Intersect Opens Paid Research Call on Cardano minUTxO

Intersect’s Parameter Committee opened a public research call on October 16 to assess a possible reduction in Cardano’s utxoCostPerByte parameter. The parameter determines the minimum value that unspent transaction outputs, known as UTxOs, must contain, affecting token transfers, wallet operations, and application funding.

Cardano Research Proposals Due November 4

The call is open to individuals and teams. Submissions must include a research methodology, relevant experience, an estimated completion timeline, and a fixed-price quotation in ADA. Proposals are limited to two PDF pages and must be submitted by November 4.

The Technical Steering Committee is funding the research on behalf of the Parameter Committee. The work is expected to take one to two weeks, with the selected researcher prepared to present findings and answer technical questions.

The requested analysis covers the lowest technically and economically sustainable parameter value, the risks associated with reducing it, and the consequences of retaining current settings.

How minUTxO Affects Cardano Token Transfers

Cardano stores assets in transaction outputs that can contain its base currency, native tokens, and data used by applications. Each output must hold a minimum amount of ADA determined by its size.

Under CIP-55, the minimum is calculated by adding a fixed 160-byte overhead to the serialized output size and multiplying the result by the per-byte parameter. Its current value is 4,310 lovelace per byte.

The required funds remain part of the output, controlled by whoever can spend it. They are separate from transaction fees and are not transferred directly to stake pool operators.

For projects distributing tokens across many addresses, each recipient output requires its own minimum funding. Reducing the parameter would lower that requirement for outputs of the same size.

Storage Requirements Shape the Security Assessment

The minimum requirement raises the cost of creating large numbers of persistent outputs, helping protect Cardano against attacks that exhaust node resources.

The Parameter Committee’s technical rationale identifies storage outside working memory as a potential basis for lowering the requirement. It also warns that an excessively low value could make the blockchain inexpensive permanent storage for large amounts of data.

The research framework therefore includes hardware assumptions for the next two years, planned developments such as Linear Leios and Peras, and changes associated with UTxO-HD storage.

Any parameter adjustment would require a separate governance action involving DReps, stake pool operators, and Constitutional Committee review. Current constitutional guardrails allow values between 3,000 and 6,500 lovelace per byte. Implementing a recommendation below that range would also require changing the lower guardrail.