Cardano Communities Approve $71M Treasuries for Network Upgrades

Cardano governance has authorized a 96 million ADA treasury allocation, equivalent to approximately $71 million, to finance a 12-month program of network enhancements. Under the proposal, Input Output Global (IOG) will receive milestone-based disbursements managed by Intersect, an independent Cardano member-based administrator. Smart contracts will enforce payment releases, while IOG commits to publishing monthly engineering timesheets and quarterly budget breakdowns. Key initiatives under the plan include implementation of Hydra, a layer-2 scaling protocol designed for fast, low-cost transactions, and Project Acropolis, which will modularize the Cardano node to enable flexible onboarding of new developers and improved maintenance workflows. Network metrics currently indicate an average transaction time of 20 seconds and a fee of 0.34 ADA per transaction. Additional objectives include optimization of node resource usage, particularly RAM reductions to lower operational costs for stake pool operators, and development of technical foundations for advanced smart contract capabilities. Community feedback raised concerns regarding total costs and transparency, with calls for segmented voting on individual milestones. Intersect’s board member Adam Rusch emphasized that community discretion remains paramount in future governance actions. The upgrade effort aligns with broader ecosystem improvements observed across major blockchains, such as Solana’s 20% block capacity increase and Ethereum’s Pectra hard fork, which added data blobs per block and increased validator staking limits. The next scheduled Ethereum upgrade, Fusaka, aims to further enhance network throughput by year-end.