Decentralization and scalability
Cardano has spent years building strong technical and governance foundations. The next phase is about finishing the job – delivering performance, security, and capability upgrades for ecosystem growth. IO has reduced its treasury ask by just under 50% from last year, focusing resources where they matter most. These proposals outline how Input Output and its partners can contribute to that effort through a more decentralized, self-sufficient model that strengthens Cardano for the long term.
Cardano is entering a new phase
For years, the ecosystem has focused on building secure infrastructure and governance systems capable of supporting a global decentralized network.
Those foundations now exist. Catalyst has moved to the Cardano Foundation. Intersect houses the Haskell node. Block production and governance are already distributed.
The next challenge is finishing the job – delivering performance, security, and capability upgrades that turn those foundations into real ecosystem activity.
IO has reduced its treasury ask by just under 50% from last year. That reduction is deliberate and directional. Each year, IO aims to ask for significantly less as more of the work moves to specialist partners and the ecosystem becomes less dependent on any single organization.
These proposals represent a focused portfolio of funded initiatives – some led directly by IO, others delivered in collaboration with specialist partners. They are designed to complete critical infrastructure, accelerate ecosystem momentum, and build toward a Cardano that sustains itself. This shift in how the work gets done is the promise of decentralization made real.
IO Q4 2025 – Q1 2026 deliverables
Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 saw meaningful progress across every layer of Cardano's core stack. Hydra reached production readiness, nested transactions hit two key milestones ahead of schedule, Leios moved from research into working prototypes, and Cardano High Assurance introduced new formal verification tooling to builders. Read the full Q4 2025 – Q1 2026 progress report for a detailed breakdown of what shipped and what's coming next.
A shared long-term direction
The Cardano community has already defined its long-term goals through the 2030 Vision.
This vision outlines what the ecosystem aims to achieve over the coming decade: a resilient, decentralized network that supports global financial infrastructure, open innovation, and meaningful economic participation.
The initiatives presented here translate that long-term direction into concrete programs of work designed to unlock growth in the near term. A maturing ecosystem means infrastructure no longer depends on any single organization. Where projects are stable, proven, and ready, IO is working with specialist partners to broaden how these projects are supported and sustained – exactly the kind of decentralized ownership the 2030 Vision describes.
Prioritizing real levers for ecosystem growth
Treasury resources are finite. They must be deployed where they can unlock the greatest ecosystem impact. IO reduced its ask by just under 50% from last year – and every proposal that made the cut had to earn its place against a clear strategic framework.
The 2026 portfolio is organized around three compounding themes:
Moving Cardano from a conservative base layer to a chain that competes on throughput, latency, and cost. Leios targets 10–65x current throughput. Hydra and Midgard bring sub-second finality and sub-cent fees. Plutus optimizations reduce script overhead by approximately 25%.
Every performance gain pairs with assurance work. Formal verification, conformance testing, implementation-independent specifications, and continuous security auditing ensure that speed never comes at the cost of correctness or resilience.
The chain is gaining abilities it has not had before. Babel fees let users pay in stablecoins. Pogun brings Bitcoin DeFi to Cardano. Developer experience collapses onboarding friction for the next generation of builders.
Performance, security, capability. One portfolio, three compounding gains.
IO evaluated 25+ initiatives and made deliberate choices about where community funds will have the greatest impact. Not everything made the cut, and the community deserves to know why. Publishing what was deprioritized, along with the reasoning behind it, is part of IO’s commitment to fiscal responsibility. Treasury resources belong to the Cardano community, and every allocation decision should withstand scrutiny. Transparency about what was not funded is as important as clarity about what was.
The initiatives
Each proposal addresses a specific challenge facing the ecosystem and outlines a program designed to address it.
A six-month program to streamline Cardano’s developer tooling, documentation, and onboarding, targeting a 30%+ improvement in developer growth rate.
Three platform-level enhancements that expand Cardano's economic models and remove onboarding friction: account address upgrades, multi-asset treasury, and Babel Fees.
Delivering sustainable throughput capacity at the consensus layer. Ships Leios.
Delivering production-ready L2 infrastructure through Hydra production hardening, Midgard mainnet launch, and shared L2-agnostic primitives, in partnership with Input Output and Midgard Labs.
Delivering automated formal verification and a unified developer toolkit for secure, verifiable smart contract development on Cardano.
Core platform maintenance, support, and operational infrastructure for the Cardano network.
Making Cardano's smart-contract platform easier to build on, cheaper to run, and more rigorously verified. Delivered as a co-venture between Input Output and VacuumLabs.
Decentralized data infrastructure that scales with Cardano.
The end-to-end Bitcoin DeFi solution for Cardano.
The people building Cardano's future
