2026 Cardano Budget Process

The Cardano Budget Committee of Intersect have proposed a new and improved process for a Cardano budget season.

How to Participate in Budget Process facilitated by Intersect?

The budget process proposal submission and voting will happen in the Intersect Hydra-Voting Tool built by Intersect's member Ekklesia

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Go to Hydra-Voting Tool

You can access the tool at hydra-voting.intersectmbo.org and check documentation and guide at docs.hydra-voting.intersectmbo.org

Budget Process Info Action - Approved

On 4th April 2026 the Governance Info Action titled "Cardano Budget Process Framework (facilitated by Intersect)" passed DRep approval with super majority

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• If you want to know more about the approved budget process and the info action you can read more here

• Do you have questions about the budget process? Check the FAQs

Why a defined budget process matters

The Cardano treasury represents one of the most significant decentralized funding pools in the industry. It provides the ecosystem with a powerful opportunity to invest in infrastructure, innovation, and long-term network growth.

At the same time, many community discussions over the past year have focused on sustainability, measurable impact, and responsible treasury management. Contributors across the ecosystem have emphasized the importance of ensuring that treasury resources are deployed thoughtfully and in ways that strengthen Cardano’s long-term economic health.

A clear and predictable budgeting process helps address these concerns. It provides structure for evaluating proposals, enables meaningful comparison between initiatives, and supports transparency in how treasury resources are allocated.

The experience of the 2025 cycle demonstrated that decentralized budgeting can work, while also revealing areas where additional clarity and structure would help the ecosystem operate and navigate funding decisions more effectively.

Common challenges from 2025 included:

• Lack of a clearly defined and approved process at the outset

• Proposals submitted in inconsistent formats, with multiple tools.

• Difficulty comparing initiatives objectively

• Heavy review workload for DReps

• Limited linkage between funding requests and ecosystem strategy

• Misalignment between off-chain review and on-chain governance thresholds

The proposed framework for 2026 builds on those lessons and aims to provide greater clarity, comparability, and transparency across the entire budgeting cycle.