The treasury funding will focus on consensus upgrades, Bitcoin DeFi, L2 scalability, and developer tooling.
Input Output (IO), the engineering organisation behind Cardano, has submitted nine different proposals to be put to the vote, with a budget totalling US$46.8 million.
The proposals cover Cardano’s Leios consensus upgrade, an increase in Layer-1 throughput, Pogun, an end-to-end Bitcoin DeFi engine, and a trust-minimised Bitcoin bridge to Cardano.
The 50% budget reduction also represents the company’s move towards a self-sufficient model that allows it to be fully independent.
Two dimensions define Input Output’s 2026 slate, the first being decentralisation. This will be achieved by expanding the number of community contributors building the blockchain.
The other, scalability, is underway with block production and governance being distributed, and the Leios upgrade delivering the throughput.
Currently, the nine proposals touch on:
- Leios’s L1 throughput
- Maintaining core platform reliability
- Execution cost and security
- Formal verification tooling
- Micro and Babel fees
- L2 scalability
- Developer tooling and onboarding
- A decentralised data infrastructure
- Pogun Bitcoin DeFi solution
Jeff Watson, Head of Technology at Cardano Business Unit at IO, said: “IO is perfectly placed to adapt quickly, increasing the utility and experience across the ecosystem, and we feel that these proposals relate directly to growth for the community.”
Voting for the proposals will take place from 22 April 2026 to 24 May 2026.
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