Cardano Budget 2025 – What Drives Our Budgeting Choice?

Cardano Budget 2025: What Drives Our Budgeting Choice?

According to Article IV, Section 1 of the Cardano Constitution, the primary objective of community budgeting is to ensure the continuous operation, maintenance, and future development of the ecosystem. This mandate carries a dual responsibility: sustaining the present while investing in the future.

While it is crucial to use funds responsibly, the ultimate goal is not to cut costs at all costs—it’s to provide appropriate funding, in a timely manner, to enable the ecosystem’s growth.

We recognise and share the frustrations that have built up throughout the budgeting process. Despite these challenges, the following steps have been completed:

• Proposals were submitted via GovTool for socialisation, received public feedback, and underwent revisions.

• Ekklesia voting allowed over 70% of the stake to participate and cast votes.

• Final curation resulted in 39 proposals, totalling a ₳275M budget.

• The Budget Info Action was supported by the majority of voting power.

We believe the process has been good enough to produce a viable, representative, and balanced funding package. Reviewing the final list, we see a reasonable distribution across:

• operations and innovation

• technical and ecosystem-wide work

• established vendors and newer players

The suggested budget remains within the Net Change Limit (NCL, ₳350M), which was previously approved with 73.35% support.

On top of this, Intersect, acting as Administrator, has introduced strong post-withdrawal safeguards: milestone-based contracts, smart contract-controlled fund releases, independent audits, and stop-payment mechanisms.

We have decided to honour our previous stance on bundling—voting in favour of all Treasury Withdrawal proposals that received 67%+ support in Ekklesia (₳250M) and supporting the remaining proposals selectively, based on the outcomes of the ongoing review sessions.

At this stage, we believe our responsibility is to ensure that these proposals receive funding, delivery can progress, and Cardano continues to advance—avoiding unnecessary stagnation in progress and innovation.