Innovation Budget
Here you can find all the details about the proposed Innovation 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
Membership and Community Committee members
This proposal was defined by the Membership and Community committee via community consultation
Chair: Nori Nishigaya
Co-Chair: Darlington Wleh
Secretary: Terence McCutcheon
Voting Member: Katarina Ciric
Voting Member: Yuki Oishi(Yuta)
Voting Member: Ben Hart
Voting Member: Matthew Capps
Voting Member: Ha Nguyen
Voting Member: Sheldon Hunt
Voting Member: Sanjaya W
Voting Member: Akheel Fouze
Proposal Summary
The proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal period will encompass all funding requests made by the Members and Community Committee (MCC). The main goal of the innovation budget is to enhance community engagement by organizing events, forums and online platforms, all facilitated by Intersect. It encourages collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and meaningful contributions whilst ensuring members feel connected and valued. The MCC oversees Intersect’s Membership; In turn, the MCC manages the tiered membership levels with tailored benefits and participation opportunities. This promotes inclusivity and aligning engagement with members’ interests. Additionally, the MCC manages the Community Incentive Program. The goal of the program is to recognize and motivate valuable community contributions; This is to drive and strengthen active Cardano community participation whilst fostering innovation.
The proposed Innovation Budget is 77,526,800 ada. This is to be managed by two Treasury withdrawal actions using smart contract:
June 2025: ₳ 75,500,000 - Catalyst (includes 3, 20m ada funds and costs associated)
June 2025: ₳ 2,026,800 - MCC
Abstract
The MCC of Intersect is proposing to break down the innovation budget for the following four sub buckets:
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Community Hubs: To build and expand the Cardano Community Hubs
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Expand existing and establish new community hubs to broaden access.
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Gather input from the community to help prioritize new product and feature requests to drive ecosystem innovation.
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Facilitate ecosystem input through the quarterly budget and priorities review cycle.
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Education Programs: The goal is to educate the community for greater agency and participation.
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Launch Intersect membership education programs to ensure members understand the opportunities that membership confers.
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Create educational internships and an accessible membership tier.
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Provide educational materials to help the community learn and have more agency and increase participation
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Creative Commons licensed Cardano Educational materials
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Membership Services: The goal is to grow and support the Intersect Membership
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Host annual member meetings and town halls to foster collaboration.
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Run Town Halls in multiple timezones and languages
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Drive membership campaigns to grow the Cardano community.
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Helping facilitate quarterly budget review cycles
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Catalyst: Community Grants, supporting the Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem innovation.
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Support ecosystem innovation through Project Catalyst
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Experiment with a retroactive funding model to support impactful projects
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Facilitate community grants and support builders through direct funding and mentorship.
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Continue to upgrade the technical infrastructure and voting stack to empower Cardano communities with new open source capabilities
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Motivation
The MCC goals align with Cardano’s strategic objectives for decentralization, innovation, and adoption. By focusing on education, outreach, and builder support, the initiative contributes directly to ecosystem sustainability and community growth. Moreover, it ensures Intersect’s goals are closely integrated with the community’s needs, fostering a culture of collaboration and trust.
The MCC have identified how the investment in each of the sub-buckets can produce the value into Cardano’s community and ecosystem. The motivation stems from historical success from things such as Community Hubs.
The MCC goals and core motivators are:
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Intersect membership education programs
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Regional community hubs expansion
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Workshops, hackathons, and meetups
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Community grants and builder support framework
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2nd Annual members meeting(s)
Catalyst’s goals and core motivators are:
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Run 3 Project Catalyst funding rounds in 2025
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Launch new Retroactive Funding experiment
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Deliver on improved tooling, voting and engagement methods
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The number of initiatives funded through the MCC grants program, and the number of community members involved in the quarterly ecosystem budget review.
Rationale
Community Hubs sub-bucket
The proposed budget for the Community Hubs sub-bucket is 3,226,667 ada.
See: Community hubs | Intersect - Knowledge Base
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Associates and Individual and Enterprise memberships increased
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The volume of events and engagements delivered
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Feedback and surveys conducted to capture member wants and needs
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Support and delivery of events on behalf of Intersect around the globe
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Hubs around the world conduct town halls etc. and have the capacity to serve multiple time zones.
Education Programs sub-bucket
The proposed budget for the Community Hubs sub-bucket is 1,116,667 ada.
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The volume of people (Associates, Members and non-members) that use the created educational content.
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The volume of content delivery based on open source materials created by the community to increase community agency and participation
Membership Services sub-bucket
The proposed budget for the Community Hubs sub-bucket is 1,109,333 ada.
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Membership numbers
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Voting engagement
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Ensuring that qualified members represent each committee
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Town Hall community engagement
Catalyst sub-bucket
The proposed budget for the Community Hubs sub-bucket is 75,500,000 ada.
Video presentation of Catalyst Team’s Cardano Budget Proposal Presentation Slides
Catalyst 2025 Catalyst Team’s Cardano Budget Proposal Presentation slides
Catalyst 2025 goals are to continue driving significant innovation and impact in the Cardano ecosystem through a comprehensive approach to funding, governance, and infrastructure development. The proposed initiatives offer objectives that will foster ecosystem growth, enhance community participation through transformative technical advances that empower and include Cardano token communities to be able to participate in distributed decision making, incentive-driven building, while continuing to ensure efficient fund allocation for the core Cardano startup ecosystem.
Funding Impact and Innovation Support
The allocation of ₳60M across three funding rounds (Fund 14, 15, and 16) is expected to support 500-700 new Cardano projects in 2025. This substantial investment aims to yield tangible results:
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30-40% of allocated funds (₳24-₳30M) are projected to result in real-world adoption or industrial use-case partnerships.
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Funding will be strategically distributed across four key areas: early-stage R&D, later-stage product development, grassroots ecosystem initiatives, and open-source software development.
The introduction of a Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) model, with ₳5M allocated, will incentivize high-quality contributions by rewarding completed, high-impact work. This approach ensures that valuable public goods such as open-source software, developer tools, and educational content receive appropriate recognition and provides abilities to address underrepresented regional support.
Infrastructure and Technical Advancements
Catalyst 2025 Technical Upgrades and Fund Roadmap
Four key technical milestones will enhance Catalyst’s infrastructure:
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CAT1: Catalyst Native Mobile App is expected to increase participation by 30-50% by improving accessibility for mobile-first users.
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CAT2: CNT Ecosystem Support will enable decentralized funding campaigns for Cardano Native Tokens, enhancing their utility for governance and ecosystem growth, empowered to launch new co-funding initiatives.
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CAT3: Hardening Hermes will decentralize and enhance voting security, reducing governance manipulation risks.
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CAT4: Alternative Voting Mechanisms will introduce Quadratic Voting and Time-Weighted Stake models, improving project success rates by fostering better-informed voter decisions, reducing the risk of fund misallocation in each funding round.
Governance and Participation Enhancement
Project Catalyst aims to significantly improve governance and community participation:
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Voter participation is expected to grow from 7,000+ to 10,000+ wallets, increasing the legitimacy of governance decisions by improving UX
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The implementation of Decentralized Representatives (DReps), Quadratic Voting (QV), and Time-Weighted Stake models will lead to more representative decision-making, reducing potential whale dominance.
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Each funding round is projected to see 300,000-400,000 votes cast, reflecting up to 30% growth in fund-on-fund participation.
Community Empowerment and Regional Support
The allocation of 500,000 ada for community hubs through the Intersect RFP process will create funding opportunities tailored to regional and emergent needs. This initiative will empower underrepresented communities and foster localized innovation. The Membership and Community Committee will collaborate with the community and Catalyst Team to define and implement scope and strategy through Catalyst.
Operational Efficiency and Infrastructure Upgrades
The ₳10M allocated for operating expenses is strategically distributed to ensure efficient fund operations and technical development. This budget supports a team of 32 full-time employees (FTEs) and additional subcontractors, divided into two main groups:
Fund Operations Team (12 FTEs)
Estimated budget allocation: ₳3.3M
This team is responsible for the overall management and execution of Catalyst funds. Their roles include:
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Leadership and Management
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Fund Administration Operators
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Product Owners
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Community Managers
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Communications
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ProjectCatalyst.io maintenance
Technical Team (20 FTEs + Subcontractors)
Estimated budget allocation: ₳6.7M
This larger team focuses on the technical aspects of Catalyst, including development, design, and quality assurance. The team comprises:
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Architecture and Engineering Leads
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Product Managers
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Rust and Flutter Engineering
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UX Product Designers
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QA Testers and Engineers
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Full-stack Developers
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Site Reliability Engineers
This technical team allocation includes funds for subcontractors who provide specialized skills or additional capacity as needed.
The budget distribution reflects the complex and multifaceted nature of Catalyst operations, ensuring comprehensive coverage of all aspects from fund management to technical infrastructure. This allocation aims to maximize efficiency in delivering the milestones and activities outlined for each Catalyst fund cycle, including parameter setting, campaign launches, proposal submissions, community review, voting processes, regulatory compliance, project onboarding, accountability, funding distribution, and technical upgrades.
2025 Funding Rounds.
The proposal comprises three rounds of community funds of 20m ada each. The funds are focused on supporting community-decided open innovation opportunities, centred around four core workstreams, categorised as:
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Cardano Concepts: supporting early stage use-case application development and demonstration from proof of concept (POC) to minimum viable product (MVP)
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Cardano Partners & Products: supporting later stage market-ready products and use-case implementation for single applicants or in collaboration with industry leading partners to deliver real world pilot-trials
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Cardano Open: Developers: Focused on supporting Cardano’s open source developer ecosystem efforts. Intended for the scope of this category to be set in consultation with the Open Source Committee.
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Cardano Open: Ecosystem: Focused on non-technical proposals for grassroots Cardano regional growth and community-building projects. Intended for the scope of this category to be set in consultation with the Membership and Community Committee and relevant working group participants.
New funding initiatives:
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5m allocated for Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) RetroPGF is a mechanism used in other ecosystems to reward and fund impactful work after it has been completed, rather than providing funding upfront. This approach incentivizes individuals and teams to create high-quality public goods by ensuring they will be rewarded based on the value their contributions generate. Public goods that provide significant value, such as open-source software, developer tools, and educational content, are key candidates. RetroPGF occurs in structured funding rounds, each round targets specific types of contributions, such as ecosystem tools or educational initiatives. RetroPGF fills a gap for Cardano whereby builders are rewarded post-fact, even if they weren’t approved to deliver the project via the general Catalyst funding streams in Cardano Use Case and Cardano Open categories. Additionally RetroPGF could become regionally focused, whereby portions of the funding allocation can be ringfenced for projects centred on and/or originating from specific regions. RetroPGF will mark an exciting evolution and extension to the kinds of programs Catalyst can facilitate on behalf of and for the betterment of the Cardano community.
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Cardano Committee RFPs Catalyst can also enhance the operations of Cardano committees by offering a comprehensive suite of tools to streamline and professionalize their workflows. By providing a structured framework for setting the scope of requirements and administering contracts, Catalyst enables committees to define clear objectives and align resources effectively. Facilitating with tools for drafting and distributing Requests for Proposals (RFPs) or Invitations to Tender (ITTs) the collection of responses, ensuring that all submissions meet predefined criteria. This allows committees to efficiently evaluate proposals while maintaining transparency and accountability. Additionally, by incorporating mechanisms for Expression of Interest (EOI) submissions and whitelist-based filtering, Project Catalyst ensures that only qualified entrants move forward, reducing administrative overhead and improving the quality of submissions. Beyond managing incoming proposals, Catalyst offers to support committees in automating the allocation of proposals to Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for thorough evaluation. This ensures a fair and consistent assessment process, where solutions align with the defined objectives. Furthermore, Catalyst can streamline the administration of milestone-based Statements of Work (SOWs), ensuring that deliverables are tracked and tied to project outcomes. The Catalyst platform’s tooling enables committees to monitor progress and enforce accountability at every stage, from generating solutions to implementing them. By integrating these capabilities, Catalyst provides Cardano committees with an end-to-end solution for managing complex projects, fostering efficiency, and driving impactful outcomes.
Fund Operations services and Catalyst platform R&D
The Catalyst team proposes to continue its involvement as the Catalyst Fund Operations service provider for the Cardano community and provide baseline infrastructure including operating services for proposal submission, community review, privacy preserving voting, cohort management, and funding administration.
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Coordinate, launch, and fully execute the next three Catalyst funding round campaigns at a level of 20m ada per fund
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Maintain all existing Catalyst voting system infrastructure and tools so they are readily available for use during each funding round.
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Coordinate and manage the milestone-based funding and proof-of-achievement accountability model to onboard newly approved projects and oversee the ongoing funding disbursement requirements for all pre-existing, active projects from Fund2-Fund13 and all newly approved projects (Fund14-Fund16)
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Extend the capabilities of Catalyst user experience and underlying infrastructure (CAT1-4)
CAT1: Catalyst Native Mobile App
This will deliver an open source native-mobile version of the proposal, commenting, and voting experience for community users in Fund16, that leverages existing UX design system and Flutter for its cross-platform portability.
Outcome: unlock the full end-to-end Catalyst experience for mobile-only community members to reduce barriers to entry and boost adoption (especially in emerging markets with low rates of desktop ownership).
Features:
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Mobile Wallet Connect Research: understand existing solutions and challenges to determine best approach
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Mobile Design Research: test and validate approaches to translating desktop UX to mobile
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iOS / Android SDKs: implement enabling SDKs for mobile wallet connect and other platform-specific needs
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Deployment Pipeline: enable seamless native app deployment, without reliance on other teams
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Account Restoration: allow a user to easily restore an existing account to a new device
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Teams, Proposals, Comments: allow a user to create proposals, alone or with a team, and comment on them
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Voting, Dreps, Delegation: allow a user delegate voting power, and vote on behalf of themselves or others
CAT2: Alternative Voting Mechanisms:
Implement research for Quadratic Voting + Time weighted stake, and provide a choice of mechanism configurable by campaign administrators
CAT3: CNT Ecosystem support:
This will deliver Cardano Native Token (CNT) communities support to administer funding using the Catalyst suite of community decision-making tools,
Features:
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Cardano Native Token Support: index Cardano holdings and make them available to Catalyst tools
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Campaign Admin, Setup Native Brand, Build Forms: external admin can launch and operate campaign
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Discover, Subscribe, and Interact w/ Brands: allow user to find and participate in many programs
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Legacy Integrations & Deployments: upgrade legacy tools and integrations to support concurrent programs
CAT4: Hardening Hermes:
Hermes is the underlying infrastructure for decentralising UX, enabling high-availability of an application engine that provides distributed storage and event processing for voting events, proposals, and role-based actions in a responsive user interface. This initiative will extend the MVP capabilities developed to date and get Hermes into a redistributable, production ready state for delivering fully decentralised voting.
Budget Details
Requested budget: ₳ 77,526,800
The detailed spreadsheet can be found here
