Cardano Enters New Era of Decentralized Governance
Cardano has entered a new era of decentralized governance as ADA holders have, for the first time, voted to allocate treasury funds directly to core protocol development.
With approximately 74% of voters in favor, the proposal submitted by Input Output Engineering (IOE) secured overwhelming support. This vote marks a historic milestone for the network, establishing a precedent for community-led funding of foundational upgrades.
The approved roadmap includes several high-impact initiatives aimed at improving scalability, performance, and developer experience. Among them are Ouroboros Leios, a significant upgrade to increase transaction throughput, and Hydra, which is designed to enable faster and more cost-efficient transactions. Enhancements to Mithril will reduce node bootstrap times, while Project Acropolis will introduce a modular node framework, improving maintainability and customization across the network.
Additional engineering efforts will focus on reducing memory consumption, optimizing performance, and enabling nested transactions—a key step toward more sophisticated smart contracts and cross-chain interoperability. These developments signal a deeper technical evolution of Cardano, moving it closer to being a platform capable of supporting enterprise-level decentralized applications.
READ MORE:
Bitcoin Profit Supply Drops to 91%—Swissblock Flags Critical Support Range
The treasury funding will be disbursed in phases based on development milestones, with oversight provided by Intersect. IOE will provide monthly updates, detailed timesheets, and undergo quarterly budget reviews to ensure transparency and accountability. This model also opens doors for external contributors from the broader Cardano Developer Ecosystem Coalition, reinforcing the network’s push toward decentralization.
IOE General Manager Ricky Rand described the result as a “model for decentralized funding at scale,” while Charles Hoskinson praised the community’s active role and emphasized the importance of execution. The vote not only empowers ADA holders to influence the network’s trajectory but also positions Cardano as a potential leader in democratic, on-chain governance within the crypto sector.
Source
Kosta Gushterov
Kosta has been working in the crypto industry for over 4 years. He strives to present different perspectives on a given topic and enjoys the sector for its transparency and dynamism. In his work, he focuses on balanced coverage of events and developments in the crypto space, providing information to his readers from a neutral perspective.
