Blockfrost Proposal Would Move Key Cardano Infrastructure Under Community Governance

Blockfrost is seeking 9,832,979 ADA from the Cardano treasury to move its existing infrastructure into community stewardship through an independent nonprofit organization.

The proposal would keep Blockfrost’s public API free across Cardano mainnet, Preview and Preprod while transferring its software, intellectual property, domains and trademarks into a community-governed structure. Input Output would step back from ownership and commercial control, retaining a temporary advisory role without voting power during the transition.

The revised model follows an earlier funding request that combined continued operation of Blockfrost’s free infrastructure with Project Cayley, a decentralized indexing architecture. That proposal did not receive sufficient governance support, leading the Blockfrost team to return with a narrower plan focused on ownership, service continuity and community oversight.

Blockfrost Would Become an Independent Public Good

Blockfrost provides hosted infrastructure that allows developers, wallets and applications to read Cardano blockchain data and submit transactions without operating their own node and indexing stack.

Its REST API can be used to retrieve blocks, transactions, addresses, UTXOs, native assets and staking information. For development teams, this reduces the cost and operational complexity of maintaining a complete blockchain data environment internally.

Under the proposal, a single public API would continue serving Cardano mainnet and both major test environments. The nonprofit organization would not operate a paid tier.

Companies requiring higher limits, contractual service-level agreements or dedicated technical support could obtain those services from independent commercial providers built around the open infrastructure. The proposed model separates the free public access layer from the businesses offering additional services above it.

Blockfrost’s full software stack would remain open source, allowing other developers and infrastructure operators to run, modify, contribute to or fork the system. A community-elected board would direct the project, define its operating model and oversee both the team and the use of treasury funds.

The proposal describes the funding request as a one-time transition rather than an indefinite treasury subsidy. Its longer-term model is expected to rely on commercial providers supporting the public infrastructure while selling higher-level services to institutional and high-volume users.

Cardano Applications Depend on Off-Chain Data Access

Blockfrost’s proposal states that the platform serves approximately 90% of Cardano’s free-tier API traffic. The figure refers to free API access rather than the share of transactions processed by the Cardano network.

Blockfrost does not operate Cardano’s consensus protocol, and the blockchain does not require the service to continue producing blocks. Its role sits between the network and applications that require structured and reliable access to blockchain data.

Wallets can use the infrastructure to retrieve balances, assets and transaction histories. Decentralized applications can use it to locate UTXOs, monitor submitted transactions and supply blockchain data to their interfaces. Exchanges and custody platforms may also use API and indexing services as part of their Cardano integrations.

Charles Hoskinson said Blockfrost supports infrastructure used by companies and products including Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, Trezor, Fireblocks, BitGo, Crypto.com, Brave, Revolut and Intersect. He also described Blockfrost as handling approximately half of the traffic associated with Cardano, although the current level of dependency has not been independently confirmed by every organization he named.

A shutdown would not stop Cardano itself. Products connected through Blockfrost would, however, need to migrate to another provider or build their own node, indexing and data-delivery infrastructure.

Hoskinson warned that large exchanges could reassess the cost of maintaining Cardano support if they were required to rebuild those systems. His comments described a possible commercial consequence, not an announced decision by any exchange to suspend or remove Cardano services.

The proposal therefore addresses a layer that is less visible than consensus infrastructure but remains operationally important for user-facing products. Decentralizing block production does not eliminate the need for APIs, indexing systems and services capable of delivering organized blockchain data with continuous availability.

The Community Handover Has a Defined Timeline

The proposed transition would begin with the creation of an independent nonprofit framework and the publication of its operating architecture during the third quarter of 2026. A public dashboard would also provide data on API usage and service availability.

An on-chain election for the community board is planned for the fourth quarter. The elected body would then assume responsibility for governance, financial oversight and the project’s future operating model.

By the first quarter of 2027, the proposal expects all public API traffic across mainnet, Preview and Preprod to run through the new stack. Blockfrost’s intellectual property would also be legally transferred into community stewardship.

The plan commits to a minimum of 99% monthly uptime during the transition, supported by a public dashboard and quarterly technical and financial reports. Any treasury funds remaining after delivery would be returned.

The ownership transfer would run alongside Project Cayley, Blockfrost’s longer-term attempt to decentralize blockchain indexing. Cayley is designed to divide data into smaller indexing slices, allowing stake pool operators and other node operators to serve selected datasets instead of maintaining a complete indexed copy of the blockchain.

Input Output has presented the architecture as a way to expand participation, reduce infrastructure requirements and support rising data volumes as Cardano throughput increases. Its modular design is also intended to extend beyond Cardano to networks including Bitcoin.

Hoskinson said the legacy Blockfrost operation will leave Input Output by the end of 2026 regardless of the governance result. Approval would provide a managed path in which the public API remains operational while ownership, code, branding and oversight move to the nonprofit structure.

A rejection would not alter Cardano’s underlying protocol, but it would leave Blockfrost and the services that depend on it without the proposed treasury-funded transition. The vote will determine whether that access layer moves into formal community governance before Input Output’s existing ownership role ends.