OpenZeppelin Stack Seeks 11.79 Million ADA From Cardano Treasury

A new treasury withdrawal action requests 11,787,063 ADA to fund the OpenZeppelin Stack for Cardano. Submitted on September 8, 2026, the proposal remains open for voting until October 11 and requires approval from DReps and the Constitutional Committee.

OpenZeppelin is a blockchain security and development company known for its open source smart contract libraries. The proposed Cardano program combines contract libraries, developer tools, security audits, and working financial application blueprints adapted to Cardano’s eUTXO model.

Cardano Treasury Vote Runs Until October 11

The proposal allocates 11,443,750 ADA to delivery and 343,313 ada to Intersect’s 3% administration fee. It uses a reference rate of $0.16 per ada, placing the 12-month delivery budget at $1.831 million.

OpenZeppelin independently submitted the program. The proposal states that it is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Intersect, which would act as the fund administrator and verify whether the contractual acceptance criteria have been met.

As of September 14, GovTool recorded 46.02 million in DRep voting power supporting the action and 820.21 million opposing it. Another 9.80 billion was marked as abstaining, while 4.49 billion had not voted. Within the Constitutional Committee, one member had classified the action as constitutional and six had not voted. GovTool lists a 67% ratification threshold for both groups.

OpenZeppelin Stack Covers Three Workstreams

The first workstream includes three open source reference implementations. These are a liquid staking protocol issuing a transferable yield bearing token, a self-repaying loan protocol, and a tokenized money market fund covering share issuance, credential verification, subscriptions, redemptions, dividend distribution, and regulatory reporting.

The second workstream proposes a standardized Cardano contracts library. Its preliminary components include access controls, cryptographic utilities, DeFi mathematics, vaults, timelocks, staking and delegation functions, governance modules, multisignature controls, vesting contracts, a messaging gateway, and a proposed Cardano Contract ABI.

The library would connect with OpenZeppelin Contracts Wizard, UI Builder, dedicated documentation, and AI assisted development tools. The target smart contract language would be selected during the initial evaluation phase in coordination with Cardano ecosystem stakeholders.

The third workstream provides 22 researcher weeks of security capacity across the 12-month period. It covers code audits, full application security reviews, penetration testing, continuous monitoring, and bug bounty support. Security reports would be published alongside the audited releases.

Payments Depend on Quarterly Milestones

Delivery is divided into four quarterly milestones. The first covers architecture, research, and foundational contract components. The following milestones cover liquid staking, self-repaying loans, and the tokenized money market fund, together with their supporting developer tools and security reviews.

A 20% kickoff payment would be released after the legal contract is signed. The remaining 80% would be divided into four equal stablecoin denominated milestone payments. Each payment requires publicly available evidence against the acceptance criteria and approval from Intersect Delivery Assurance.

The funds would be administered through a Treasury Reserve Smart Contract and a separate Project Specific Smart Contract. Oversight would involve Intersect administrators and leadership alongside six external entities: Sundae Labs, the Cardano Foundation, Dquadrant, NMKR, Sundial, and Eternl. Any funds left in the contract at expiry would automatically return to the Cardano treasury, while work beyond the initial 12 months would require a separate continuation proposal.