Since the ratification of the Cardano Constitution in February 2025 Cardano has made great strides in its young governance. We would like to take a moment to thank all of those engaged community members whose voluntary participation and contributions as Delegated Representatives (DReps), Constitutional Committee Members (CC), Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) as well as the community at large have been inspiring and highly productive. But, as with any new governance system, the past year has also brought challenges to light. Chief among them is a lack of coordination and access to quality information for DReps (and to a lesser degree, other governance participants). [1]
One growing discussion over the past six months has centered on the need for a structured off-chain space where the community can collaborate and deliberate. We would like to take this opportunity to expand upon and share with a wider audience a concept we have previously presented to the Pentad. The intent of the following concept is to consolidate and professionalize governance discussions, making participation easier for all ada holders and lower the cost of finding quality information for Delegated Representatives (DReps).
In our view, this discussion needs to start with the core properties and architecture for such a space. Existing or bespoke tooling solutions can then be compared against these requirements to determine which tooling is suitable based on the trade-offs involved. In this post, we lay out the Cardano Foundation’s recommendations for how such a community space could look.
We welcome the Cardano community’s feedback, insights, and critical perspectives. If there is sufficient demand for such a space, the Cardano Foundation is open to operating and maintaining it in line with the transparency principles we have committed to.
Core Properties
Our design for an off-chain space for community and DRep governance discussions centers around creating a structured, neutrally moderated and constructive environment for Cardano governance participants to deliberate.
Ideally, we would like such a space to combine the following properties:
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Participant authentication using on-chain data to ensure that access to the space is restricted to ada holders, DReps, SPOs, and CC members.
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Independent third-party moderation to ensure constructive dialogue and to avoid bias wherever possible.
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Visibility and retention of public channels to promote transparent discussions, preserve historical data and promote the widest possible dissemination of information.
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Discoverability to ensure relevant discussions and conclusions can be found.
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Usage of open standards and interoperable tooling to avoid vendor lock in and enable the development of auxiliary tooling.
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Open access and self-hosted to guarantee the space remains inclusive and available in the future.
While tooling choices may ultimately impose trade-offs to these properties, we would like to iterate and improve on this list first, so that the best possible option is selected and trade-offs are the result of conscious decisions.
Channel Architecture
Another key topic is how to divide the space between the different governance actors on Cardano, and which parts should be public or private. The goal is to make the space useful to as many participants as possible, while straying as little as possible from the core properties described above.
As an outline, we believe a robust, practical architecture could take the shape of a number of channels on a moderated space (see the tooling section below for examples):
| Channel Description | Properties |
|---|---|
| Ada Holder Forum | - Open to all ada holders - Public - Summaries crossposted to other platforms |
| DRep Forum | - Open to all DReps - Public - Summaries crossposted to other platforms |
| DRep Coalitions | - Open to DRep coalitions with >5% of all DReps - Self-administered channels for DRep coalition members - Coalition channels open to whitelisted DReps of that coalition - Public or private as chosen by DRep coalitions - Public channels crosspost summaries to other platforms |
| Proposers | - Open to governance action proposers (on preproduction or mainnet) - Public - Acts as archive of proposal discussions - Summaries crossposted to other platforms - Updates crossposted to DRep channels |
| CC Members | - Open to current CC members - Public - With the purpose of providing a public space for debate over constitutional interpretations - Acts as archive of constitutional debates - Summaries crossposted to other platforms |
| SPOs | - Open to all SPOs - Public - Summaries crossposted to other platforms |
| Intersect Committees | - Open to elected committee members to provide committee guidance, context and expertise to DRep discussions - Public - Summaries crossposted to other platforms |
We believe that in order to fully realise the potential of the Intersect Committee channel to optimise expert advice and committee guidance, a reform of how Intersect committees are elected and operate would complement such an architecture. We are also working on suggestions for this which will be published soon. As foreseen by the constitution, such access would also be available for other MBOs that a majority of DReps determines as relevant for their decision making.
DRep Profiles
Additionally, the space would offer the option for DReps to create profiles which could include summaries of their interests, as well as voting strategy and history from on- and off-chain sources. It might also have the functionality to cross-post important discussions held on other platforms.
Code of Conduct
While embracing inclusivity for all governance participants, the space should have basic rules to ensure productive and respectful discussion. This may be improved over time as required. These rules will apply to all participants equally, including founding entities.
We suggest adopting the Cardano Community Code of Conduct to govern conduct in the space, with the following additions to address specific needs of this initiative:
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Engagement should be data-driven and not appeal to authority or other empty rhetoric.
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Participants should recognize each other’s legitimacy in the Cardano ecosystem.
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Participants, especially DReps and proposal authors, shall declare any affiliations, financial or personal conflicts of interest related to the governance actions or proposals under discussion.
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Promotional activities and lobbying must be conducted transparently, constructively, and must not escalate into spamming (e.g., excessive cross-posting) or the harassment of individuals.
The Cardano Community Code of Conduct prohibits harassment, unlawful, hateful, sexual, or obscene content and sets out the basis for constructive conduct between participants.
Governance of the Space
The space should be moderated to ensure constructive dialog, avoid bias, and ensure the code of conduct is observed. Our preference would be for a group of community moderators to ensure the rules of the space are observed, without censoring content. Moderators could also assist with refining this concept. Alternatively, a commercial third party moderation provider could be contracted.
The Tooling Debate
First, we must recognize that we are not starting the tooling debate from scratch. The Cardano community has already done some incredible work building discussion spaces, governance platforms, and MBO infrastructure. A number of these are referenced in IOG’s latest State of Cardano Governance Report. There are also obvious candidates in existing commercial chat platforms, including:
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Discord
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Matrix
Notable examples of existing community tooling and channels that could be built upon or expanded to fit the proposal outlined above include:
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Intersect Platforms: Hydra Voting and Intersect Discord
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Community-Led Platforms: CGOV, Tempo.vote, and DRep Collective.
As mentioned, any choice will come with trade-offs. We therefore believe the tooling choice should be subject to an on-chain DRep vote before anything is deployed or built. In any event, any discussion space only makes sense with a minimal viable DRep buy-in. With change comes challenges and we look forward to working with the community as together we move towards the next phase of Cardano Governance.
Where to go from here?
Please share your thoughts below (or on X, we will crosspost). The success of Cardano governance relies on the active, collaborative design of the very spaces where that governance takes place.
We acknowledge that further challenges concern the possible reform in the role of MBOs and improving the enforcement of treasury withdrawal commitments, to name but a few. See IOG’s latest State of Cardano Governance report (June 2026) for more on this. We are working on suggestions for these that will be published at a later date. ↩︎