects: Knowledge Base

2025 & 2026 Budgets: Many of the development projects within the TSC budget require an effort of greater than 6 months. Therefore in order to prevent the risk projects having to start and stop, causing increased costs and delays. The TSC is proposing, where required, to allocate 2026 budget to help improve the certainty required deliver on development projects.

Budget allocation for 2025: ₳ 64,128,400

Budget allocation for 2026: ₳ 35,291,000

Final 2025 Budget proposal: ₳ 99,419,400

Open Source Committee Proposal

The proposal has been put together through community input. (Full list of programs and activities included in this proposal can be found here: Open Source Committee)

Approval of these proposals will empower the Cardano community to continue its growth, ensure project sustainability, and maintain the high standards of open-source participation within the Cardano ecosystem.

Receiving funding in accordance with this proposal will enable a wide range of essential initiatives to promote and sustain open-source development within the Cardano ecosystem, as outlined in the Paid Open Source Model (POSM) Whitepaper.

The committee strongly believes that this proposal allows for an expansion of the open source efforts achieved in 2024.

OSC Proposed Initiatives

  • Maintainer Retainer Program: Provides consistent financial support to maintainers of up to 50 repositories, ensuring the stability and ongoing development of key projects, these will be nominated by the community and vetted through an incubation program and contribution ladder.

  • 24/7 Incident Response Team: Funds a dedicated 24/7 team to manage security incidents and ensure rapid response capabilities. (Shared request with TSC)

  • Project Support Services: Enhances project compliance, design innovation, and community engagement across Cardano open-source initiatives. OSO & OSC would advise and source providers to assist with Marketing, Community Building, Legal, Open Source Strategy & Sustainability, Governance, Product Management, Design, and Training. See OSO Service Catalog

  • Summer of Code Equivalent: Supports educational stipends and full-time internships for 20 students (all backgrounds), fostering talent development and expanding the pool of skilled contributors. Google - Summer of Code Improves OSO DE&I

  • OSO Community Integration, Events, Tooling: Disbursement to OSO to plan, host, and attend hackathon-like events, Developer Advocate events, miscellaneous tooling, Partnerships and Level 1 & 2 Support Services costs.

  • Bug Bounty Program: A bug bounty reward program aimed at rewarding community found incidents for projects under the Intersect github, not specifically limited to “Core Cardano”.

  • Code for Us Model: Community-driven funding approach for specific development needs, aligning open-source projects with the priorities of Cardano’s user base.

  • OSC Members Attending Events: Allowance for OSC sitting Members to attend local/semi-local events.

The year budget ask from the committee

Budget details

Technical Steering Committee

Requested budget: ₳ 99,419,400

The detailed spreadsheet can be found here

Open Source Committee

Requested budget: ₳ 5,885,000

The detailed spreadsheet can be found here

2 Likes
2

Please note the Open Source Budget is actually in the spreadsheet at 3,885,000 ADA at a .5 price spot $1,942,500.00 for 6 month allocation.

1 Like
3

I see there is a tiered pricing workflow. I have some concerns and questions about this.
Would a final implementation of this require an additional govAction for implementation? I believe this should be the case, any adjustments to the fee model would need an additional vote, having it in the budget doesn’t approve the implementation. Is that correct?

4

The ‘Tiered Pricing’ project proposal has been recommended by the Proposal Review Body to be added to the TSC Development roadmap. This item has not yet been fully approved by the TSC but Proposal Review Body recognises that this proposal would require significant discussion, input and endorsement from the community, as well as possible further research, to help shape the needs, desires and feasibility of any changes to the transaction pricing model. Any implementation would need to be endorsed by the community via the usual procedures, and would require a hard fork governance action prior to on-chain enactment.

5

TSC

Select all the items that you think should be increased.
  • Core Maintenance $25,050,000
  • Midgard Layer 2 Optimistic Rollup [Recommended for Tender] $1,573,000
  • Hydra Development [Recommended for Tender] $2,288,000
  • Ouroboros Leios [Recommended for Tender] $2,000,000
  • Ouroboros Peras[Recommended for Tender] $1,430,000
  • Revised Stakepool Incentive Scheme [Recommended for Tender] $280,000
  • Nested Transactions[Recommended for Tender] $357,500
  • Further Core Cardano Devlopment Projects as proposed and reviewed by the community $5,000,000
  • Non-Roadmap Development $4,500,000
  • Research $7,120,000
  • Software Requirements $10,000
  • Technical Meetings and Events $601,200
  • Contributor Reimbursement $500,000
  • None of them apply.
0 voters
Select all the items that you think should be reduced.
  • Core Maintenance $25,050,000
  • Midgard Layer 2 Optimistic Rollup [Recommended for Tender] $1,573,000
  • Hydra Development [Recommended for Tender] $2,288,000
  • Ouroboros Leios [Recommended for Tender] $2,000,000
  • Ouroboros Peras[Recommended for Tender] $1,430,000
  • Revised Stakepool Incentive Scheme [Recommended for Tender] $280,000
  • Nested Transactions[Recommended for Tender] $357,500
  • Further Core Cardano Devlopment Projects as proposed and reviewed by the community $5,000,000
  • Non-Roadmap Development $4,500,000
  • Research $7,120,000
  • Software Requirements $10,000
  • Technical Meetings and Events $601,200
  • Contributor Reimbursement $500,000
  • None of them apply.
0 voters
Select all the items you think should be deleted.
  • Core Maintenance $25,050,000
  • Midgard Layer 2 Optimistic Rollup [Recommended for Tender] $1,573,000
  • Hydra Development [Recommended for Tender] $2,288,000
  • Ouroboros Leios [Recommended for Tender] $2,000,000
  • Ouroboros Peras[Recommended for Tender] $1,430,000
  • Revised Stakepool Incentive Scheme [Recommended for Tender] $280,000
  • Nested Transactions[Recommended for Tender] $357,500
  • Further Core Cardano Devlopment Projects as proposed and reviewed by the community $5,000,000
  • Non-Roadmap Development $4,500,000
  • Research $7,120,000
  • Software Requirements $10,000
  • Technical Meetings and Events $601,200
  • Contributor Reimbursement $500,000
  • None of them apply.
0 voters
Please select all that you think are appropriate.
  • Core Maintenance $25,050,000
  • Midgard Layer 2 Optimistic Rollup [Recommended for Tender] $1,573,000
  • Hydra Development [Recommended for Tender] $2,288,000
  • Ouroboros Leios [Recommended for Tender] $2,000,000
  • Ouroboros Peras[Recommended for Tender] $1,430,000
  • Revised Stakepool Incentive Scheme [Recommended for Tender] $280,000
  • Nested Transactions[Recommended for Tender] $357,500
  • Further Core Cardano Devlopment Projects as proposed and reviewed by the community $5,000,000
  • Non-Roadmap Development $4,500,000
  • Research $7,120,000
  • Software Requirements $10,000
  • Technical Meetings and Events $601,200
  • Contributor Reimbursement $500,000
  • None of them apply.
0 voters

OSC

Select all the items that you think should be increased.
  • Maintainer Retainer Program ₳1,800,000
  • Code For us Model ₳250,000
  • Developer Advocate Program ₳160,000
  • Cardano Project Services ₳100,000
  • Events ₳100,000
  • Incident monitoring/response ₳175,000
  • OSC Attendance to Events ₳50,000
  • Google Summer of Code or Equivalant for Cardano ₳400,000
  • Expanded Cardano Project Support Services ₳150,000
  • Bug Bounty Program ₳600,000
  • WG Commercialization ₳100,000
  • None of them apply.
0 voters
Select all the items that you think should be reduced.
  • Maintainer Retainer Program ₳1,800,000
  • Code For us Model ₳250,000
  • Developer Advocate Program ₳160,000
  • Cardano Project Services ₳100,000
  • Events ₳100,000
  • Incident monitoring/response ₳175,000
  • OSC Attendance to Events ₳50,000
  • Google Summer of Code or Equivalant for Cardano ₳400,000
  • Expanded Cardano Project Support Services ₳150,000
  • Bug Bounty Program ₳600,000
  • WG Commercialization ₳100,000
  • None of them apply.
0 voters
Select all the items you think should be deleted.
  • Maintainer Retainer Program ₳1,800,000
  • Code For us Model ₳250,000
  • Developer Advocate Program ₳160,000
  • Cardano Project Services ₳100,000
  • Events ₳100,000
  • Incident monitoring/response ₳175,000
  • OSC Attendance to Events ₳50,000
  • Google Summer of Code or Equivalant for Cardano ₳400,000
  • Expanded Cardano Project Support Services ₳150,000
  • Bug Bounty Program ₳600,000
  • WG Commercialization ₳100,000
  • None of them apply.
0 voters
Please select all that you think are appropriate.
  • Maintainer Retainer Program ₳1,800,000
  • Code For us Model ₳250,000
  • Developer Advocate Program ₳160,000
  • Cardano Project Services ₳100,000
  • Events ₳100,000
  • Incident monitoring/response ₳175,000
  • OSC Attendance to Events ₳50,000
  • Google Summer of Code or Equivalant for Cardano ₳400,000
  • Expanded Cardano Project Support Services ₳150,000
  • Bug Bounty Program ₳600,000
  • WG Commercialization ₳100,000
  • None of them apply.
0 voters
6

Loll someone wants nothing to happen… :laughing:

1 Like
7

Subject: Budget Update – Inclusion of Tooling WG Proposal and Accelerator Program
The Open Source Committee (OSC) has updated its budget to reflect the following initiatives:

  1. Tooling Working Group Proposal:
    a. As of February 20, 2025, the OSC has approved the inclusion of the Open Source Tooling Sustainability Program in the budget. This program allocates ₳2,000,000 (~$1,000,000) to fund critical open-source libraries and tools essential to the Cardano ecosystem, ensuring their long-term sustainability and fostering community engagement.
  2. Accelerator Program (Pending Approval):
    a. The Pilot Program Funding for the Accelerator initiative has been provisionally included, with an allocation of ₳100,000 (~$50,000). This proposal, aimed at driving the commercialization of high-potential Cardano projects, is still under review and will be voted on by the OSC by the end of the week (EOW), March 7, 2025.

This budget update reflects OSC’s ongoing commitment to supporting essential open-source projects while exploring new opportunities to foster ecosystem growth and adoption.
Please refer to the following documents for detailed proposals:

Total Budget Change:
OSC
Previous: ₳3,855,000
New Total: ₳5,855,000
TSC
Previous: ₳101,419,400
New Total: ₳99,419,400

2 Likes
8

Could you provide context to the reduction in figures for the TSC?

9

The TSC dropped the 2 million ADA from their budget under Non-Core Roadmap line item, to allow the OSC to include Open Source Tooling Sustainability Program in their budget. This keeps the budget the same and is showing TSC / OSC collaboration on working on this proposal together.

1 Like
10

Is it possible to provide materials that make it easier to judge the appropriateness of the amounts of the Core Budget, especially the larger amounts? :pray:

I would appreciate it if you could share the background of the calculations that led to these amounts, especially for the larger items (although I understand that it is a very delicate nature that makes it difficult to provide precise amounts).

I don’t necessarily want to lower this, nor do I have any major doubts.

but, From the DRep’s perspective, when a delegator asks, for example, “Why did you decide that Core Maintenance ₳40,100,000 is appropriate, and ₳39,100,000 and ₳41,100,000 are not appropriate, and why did you vote for the Core Budget of Core Maintenance ₳40,100,000? Please tell me the logic,” the DRep needs to be able to explain it to the delegator.

With the current budget explanation, I cannot explain this well and logically. I think other DReps would also have difficulty giving a convincing explanation when asked by a delegator.

11

Today I met with several DRep in Japan and showed them the Core Budget spreadsheet and asked if they wanted to approve it.
The first reaction of all of them was, “I want to compare the figures from the previous year.”

Considering that other DRep are likely to have the same reaction, it would be better if they could compare it with the information from the previous year.
Personally, I think it might be fine to have information on the number of people who are expected to be involved in something, even if it’s not the figures from the previous year.
Either way, DRep may need information that explains the amounts.

and I had the opportunity to speak to developers and hear their priorities. An A is high and an F is low.

スクリーンショット 2025-03-02 1.20.29
スクリーンショット 2025-03-02 1.20.291632×768 81.6 KB

12

As an active citizen in the Cardano community, the Cardano Foundation wishes to engage proactively in the budget discussion by sharing our perspective. Accordingly, we have prepared the feedback attached based on the initial budget proposal shared in this thread and we are sharing this in each of the budget threads here in the Cardano forum.

We appreciate that the current Intersect budget proposal and its process will change, plus many specifics remain open (based on the Intersect blog post shared on 7 March 2025). However, we want to contribute our insights to the extent they may continue to apply and be useful for future budget discussions by the community.

If you have any questions about our feedback, please let us know; we’d be happy to provide additional information.

11.03.25_Cardano Budget_CF Position_Committee Memo.pdf (148.9 KB)

13

Given the CF feedback on the open source budget, it is clear not enough attention was given to the white paper explaining the process and methodology behind each piece.
These programs such as Code for Us, maintainer retainer, etc have been fully vetted processes with industry experts and full details can be found here.

There is heavy advocacy for these items to distinguish our ecosystem to become sustainable and each figure was intentionally kept low to pilot each attempt:

There is also an explainer video here: https://youtu.be/j4PgqaPWNT4?si

1 Like
14

Thanks for sharing. Really useful in understanding the processes.

1 Like