The Cardano Foundation, together with EMURGO, has submitted a treasury withdrawal proposal requesting 14,076,539 ada (approximately USD 3,659,900) to fund a dual-event strategy in Singapore from October 5-8, 2026: the Cardano Summit 2026 and a Premier Title Sponsorship at TOKEN2049.
This FAQ addresses the most commonly raised questions and community feedback regarding the proposal’s budget, strategic rationale, accountability, and governance structure.
1. Why has the Cardano Summit budget increased from the USD 1.2M projected last year to approximately USD 2.8M (before ticket sales and sponsor deduction). What changed?
In 2025 we assumed a USD 1.2M budget for the Cardano Summit 2026 supplemented by the previous year’s revenue. This informed our decision to continue to operate with a similar scope and in a similar market environment to Berlin.
After much deliberation and in light of several positive ecosystem developments, we decided that a more ambitious strategy combined with a Token2049 presence made sense in a bear market, the message: No matter the circumstances, Cardano is open for business.
This led us to a USD 2.5M request from the Treasury for a total Cardano Summit budget of USD 2.813M after the deduction of 2025 ticket sales revenue of USD 313K. We are not including CF costs of organizing.
The following ecosystem developments were drivers of our decision to go bigger:
- The Cardano 2030 strategic vision aligns well with a global event presence for blockchain and finance.
- Integrations such as USDCx and LayerZero interoperability demand institutional visibility for a solid ROI. The same holds for other positive developments such as the conjunction of Cardano and AI agents, the rollout of CIP113 for tokenization, the progress on bitcoin bridging, ETFs, etc.
- Singapore is a global financial center and the location firmly positions Cardano in front of international banks, asset managers, and regulators.
In terms of the budget increase, there are three main factors at play:
- Singapore is a much more expensive location than Berlin. Vendor costs are higher, logistical costs are higher, catering costs are higher, etc.
- Finding sponsors for a Cardano focused event in this market environment will be exceedingly difficult. Based on 2025, we have budgeted for slightly more, but we cannot reasonably assume that sponsorships will increase proportionally to the overall cost.
- Ticket prices are lower overall, particularly for the community (see question 9 below), reflecting the feedback we received last year.
2. Why combine the 2026 Cardano Summit and Token2049?
Scheduling the Summit alongside Token2049 expands access for the Cardano community in Asia and encourages direct engagement with global markets and institutional players. This creates significant synergies and is ultimately what makes the Cardano Summit proposal worthwhile. The institutional and media exposure that TOKEN2049’s 25,000+ audience provides creates the type of reach that the Cardano ecosystem cannot replicate on its own.
Further arguments for a combined event include:
- Access to a massive institutional and developer audience already gathered in Singapore.
- The Title Sponsorship delivers priority booth selection (108 sqm – the second largest at the event), a dedicated mini-stage for Cardano builders, a 15-minute mainstage keynote, 25 tickets, lead-scanning tools, and social media promotion across TOKEN2049’s channels.
- The cancellation of TOKEN2049 2026 in Dubai will increase demand for Singapore.
- Other tier 1 ecosystems host flagship events alongside TOKEN2049.
3. Why Singapore for the 2026 Cardano Summit?
We believe that 2026 marks a crucial period for accelerating Cardano’s adoption. We chose Singapore, a global financial hub, to strategically place Cardano and its ecosystem builders before a massive institutional and enterprise audience focused on blockchain.
We are also excited to bring the Cardano Summit to the APAC region for the first time, spotlighting the work of our local builders and projects in the region for the wider Cardano Community and global ecosystem.
4. What accountability and oversight mechanisms are in place for the funds?
This proposal includes layers of accountability that go beyond previous treasury withdrawals:
- Smart contract administration: Funds are administered via open-source, audited Sundae Labs treasury contracts. After withdrawal, ada is immediately split between CF and EMURGO with pre-configured milestone-based payment schedules.
- DQuadrant, Intersect, NMKR, and Sundae Labs serve as the Oversight Committee with authority to pause, resume, or modify milestones.
- Each vendor contract has two milestones: a kickoff payment and a final payment released only after proof of event delivery and an updated budget report.
- Public dashboard: treasurywithdrawals.cardanofoundation.org - A community-facing dashboard provides real-time visibility on fund flow and KPI tracking.
- The proposal makes provision for independent audits and engaging an auditor (Grand Thornton audited the 2025 Summit).
- The vendor contracts are not delegated to any SPO or DRep, as required by the Cardano Constitution (Article II, Section 7).
5. What happens to unused funds or if ada appreciates?
The proposal includes provisions for the repayment of funds to the Treasury
- If the events are cancelled before vendor payments are due, the balance (after deducting costs already incurred) will be returned to the Treasury.
- If events are executed successfully but total expenses fall below the requested amount, unspent ada will be returned to the Treasury within six months.
- If the ada price appreciates between proposal submission and event execution — and the appreciation is not offset by necessary event expenses — the upside will be returned to the Treasury within six months.
- Revenue generated from the 2026 Summit (target: USD 450,000) will be ring-fenced for 2027 event planning.
6. Where can I read the results of the Summit 2025 and its related regional tech events?
The results are all linked to the proposal and were published last March, we are linking the blog here again for your review.
7. What is the Cardano Foundation’s interest in this?
The Cardano Foundation’s goal is advancing the adoption of blockchain across industries. Since the broader remit of the 2025 Summit was introduced, incorporating industry leaders and blockchain pioneers on stage debating important cross industry topics - Cardano has enjoyed:
- Increased opportunities for showcasing projects to enterprises, governments and analysts, resulting in new or continued collaborations in multiple countries across web3, finance, pharma, IT, education, food and luxury goods industries, including MembersCap, Draper University, The European Commission, German Parliament, Hamburger Volksbank and more.
- An elevated profile as a result of broader media engagement opportunities across mainstream media such as the WSJ, Bloomberg, Fintech TV, Forbes and CNBC and Crypto Media including Cointelegraph, CoinDesk, BTC Echo and more.
Therefore CF’s interest is strategic: a successful Summit strengthens the Cardano ecosystem, which is CF’s core mission.
8. What are the specific KPIs the community can hold CF and EMURGO accountable to?
Key Performance Indicators are benchmarks against which the Community can measure the success of the proposal, and are the targets which we are working to achieve.
The proposal includes detailed KPIs across multiple categories (see Section 7). Key targets include:
- Summit: 1,200 total attendees; 700 senior executives and decision-makers; 250 enterprise marketing qualified leads; 50 strategic meeting bookings (45-day post-event); 700 earned media pieces; 1 billion+ digital reach; 2,000 new Cardano subscribers.
- TOKEN 2049: 1,440 contacts engaged at the booth; 15 new strategic collaborations; 8 expert panels or keynote speaker opportunities; 200 Cardano wallet sign-ups; 200 Cardano Academy subscribers.
- Hackathon: 200 developer participants; 30 submissions/apps produced.
- Governance: 6 governance sessions; 10 builders in Battle of the Builders.
These KPIs will be tracked on the public dashboard and reported against post-event. The 2025 Summit set a precedent by publishing full KPI results publicly HERE.
9. Will Cardano Foundation charge for tickets and accept sponsorships?
Yes, tickets will be charged but at a lower per ticket price ranging from $30 (ecosystem day) and $150 to $350. Similar to last year, provision will be made for significant discount offerings ranging from 10% to 50% for community members based on chain activity, and payments in ada. Also early bird discounts will be offered at the launch of the online sale.
We continue to believe that generating commercial revenue through sponsorships, ticket sales, and partnerships must remain the way forward.
10. Why should the Treasury fund the Cardano Summit at all?
With Voltaire and the decentralized ecosystem, the community, DReps, and funding entities are all responsible for advancing Cardano together. 2024 marked the last Summit where funding entities sponsored the flagship event directly. For 2025 a treasury proposal was agreed as being the way to proceed for the ecosystem. Ever since 2024 we have been clear on the fact that CF can not absorb more than the usual operational overhead of the Summit, as is foreseen by this proposal.
We believe that the Summit serves a strategic growth function for the Ecosystem. It provides a primary opportunity for the Cardano ecosystem to showcase Cardano to the wider audience: enterprise decision-makers, governance actors, institutional partners, regulators, and media. This is part of creating demand and increasing trust towards Cardano and its builders.
The institutional relationships and press coverage generated by the Summit directly support ecosystem-wide KPIs around enterprise adoption, TVL growth, and developer onboarding. This is comparable with other Layer 1 protocols and industry practice.
The sustainability of the Summit remains the goal and it is a long term target to be achieved over several years. The revenue model is building: the 2025 Summit generated USD 313K in commercial revenue, and the 2026 target is USD 450K (+50%), even in a bear market. All 2026 revenue will be set aside for 2027 expenditure, the same as in 2025.
11. Is the Cardano Foundation asking its community to fund a corporate marketing event?
The Summit is not a corporate marketing event. It is the primary institutional convention for the Cardano ecosystem. The programme includes governance workshops for DReps, hackathons for developers, enterprise tech talks, regulatory roundtables, and builder showcases. Day 1 is specifically dedicated to the community (Ecosystem Day), and the event as a whole is structured to serve governance, builder, enterprise, and institutional audiences.
12. How does Cardano’s event spending compare to other L1 ecosystems?
Leading L1 ecosystems invest heavily in flagship events and conference sponsorships. Solana has hosted Breakpoint alongside TOKEN2049 in the past; Sui runs SuiFest Singapore; Ethereum hosts a range of conferences. These ecosystems recognise that institutional and developer mindshare is won at premier global events.
The total Treasury ask is comparable to, or below, what competing ecosystems spend on equivalent event strategies.
13. Why is the proposal being submitted outside of the Intersect budget process?
The Intersect budget process projects its first treasury withdrawals to be submitted in late June, with the first funds paid out in late August or September 2026. With both events scheduled for October 2026, an August/September withdrawal timeline was simply not feasible.
14. What happens if the vote does not pass?
If this proposal does not pass, the Cardano Summit 2026 will not happen.
The Foundation will refocus its activities and look to other opportunities for reduced enterprise/institutional activations.