The first day of the Cardano: Las Vegas Governance Workshops 2025, hosted by IOG, centered on identifying and defining the most critical challenges facing Cardano’s governance model. Participants, including a significant number of DReps, CC members, and representatives of companies building on Cardano, engaged in collaborative sessions to brainstorm issues and formulate concrete problem statements.
Workshop Structure
Participants were organized into roughly 13 groups to discuss various topics related to Cardano governance. The day’s activities followed a structured process:
- Individual Brainstorming: Each person first identified what they saw as the biggest governance challenges.
- Group Discussion: These individual ideas were then discussed within the small groups.
- Problem Statement Formulation: Each group’s goal was to synthesize their discussion into one or two core problem statements to present to the entire workshop.
Key Themes & Problem Statements
Several major themes consistently emerged from the discussions across the different groups.
1. Lack of Strategic Direction & KPIs
A recurring point was the absence of a clear, unified “North Star” or strategic vision for the Cardano ecosystem.
- There is a strong desire to establish clear ecosystem-wide Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) .
- This would allow the community to measure progress effectively and ensure that governance decisions are aligned with a shared mission.
2. Communication & Information Asymmetry
A primary concern is the lack of effective communication channels for governance-related discussions. Key points included:
- Fragmented Discussions: Critical conversations are scattered across various platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and forums, making it difficult for DReps to get a complete picture.
- Information Gaps: This fragmentation creates an “information asymmetry,” where some DReps may have access to more complete or even private information, leading to an uneven playing field and potentially impacting the quality of decision-making.
3. Need for an “Executive Function” & Clear Roles
Flowing from the need for a clearer strategy was a call to establish a more defined “executive function.”
- This concept focuses on creating clear roles and responsibilities for different entities within the ecosystem.
- The goal is to have a transparent mechanism for delegating authority and, just as importantly, for ensuring clear accountability.
4. The Budget Process
The current two-step process for funding (a “budget” action followed by a “treasury withdrawal”) sparked considerable debate.
- Argument for Streamlining: Many participants view the current system as an unnecessary administrative burden. A proposed solution was to embed budget details directly into the treasury withdrawal’s metadata, creating a single, more efficient on-chain action. Proponents noted that the treasury withdrawal already has a higher approval threshold (67%) than the budget action (>50%).
- Argument for the Current Process: Conversely, some argued that the two-step process is a crucial feature, not a bug. It provides the community with essential time to properly evaluate proposals before funds are allocated and should not be compromised for the sake of convenience.
Core Consensus & Day 1 Conclusion
There was a broad consensus among participants that Cardano’s on-chain governance framework is fundamentally solid and flexible . The most pressing issues are not with the on-chain technology itself, but with the off-chain processes , including communication, strategic alignment, and the definition of roles and responsibilities.
The day concluded with a sense that these processes can be significantly improved without needing to completely overhaul the existing foundation. The need for clearer standards was emphasized. The discussions were noted as being highly civil and productive.
Next Up: Day 2 of the workshop will focus specifically on the Cardano budget process .