CryptoSlate
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson warned that the network could lose its core group of scientists and shutter its flagship research laboratory if Input Output's $46.8 million treasury request fails to cross its 67% ratification threshold by the May 24 deadline. The development firm behind Cardano had already cut its 2026 ask by roughly 50% from the previous cycle, yet nearly every line item in the slate is trailing, weighed down by abstentions and large blocs of uncast voting power from the network's DReps.
The largest single request — a 62.1 million ADA Cardano Maintenance Initiative covering bug fixing, disaster recovery, mainnet monitoring and incident response from Q3 2026 through Q1 2027 — sits at just 46.58% approval, with 9.25 billion ADA logged as abstaining and 45.61% of voting power yet to weigh in. A 10.4 million ADA Layer 2 scalability package, including the launch of Midgard, the network's first permissionless optimistic rollup, is polling at 16.08%. A 7.92 million ADA decentralized indexing pitch (Project Cayley) is at 13.83% with nearly 30% active rejections. A 13.1 million ADA Babel Fees proposal that would let users pay gas in any native asset is the closest to clearing, at roughly 60%.
Why it matters
The friction crystallises around a 33 million ADA — about $8 million — research proposal called "Cardano Vision 2026: Human Centered, Scalable, Post Quantum Secure – IO Research," which currently holds just 13% support. Hoskinson framed the stakes in unusually blunt terms: "If this proposal does not pass, we want the entire Japanese community to fully recognize that Cardano will lose its scientists, and our lab will be forced to close." He argued the research apparatus took more than a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars to build, and that researchers would simply migrate to ecosystems offering more certainty. The clash exposes a deeper fault line: Cardano's brand as the "science coin" runs directly into a newly empowered DRep body exercising budget discipline, with abstention behaviour — not active opposition — doing most of the damage.
Market impact
The gridlock is a live stress test of Cardano's decentralised governance model. Funding for core maintenance, L2 scaling, developer tooling and research is effectively frozen, and a failure to clear the threshold would force IO to scale back operations at exactly the moment the network is trying to close its competitive gap with Ethereum and Solana.
Frequently asked questions
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What is Input Output asking the Cardano treasury to fund?
Input Output is seeking $46.8 million in ADA to cover its 2026 development cycle, including core maintenance, Layer 2 scalability (Midgard rollup), decentralised indexing, Babel Fees, developer tooling and a research programme — already cut roughly 50% from the prior year's budget.
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Why is Charles Hoskinson warning that Cardano could lose its scientists?
The ~33 million ADA research proposal ("Cardano Vision 2026") was polling at just 13% approval. Hoskinson said that if it fails, IO's research lab will be forced to close and the scientists will migrate to ecosystems with more funding certainty.
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How much support does each treasury proposal currently have?
The 62.1M ADA maintenance initiative sits at 46.58%, a 10.4M ADA L2 / Midgard package at 16.08%, the 7.92M ADA Project Cayley indexing proposal at 13.83%, the 13M ADA Babel Fees proposal near 60%, and the 33M ADA research proposal at 13%.
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What is the deadline for Cardano's treasury vote?
Most proposals, including core maintenance and the L2 package, close on May 24. The separate research proposal closes on June 8. All require a 67% supermajority from DReps to pass.
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Why are so many Cardano DReps abstaining from the vote?
Around 9.25 billion ADA is logged as abstaining on the largest maintenance proposal, and 45.61% of voting power has not yet weighed in. Analysts describe it as a case of budget discipline and disengagement, rather than coordinated opposition, that is freezing funding for critical infrastructure.
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