We’re grateful and honored that the Cardano community has voted in support of the Input | Output Engineering (IOE) funding proposal as part of the Cardano Vision & Roadmap. On behalf of the entire team, thank you for your confidence in our work and in the shared future we’re building together.
Your vote represents more than just funding approval. It’s a signal that the community believes in the roadmap, its delivery, and our continued contributions. We take this responsibility incredibly seriously. As part of the team directly responsible for overseeing delivery and reporting, I want to offer a clear picture of how we’ll ensure that trust is well placed.
A strategic commitment for Cardano’s future
This funding directly supports the delivery of the roadmap outlined and approved by the community earlier this year, marking one of the most ambitious periods of protocol advancement in Cardano’s history. From performance gains to unlocking entirely new capabilities, these upgrades lay the technical foundation for the next wave of ecosystem growth.
Some key deliverables from the roadmap include:
- Leios: a groundbreaking upgrade for Cardano that will bring significant improvements to throughput, without compromising its security or decentralization.
- Mithril enhancements: faster bootstrap times and broader use case support for clients.
- Hydra: a streamlined protocol optimized for low-latency, lower cost microtransactions which offers virtually unlimited scaling potential while benefiting from Layer 1 security.
- Nested transactions: foundations for advanced smart contract functionality and future-proofing interoperability.
- Project Acropolis: a modular reimagining of the Cardano node architecture. Lowers the barrier to entry for new core developers, opens up new opportunities for scalability while preserving Cardano's security guarantees.
- Performance optimizations: improved sync times, reduced RAM usage, and lower operating costs for SPOs.
Together, these and other upgrades help position Cardano to scale sustainably while enabling builders and users to do more with less friction. Read the full roadmap overview.
Baked-in accountability & oversight
We understand and are committed to the importance of transparency and accountability when it comes to treasury funding. That’s why milestone-based oversight is baked into the proposal. Each project is broken down into clearly itemized costs, with specific milestones tied to payments. In practice, this means IOE only receives funding for a project once a defined milestone is delivered. Here is an example of milestones against which payments will be released:
To ensure community accountability, IOE has named Intersect as administrator, which has built out a robust oversight process. In addition, Intersect is in the process of building out a dashboard Milestone performance is continually subject to their ongoing review. This ensures that funds are disbursed based on delivery, not intention. All managed within a smart contract framework, overseen by a dedicated oversight committee.
Strengthening transparency and reporting
Over the past year, IOE has worked closely with Intersect to improve the quality and accessibility of reporting, steadily evolving how we keep the community informed on progress - Leios is one good example, with its monthly demos and weekly updates. Starting this funding cycle, we are implementing several important practices to ensure the community can follow our progress closely:
- Monthly IOE video updates that explain the current status of each project so you don’t have to wait for milestone completions to stay informed.
- Monthly engineering timesheets to track how much effort is spent on each project. This allows us to measure delivery efficiency and identify any excess in the estimated budget.
- Audit and maintenance cost tracking using specific budget codes, enabling us to differentiate between internal IOE effort and external vendor spend (eg AWS or security audits). Any unspent allocation on maintenance and audit will be returned to the treasury, as committed.
Enabling others to step forward
We’ll also publish quarterly updates showing the number of engineering days per project and how the budget is distributed between IOE and external vendors/collaborators.
Because a key part of our strategy is supporting wider participation across the ecosystem, in parallel to our own delivery work, we’ll be onboarding vendors - many of whom are participants in CDEC - to build capacity and domain expertise. Over time, we hope many of these contributors will evolve into independent proposers in future funding rounds - strengthening decentralization and resilience across Cardano.
Looking ahead, together
We’re aware that this journey hasn’t always been smooth. Legitimate concerns have been raised throughout the process, and we have acknowledged them. That said, the progress the ecosystem has made in a relatively short time - across proposal quality, governance processes, and accountability structures - shouldn’t be underestimated. While we will continue refining governance and funding processes as a community, it’s vital we don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Momentum matters.
Securing this budget is a strategic step forward and a significant commitment in the future of our ecosystem. This is Cardano’s first major core development protocol budget passed under community governance. It’s a milestone moment that marks the beginning of a new era of decentralized delivery at scale. We’re committed to transparency, delivering with integrity, and doing our part in advancing Cardano’s long-term vision.
Thank you once again for your continued belief in our shared mission.
