Cardano Treasury Roundtable Maps 2027 Funding Reform

A Cardano Foundation roundtable held on September 21 examined how the ecosystem could reform treasury funding after two budget cycles exposed gaps in planning, proposal comparison and accountability. Nicolas Cerny, Alex Maaza, Thomas Lindseth, Vaibhav Solanki and William Norris discussed ways to connect the Net Change Limit with annual priorities and measurable results.

The roundtable produced no binding decision. Its main proposals included dividing the spending ceiling into categories, releasing funding through several windows, coordinating governance actions through an annual calendar and reviewing previously funded work before approving another cycle.

Two Funding Cycles Expose a Planning Gap

The Net Change Limit, known as the NCL, defines how much may be withdrawn from Cardano's treasury during a specified period. It provides a financial ceiling but does not determine which areas should receive funding, how competing proposals should be compared or how much capacity should remain available for later requests.

Figures presented by Cerny show how the process expanded between the first two cycles. In 2025, 45 treasury withdrawal governance actions requested a combined 357 million ADA. Thirty-nine of those actions came through the Intersect budget process.

During 2026, 59 treasury withdrawal actions had already been submitted by the time of the roundtable, while only 11 originated through the Intersect process. The remaining submissions came from independent teams or other funding routes.

The figures describe requests rather than amounts ultimately approved or distributed. They nevertheless reflect a significant change in how applicants approach the treasury. More teams are submitting directly, often outside a common review process that would allow comparable proposals to be assessed together before reaching an onchain vote.

DReps are therefore being asked to answer two questions at once. They must decide whether an individual proposal deserves funding and whether supporting it would leave enough capacity for requests that may arrive later. An attractive proposal can receive support early even if a higher priority or competing offer appears several months afterward.

The increase in direct submissions followed a constitutional change that took effect in January 2026. Under the previous framework, a treasury withdrawal generally required an approved budget info action before it could be considered constitutional. Applicants often submitted similar documents twice, first as an informational action and later as a withdrawal request.

Removing that requirement reduced administrative duplication and made treasury access more permissionless. It also removed part of the preparation and social review that previously occurred before a proposal reached the withdrawal stage.

Participants did not propose restoring the earlier process in its original form. Their discussion focused on creating coordination without giving one organization the authority to decide who may request funding.

Categories and Funding Windows Reshape the NCL

One proposal would divide the NCL into defined spending categories. Instead of setting only the maximum amount of ADA available, the same process could allocate portions of the limit to core protocol development, infrastructure maintenance, ecosystem growth, adoption, governance and reserves.

Norris argued that this would separate decisions currently combined in each treasury vote. DReps could first determine how much the ecosystem intends to spend within a domain and then evaluate which proposals provide the strongest delivery plan inside that allocation.

Lindseth has advanced a related model through Cardano's Constitutional Amendment Proposal process. His proposal would expand the NCL from a single ceiling into a strategic spending plan. The community would approve both the total limit and the maximum allocation assigned to each category.

This structure could prevent one area from consuming most of the available capacity before other priorities are considered. A reserve category could preserve flexibility for security requirements, partnerships or infrastructure needs that were not known when the annual plan was created.

Participants also discussed releasing funds through scheduled windows rather than making the entire annual allocation available at once. Norris used the example of a 72 epoch NCL divided into three 24 epoch windows of approximately four months each.

The total ceiling and category allocations would remain in place, but only part of the funding would become accessible during each window. This could reserve capacity for later proposals and reduce the incentive to submit at the beginning of the cycle. DReps would establish the structure once and then evaluate proposals within it throughout the year.

Solanki proposed combining the windows with a governance calendar. Specific periods could be reserved for treasury withdrawals, constitutional amendments and protocol parameter changes, reducing the number of unrelated decisions competing for attention at the same time.

A defined submission period would also allow similar proposals to be reviewed together. When several providers seek funding for comparable work, DReps could assess scope, price and delivery terms before supporting one of them. The calendar would not necessarily require a constitutional restriction. It could operate as a coordinated DRep policy with exceptions for urgent requirements.

CIP-0179 was identified as a possible tool for setting priorities before binding treasury votes. The proposed standard defines formats for onchain surveys and polls, including rankings, ratings, numerical ranges and point allocation.

DReps could use those mechanisms to rank funding domains or compare proposals within a category. The results would not approve a budget, but they could provide a structured measure of preferences before formal governance actions are submitted.

Maaza connected the process with Cardano 2030. Rather than rebuilding the budget from separate proposals each year, the ecosystem could identify the outcomes required by 2030, determine what must be completed during 2027 and fund the domains needed to deliver those milestones.

The model could also introduce domain stewards who understand the needs of a particular area and help DReps evaluate competing providers. Stewards would guide a mandate rather than automatically receive the work. Transparent mandates, vendor competition and a process for replacing underperforming organizations would be required to prevent stewardship from protecting established providers.

Reporting Standards Define the 2027 Test

The roundtable repeatedly returned to the difficulty of evaluating previously funded work. DReps reviewing a new request may need to establish whether the same team received earlier funding, what it committed to deliver and whether those commitments were completed.

That information is not consistently available through one reporting system. Cardano's Constitution already requires treasury applicants to disclose recent funding they have received, but disclosure alone does not establish whether the funded work met its objectives.

Cerny proposed reporting standards adapted to different categories. Protocol infrastructure, events, marketing programs and investment initiatives would not use identical performance measures, but each could provide verifiable records covering expenditure, milestones and outcomes. Where appropriate, parts of those reports could be connected to onchain records.

Solanki and other participants supported a postmortem review at the end of each budget cycle. The review would document what received funding, what was delivered and how the results compared with the commitments approved by governance.

Creating a single review for 2026 will be more difficult than for the previous cycle because proposals came through multiple processes with different contracts, reporting methods and definitions of completion. That fragmentation is also the reason a common standard is being considered.

Treasury policy determines how community-controlled ADA is converted into protocol work, infrastructure, adoption programs and ecosystem services. Each approval also reduces the capital available for competing proposals, making timing, comparison and evidence of delivery part of the same governance decision.

No reform model was selected during the roundtable. Before the 2027 cycle, Cardano still needs to decide whether spending categories belong in the Constitution or in coordinated policy, how allocations may change during a cycle, who evaluates results and what authority domain stewards would hold.

Those decisions will determine whether the next NCL remains primarily a spending ceiling or becomes an annual plan connecting Cardano's treasury with defined priorities, competitive selection and verifiable delivery.