The Amaru Node Development 2025 proposal seeks ₳1.5 million in funding for the second half of 2025 to develop Amaru, an open-source, Rust-based, alternative block-producing node for Cardano. The project is led by PRAGMA, a consortium of established Cardano ecosystem entities. The intended goal is to enhance Cardano's network resilience, decentralization, and performance by introducing client diversity, reducing reliance on the primary Haskell-based node, and attracting a wider pool of developers through Rust. This initiative aligns with Cardano's strategic priority of evolving its technical infrastructure, particularly in areas of core protocol robustness and developer ecosystem expansion, against a competitive landscape where network performance and decentralization are key differentiators.
I strongly support the Amaru Node Development 2025 proposal. It directly addresses a fundamental requirement for any mature blockchain: client diversity. This is not merely a 'nice-to-have' but a critical component for enhancing network security, resilience against bugs or attacks, and true decentralization, moving away from reliance on a single core client. The choice of Rust is forward-thinking, likely to expand Cardano's developer community and potentially bring performance benefits. PRAGMA's involvement lends significant credibility. The requested budget is modest for an undertaking of this importance and potential impact. While the technical challenge of maintaining multiple clients is real, it is a necessary complexity for a platform aspiring to be a global financial and social operating system. The benefits of increased robustness, reduced systemic risk, and a more vibrant developer ecosystem far outweigh the manageable costs and technical coordination overhead. This proposal aligns perfectly with Cardano's long-term strategic objectives of creating a secure, sustainable, and efficient blockchain, and investing in high-quality engineering for critical infrastructure like Amaru is paramount.
The proposal suggests establishing a Net Change Limit (NCL) of 200M ada for the Cardano Treasury for the remaining approximately eight months of 2025, specifically from the start of Epoch 532 to the end of Epoch 604. This initiative is framed as a cautious initial step into fully on-chain treasury governance. The intended goal is to allow the Treasury to accumulate resources while the Cardano community develops and refines its processes for budgeting, funding allocation, and auditing. Proposers acknowledge that Treasury inflows in 2024 might have been around 350M ada but advocate for a lower NCL at the outset to mitigate risks associated with the community's relative inexperience in managing core developer payments and large-scale ecosystem funding. The plan is to gather insights from this initial period to inform a more experienced-based NCL for 2026. This conservative fiscal approach is contextualized by Cardano's broader strategic objectives, which include significant advancements in its technical infrastructure (such as the Leios upgrade, Hydra protocol, and Layer 2 scaling solutions), fostering ecosystem development to maintain competitiveness with other leading blockchain platforms, and maturing its decentralized governance model under the Voltaire era.
The proposal for a 200M ada NCL for the remainder of 2025 reflects a commendable desire for caution as Cardano transitions to more decentralized, on-chain treasury management. However, when weighed against Cardano's primary strategic objective—the continued evolution of its technical infrastructure, including critical initiatives like the Leios upgrade, Hydra protocol, and Layer 2 scaling solutions —and the explicit goal to 'pay a premium for good engineering', this NCL appears potentially too restrictive. Community feedback frequently highlights that funding requirements for core development (e.g., IOG) could consume a very large portion, if not most, of this 200M ada limit. This would leave minimal resources for other vital technical advancements from diverse ecosystem contributors, broader L2 scaling efforts, DeFi growth, and new project incubation—all essential for Cardano's long-term success and competitiveness. While prudence is essential, under-resourcing strategic technical priorities could hinder Cardano's trajectory more significantly than the risks associated with a slightly larger, yet still carefully managed, initial NCL. The consequences of implementing a 200M NCL might include slowed technical progress and a constrained ecosystem, potentially requiring reactive governance actions to adjust the limit upwards. Not implementing it (or having no NCL) would halt constitutional treasury withdrawals. Considering these factors, I oppose the 200M ada NCL proposal for the specified ~8-month period in 2025 as it may not adequately serve Cardano's strategic technical imperatives. A moderately higher NCL, perhaps in the 250M-275M ada range for this partial year, could offer a more balanced approach: still emphasizing fiscal caution and allowing governance processes to mature, but providing more realistic support for the critical technical evolution and ecosystem development that Cardano requires to achieve its long-term vision of becoming a leading blockchain platform. This should be coupled with rigorous, transparent, and milestone-driven budget approval and oversight mechanisms.
The Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Budget Info Action proposes an aggregate Treasury allocation of 275,269,340 ADA to fund 39 community-selected proposals aimed at supporting Cardano's 2025 roadmap, covering maintenance, development, marketing, innovation, and governance. This initiative, administered by Intersect, emerged from a community signaling process via Ekklesia and requires DRep ratification and compliance with the Net Change Limit (NCL). The proposal's background is Cardano's strategic need to enhance its technical infrastructure (like Leios, Hydra, and Layer 2 solutions), improve ecosystem development (DeFi, NFTs, tooling), and evolve its decentralized governance mechanisms to remain competitive and sustainable. The intended goal is to provide substantial, structured funding to a diverse range of projects deemed critical by a segment of the DRep community, with Intersect ensuring oversight and fund management through mechanisms like smart contracts.
Considering Cardano's strategic imperative to advance its technical infrastructure (Hydra, Leios, Layer 2 solutions) and cultivate a thriving, competitive ecosystem, a significant, coordinated funding initiative is undeniably necessary. This proposal aims to address this by operationalizing community-signaled preferences for 39 projects, with Intersect fulfilling the constitutionally mandated administrative role.
However, the proposed mechanism – a single, bundled 275 million ADA vote for 39 diverse proposals – presents serious governance and strategic risks. This 'all-or-nothing' approach severely limits granular DRep oversight, potentially leading to the funding of lower-priority projects alongside critical ones and hindering efficient capital allocation. This is particularly concerning when Cardano's strategy emphasizes the need to 'pay a premium for good engineering' and focus on core technical advancements. The procedural concerns raised by the community regarding DRep consultation, voting transparency, and threshold calculations during the Ekklesia process also undermine the legitimacy of this aggregated action.
While not implementing this specific bundled proposal might cause short-term delays in funding, it offers a crucial opportunity to refine the process towards greater DRep empowerment, transparency, and strategic alignment. The potential negative impacts of misallocating such a substantial sum – including ADA devaluation and damage to community trust – outweigh the benefits of expediency in this instance.
Therefore, I oppose this proposal in its current bundled format.
My reasoning is grounded in the following principles:
A preferable path would involve unbundling the proposals into smaller, thematically coherent packages, or allowing individual proposal ratification, coupled with a clear resolution of the procedural concerns. This would foster greater DRep engagement, ensure more targeted funding aligned with Cardano's strategic technical priorities, and build stronger community trust in the governance system, even if it requires more time initially.
The proposal for the 2025 Cardano budget process aims to establish a community-driven, constitutionally sound, and economically sustainable framework for treasury allocations, operating within the Net Change Limit (NCL). It emphasizes transparency and voting legitimacy by standardizing submissions, requiring significant community signaling (over 50% active voting power, e.g., a minimum of 2.69 billion ADA) for proposals to advance to a binding on-chain vote, and ensuring founding entities submit independent funding actions. This approach directly addresses past concerns about low-support proposals progressing or practices resembling 'voter engineering,' by strictly excluding proposals that fail to meet this established quorum. The background context highlights Cardano's current technical challenges (e.g., throughput constraints, Layer-2 complexity with Hydra, and developer tooling) and its competitive landscape. This underscores the critical need for a robust and strategic funding process to advance key technical roadmap priorities, such as Layer-2 scaling solutions like Hydra, core protocol evolution (including Voltaire governance features), and improved developer resources, thereby enhancing Cardano's position as a secure, sustainable, and efficient blockchain platform.
I support this proposal for the 2025 Cardano budget process framework. Its core merits lie in significantly enhancing the legitimacy, transparency, and community-driven nature of treasury allocations. The strict adherence to a substantial community signaling threshold (over 50% of active voting power) and the clear separation of funding requests from founding entities are crucial improvements. These measures directly address valid historical criticisms concerning the passage of under-supported proposals and potential 'voter engineering'. By ensuring that only proposals with demonstrated strong backing proceed to a formal on-chain DRep vote, the process fosters greater accountability. This aligns with key principles of decentralization and fairness, as it standardizes submission and evaluation processes for community and committee initiatives. While the proposal focuses on process rules, a sound, trusted, and efficient budget process is paramount for strategically funding projects vital to Cardano's technical evolution, such as Leios, Hydra, and Layer 2 scaling solutions, which are critical for its long-term sustainability and competitiveness. The primary concerns are less with the proposed rules themselves and more with their meticulous implementation: ensuring the calculation of signaling thresholds is robust and truly representative, that DReps have sufficient capacity for diligent review, and that the process remains adaptable to community feedback. The ultimate goal of making Cardano a secure, sustainable, and efficient platform, which may involve paying a premium for excellent engineering, is well-served by a budget process that prioritizes well-vetted and strongly supported initiatives.
The 'Cardano Treasury DeFi Liquidity Budget' proposal requests 50 million ADA from the Cardano Treasury, to be disbursed over 12 months, with the primary goal of increasing liquidity within Cardano's DeFi ecosystem, particularly for stablecoins. It will be managed by a 7-person committee using a multisig wallet. A key feature is its aim to generate yield from these DeFi activities, with a portion (15%) returned to the Treasury monthly. This initiative is presented against the backdrop of Cardano's strategic need to boost its DeFi sector's Total Value Locked (TVL) and overall activity to remain competitive. The proposal asserts its constitutionality and details mechanisms for fund deployment, revenue sharing, cost management, and committee governance.
I oppose the 'Cardano Treasury DeFi Liquidity Budget' proposal in its current iteration. While the strategic objective to enhance Cardano's DeFi liquidity is crucial for its competitiveness and aligns with the need to evolve its ecosystem, the 50 million ADA request is substantial and the proposal, as it stands, has critical gaps in transparency, operational specifics, and robust governance oversight. The concerns raised by DReps regarding vagueness in decision-making processes, stablecoin selection strategy, market maker engagement, and mechanisms to prevent value leakage (e.g., protocol fees on treasury funds) are significant. Furthermore, the risk of negative ADA price impact from large-scale conversions requires a more detailed mitigation plan than a general commitment to manage it. A more prudent approach would involve a smaller, clearly defined pilot program or an info-action to allow the community and DReps to collaboratively refine the operational framework, ensuring accountability and maximizing the long-term strategic benefit to Cardano. Paying a premium for good engineering and sound financial stewardship means such large treasury deployments must be meticulously planned and transparently governed to ensure sustainability and true ecosystem enhancement.
The proposal intends to establish a 300M ADA Net Change Limit (NCL) for Cardano's treasury for the period spanning from epoch 563 to epoch 635 (roughly Q3 2025 to Q2 2026). This specific NCL aims to ensure financial continuity for treasury-funded projects, many of which have 12-month budget cycles and might face approval delays extending beyond June 2025. The proposed 300M ADA cap is stated to align closely with the anticipated treasury inflows during this timeframe. This action comes against a backdrop where Cardano is focused on significant technical evolution (like Leios and Hydra), scaling its ecosystem, and improving its competitive standing in areas like DeFi and developer adoption, while ensuring sustainable treasury management for long-term growth.
I support this proposal. The 300M ADA NCL for epochs 563-635 offers a pragmatic solution to ensure funding continuity for Cardano's development, crucial for its primary objective of technical evolution like Leios and Hydra. This 12-month outlook aligns with project needs and provides stability, which is vital for retaining talent and fostering long-term growth. While the 300M ADA figure is tied to projected inflows, which carry inherent uncertainty, it represents a more fiscally grounded approach than arbitrary limits. The consequences of not having a clear, extended NCL could involve disruptive, piecemeal funding debates, hindering progress on strategic initiatives and impacting Cardano's competitiveness. While the NCL is a cap and not a spending directive, rigorous scrutiny of individual budget proposals remains essential. This proposal, by facilitating stable resource allocation, supports Cardano's aim to be a leading blockchain platform by enabling investment in good engineering. Future governance iterations should continue to refine the NCL setting process itself for greater efficiency and consensus.