Cardano Community Allocates 96 Million ADA to Developers

The IOG team has secured approval for funding amounting to 96 million ADA (approximately $70.6 million at the time of writing) from the Cardano treasury. The funds are earmarked for network development over the next 12 months.

The Cardano community just made history.

For the first time ever, core development funding has been directly approved by the community — ushering in a new era of decentralized governance.

Thank you all for your support. This is more than a vote of confidence, it’s a shared…

— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) August 2, 2025

The developers’ proposal was supported by 74% of voting participants. Two hundred individuals voted in favor, six opposed, and seven abstained.

The development plan spans a year and includes enhancements in scalability, network interaction, and developer experience. Key projects are the Hydra fast transaction protocol and the Project Acropolis modular node architecture.

IOG also plans to reduce memory usage for staking pools and lay the groundwork for more complex smart contracts.

The decision has sparked concern within the community. Some participants expressed doubts about the cost of the work, transparency in fund allocation, and accountability. Some users suggested breaking the plan into smaller tasks with separate budget votes for each.

Payments will be made in stages as goals are achieved. The organization Intersect will act as an independent administrator. Smart contracts and a special committee will also be employed for oversight.

IOG is required to publish monthly reports, engineers’ timesheets, and quarterly budget summaries.

Earlier, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson proposed allocating $100 million in ADA tokens from the project’s reserves to purchase Bitcoin and stablecoins. Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko called the idea “nonsense.”