거버넌스 제안 상세
제안서 상세 내용과 투표 현황을 확인하세요.
한글 버전
- 에이다가 Leios를 준비함에 따라 전체 블록체인 데이터셋의 인덱싱 비용은 대폭 증가할 것으로 예상됨 .
- 현재 데이터 서비스 인프라에 참여하려면 전체 체인을 인덱싱해야 하며, 이는 소규모 운영자를 배제하고 소수 제공자에게 인프라를 집중시킴 .
- Project Cayley는 분산형 슬라이스 인덱싱을 도입하여 SPO와 노드 운영자가 인덱싱 및 서비스할 체인의 일부를 선택할 수 있게 함 .
- 이는 참여 장벽을 낮추고 생태계 전반의 인프라 비용을 절감하며 체인 확장에 따른 데이터 서비스 인프라의 탈중앙화를 유지함 .
- 모듈형 멀티체인 아키텍처를 통해 개발자는 통합 API로 에이다, Midnight, Bitcoin의 데이터에 접근할 수 있음 .
- 본 제안은 차세대 인덱싱 아키텍처 구축을 위한 Project Cayley에 $1M, Blockfrost의 무료 티어 인프라 유지를 위한 운영 보조금 $0.9M를 요청함 .
- 총 요청 금액은 ₳7.92M임 ($0.24/₳ 기준 $1.9M) .
- ■ 주석 *Blockfrost: 에이다 블록체인 데이터에 접근할 수 있게 해주는 API 서비스 **Leios: 에이다의 네트워크 처리량과 효율성을 높이기 위한 업그레이드 단계 ***SPO: 스테이크 풀 운영자 (Stake Pool Operator) ****API: 응용 프로그램 프로그래밍 인터페이스
- Project Leios 도입으로 데이터셋 성장이 가속화되면 인프라 유지 부담은 더욱 커질 것으로 전망됨 .
- Project Cayley는 탈중앙화 슬라이스 인덱싱을 통해 SPO와 노드 운영자가 전체 데이터셋 없이도 인프라에 참여하게 하여 수십만 달러의 비용을 절감함 .
- 모듈형 멀티체인 아키텍처는 개발자가 단일 API로 여러 체인에 쉽게 통합할 수 있도록 지원함 .
- Blockfrost는 생태계 무료 API 트래픽의 90%를 처리하며 비용을 전액 부담해 왔으나, 서비스 유지를 위해 에이다 국고의 운영 보조금이 필요함 .
- 총 ₳7.92M($1.9M 상당)의 자금을 요청하며, 이는 Project Cayley 구축과 무료 인프라 운영 지원에 사용됨 .
- 2026년 2분기 인덱서 출시를 시작으로 3분기 GraphQL API 제공, 4분기 비트코인 지원 확장을 단계별로 수행함 .
- 예산은 R&D 42.1%, 보안 감사 10.5%, 운영 및 인프라 47.4% 비율로 배분됨 .
- ■ 주석 *SPO: 스테이크 풀 운영자 **Project Leios: 에이다 네트워크의 확장성을 높이기 위한 프로젝트 ***API: 소프트웨어 간 데이터 통신을 위한 인터페이스 ****GraphQL: 효율적인 데이터 요청을 위한 쿼리 언어 *****SLA: 서비스 제공자와 사용자 간의 품질 보장 계약 ******DSL: 특정 영역의 문제를 해결하기 위해 설계된 언어 *******MVP: 핵심 기능을 갖춘 최소 기능 제품 ********DevOps: 소프트웨어 개발과 운영의 통합 프로세스
- Leios 도입으로 처리량이 증가함에 따라 발생하는 막대한 인덱싱 비용을 절감하여 개발자 진입 장벽을 낮춤 .
- Blockfrost는 공공 인프라로서 무료 티어 트래픽의 90%를 처리하며 생태계 성장을 지원해 왔음 .
- 에이다 국고에 0.9M 달러의 운영 보조금을 요청하여 서비스 연속성과 99.9%의 가동 시간을 보장하고자 함 .
- 보조금 중 0.6M 달러는 전문 인력 운영에, 0.3M 달러는 인프라 유지 비용으로 사용될 예정임 .
- Cayley는 비트코인 등 타 생태계로 확장 가능한 멀티체인 구조를 통해 에이다의 경제적 기회를 확대함 .
- 본 제안은 에이다 2030 비전의 인프라 우수성, 채택, 커뮤니티 성장 및 지속 가능성 원칙에 부합함 .
- 자금 관리는 Intersect와 Sundae Labs의 스마트 컨트랙트 프레임워크를 통해 투명하게 운영됨 .
- 총 요청 금액은 ₳7.9M이며, 미집행 자금은 국고로 반환되는 환불 조건을 포함함 .
- 모든 이정표와 결과물은 제3자 확약 기관의 검토를 거쳐 커뮤니티에 공개될 예정임 .
- ■ 주석 *Cayley: 에이다 데이터 인프라 효율화 프로젝트 **Leios: 에이다 네트워크의 처리량을 확장하는 프로토콜 ***Indexing: 블록체인 데이터를 검색 가능한 형태로 정리하는 과정 ****Blockfrost: 에이다 생태계의 주요 API 및 데이터 서비스 제공 플랫폼 *****KPI: 핵심 성과 지표 ******Treasury: 에이다 생태계 운영 및 발전을 위한 국고 *******SPO: 스테이크 풀 운영자 ********Net Change Limit: 에이다 국고 인출 한도 제한 규정 *********Intersect: 에이다 생태계 거버넌스 및 프로젝트 관리 기구 **********Smart Contract: 블록체인 기반 자동 실행 계약 ***********UTxO: 미사용 트랜잭션 출력값 ************DRep: 위임 대표자
English
One of the primary challenges in decentralizing access to data-providing services such as Blockfrost is the substantial amount of resources required to index the entire Cardano blockchain dataset, even when only a fraction of that data is needed in practice.
As Cardano prepares for Leios, the cost of indexing the full blockchain dataset will grow substantially. Today, participating in data-serving infrastructure requires indexing the entire chain. This prices out smaller operators and concentrates infrastructure around fewer providers.
Project Cayley introduces decentralized slice indexing — allowing SPOs and node operators to choose which portions of the chain they want to index and serve. This lowers the barrier to participation, reduces infrastructure costs across the ecosystem, and keeps data-serving infrastructure decentralized as the chain scales. Its modular multi-chain architecture further enables developers to access data across Cardano, Midnight, and Bitcoin through a unified API.
This proposal funds two components: Project Cayley ($1,000,000) to build the next-generation indexing architecture, and an operational subsidy ($900,000) to maintain the free-tier infrastructure that Blockfrost has funded entirely on its own since inception. **Total ask: ₳7.92M** ($1,900,000 at $0.24/₳).
One of the primary challenges in decentralizing access to data-providing services such as Blockfrost is the substantial amount of resources required to index the entire Cardano blockchain dataset, even when only a fraction of that data is needed in practice. This challenge becomes increasingly significant when considering Cardano's planned scalability improvements under Project Leios and the substantial impact its adoption will have on the growth of the Cardano dataset.
Project Cayley addresses this directly by introducing decentralized slice indexing — empowering SPOs and other Cardano node operators of all sizes to participate in data-serving infrastructure without the burden of maintaining a full dataset index, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure costs across the ecosystem. Its modular multi-chain architecture will further enable application developers to seamlessly integrate and reach different blockchain ecosystems with significantly greater ease, benefiting from reduced integration time and a unified API across chains.
Since its first day of operation, Blockfrost has provided free API access to the Cardano blockchain for developers and projects across the ecosystem — absorbing 100% of the infrastructure cost of that free tier without ever passing it on to users. Today, Blockfrost serves approximately 90% of all free-tier API traffic, making it the de facto data access layer for a significant portion of the ecosystem's builders and applications. This was a deliberate choice to lower barriers to entry and accelerate Cardano adoption — and as we scale Cardano with Leios, ensuring that infrastructure remains freely accessible and distributed is more important than ever.
This proposal therefore addresses both challenges: funding Project Cayley to build the decentralized infrastructure the ecosystem needs at scale, and asking the Cardano Treasury to assume its fair share of the cost of free-tier infrastructure that Blockfrost has carried alone since inception — an operational subsidy to keep this service running, maintained, and freely accessible to developers while the decentralized infrastructure matures.
The total funding ask is ₳7.92M (equivalent to $1,900,000 at a reference rate of $0.24/₳).
#### **Deliverables**
| Sequence | Item Description |
| :---- | :---- |
| *Q2 2026* | **Milestone 1: Indexer first release** Implement DSL 0.1 and the Mandoline indexer with initial Cardano support as an MVP release. **Milestone 2:** Service Level Compliance — Demonstrate continued adherence to a 99.9% uptime SLA for the community free tier during Q2 2026. |
| *Q3 2026* | **Milestone 3: Provider API Layer** Expose indexed Cardano data via a GraphQL API interface for consumers. **Milestone 4:** Service Level Compliance — Demonstrate continued adherence to a 99.9% uptime SLA for the community free tier during Q3 2026. |
| *Q4 2026* | **Milestone 5: Bitcoin Indexer** Extend DSL 0.1 and Mandoline to support Bitcoin alongside Cardano. **Milestone 6:** Service Level Compliance — Demonstrate continued adherence to a 99.9% uptime SLA for the community free tier during Q4 2026. |
#### **High level estimates**
* 1 project manager for 9 months
* 1 community coordinator for 9 months
* 4 engineers for 9 months
* 3 devops for 9 months
#### **Budget Allocation**
| Component | Weight | Allocation (ADA) | Allocation (USD) |
| :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- |
| Product, Engineering and R&D | 42.1% | ₳3,333,333 | $800,000 |
| Security Audits | 10.5% | ₳833,333 | $200,000 |
| Ops & Infrastructure | 47.4% | ₳3,750,000 | $900,000 |
| **TOTAL** | | **₳7,916,666** | **$1,900,000** |
**2.1 Making Data Infrastructure Affordable**
Project Cayley addresses one of the most pressing infrastructure challenges facing the Cardano ecosystem today and in the near future. As Leios scales Cardano throughput, the cost of full-chain indexing becomes increasingly prohibitive — Cayley tackles this head-on by enabling sliced indexing, projected to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure costs across the ecosystem. This makes building on Cardano significantly more affordable, lowering barriers for developers and operators of all sizes while keeping decentralization economically viable at scale.
| Throughput (TxkB/s) | Raw Growth (GB/mo) | Indexed Growth (TB/mo) | Indexed Cost ($/mo) | Indexed Cost ($/yr) | Yearly % Incr from 1.3TB | 5-yr Cumul. Growth (TB) | 5-yr Cumul. Cost ($) | 5-yr % from current state |
| :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- |
| 150 | \~394 | \~3.94 | \~$263.50 | \~$3,162 | \~3,637% | \~236.4 | \~$15,810 | \~18,185% |
| 200 | \~526 | \~5.26 | \~$376.40 | \~$4,517 | \~4,855% | \~315.6 | \~$22,585 | \~24,277% |
| 250 | \~657 | \~6.57 | \~$439.20 | \~$5,270 | \~6,065% | \~394.2 | \~$26,350 | \~30,323% |
| 300 | \~788 | \~7.88 | \~$546.40 | \~$6,557 | \~7,274% | \~472.8 | \~$32,785 | \~36,369% |
| 350 | \~920 | \~9.20 | \~$655.90 | \~$7,871 | \~8,492% | \~552.0 | \~$39,355 | \~42,462% |
Table 2.1: Predicted growth patterns based on CIP-0164 for a single indexer (we have more than 100+ Icebreakers)
Beyond cost savings, the multi-chain architecture extending to Bitcoin and other ecosystems opens up new economic opportunities by positioning Cardano infrastructure as a unified data layer across blockchains, broadening the addressable market and attracting developers from outside the ecosystem.
### **2.2 Sustaining Ecosystem-Critical Infrastructure**
Blockfrost has operated as public infrastructure since day one, offering free access to Cardano data to any developer who needs it. This has never been a commercial decision — it has been a subsidy paid by Blockfrost to the ecosystem. The scale of that subsidy is now significant: approximately 90% of all free-tier Cardano API traffic flows through Blockfrost's infrastructure, representing a broad base of projects, developers, and users who depend on its continued availability.
Asking the Cardano Treasury to share that cost is a recognition that community infrastructure is best sustained as a shared responsibility across the ecosystem. The $900,000 operational subsidy ensures continuity of a service the ecosystem already relies on, with no disruption to the developers and applications that depend on it.
The operational subsidy breaks down as follows. $600,000 covers the personnel required to operate the free tier reliably — three DevOps engineers in a follow-the-sun rotation ensuring round-the-clock coverage and incident response, a dedicated developer for ongoing maintenance and bug fixes, and support staff handling developer-facing queries and incident communication. The remaining $300,000 covers the underlying infrastructure costs required to sustain the service at the reliability standard committed to in this proposal.
In parallel, Blockfrost is actively reworking its commercial model to ensure that future pricing and access structures do not create barriers or negative dependencies for the ecosystem. This work is being undertaken with ecosystem health as a primary consideration, ensuring that as the decentralized infrastructure matures, the commercial model evolves in a way that complements rather than competes with community interests.
### **2.3 KPIs**
| Core Cardano 2030 KPIs (Adoption) | Alignment | KPI Alignment Narrative |
| ----- | ----- | ----- |
| **TVL** | N/A | |
| **Monthly Transactions** | N/A | |
| **Monthly Active Users (MAU)** | Yes - Enables / Indirectly | Cayley reduces infrastructure costs for data-providing services, enabling smaller operators and new applications to participate in the ecosystem. The free tier subsidy ensures existing developers and applications are not disrupted, collectively supporting growth in active users. |
### **2.4 Additional KPIs**
| Additional Cardano 2030 KPIs (Adoption) | Alignment | KPI Alignment Narrative |
| ----- | ----- | ----- |
| **Reliability:** Monthly Uptime (6 epochs) | Yes - Directly | Cayley's decentralized slice indexing enables a higher number of operators to participate in data infrastructure by lowering resource requirements, reducing single points of failure. The operational subsidy funds a dedicated DevOps team in a follow-the-sun rotation, ensuring 99.9% uptime of the community free tier throughout the transition. |
| **Operational Resilience:** Voting Power Distribution of Controlling Stake | N/A | |
| **Operational Resilience:** Alternative Full Node Clients | **N/A** | |
| **Revenue / Adoption:** Annual Protocol Revenue | **Yes - Enables** | Cayley reduces operational costs for data infrastructure, enabling more economically viable applications and services. Sustaining the free tier through the subsidy ensures no disruption to existing applications, collectively driving increased transaction volume and protocol fee revenue. |
| **Governance:** Drep Participation Rate | **N/A** | |
| **Scalability:** Throughput Capacity per day | **Yes - Directly** | Cayley ensures data infrastructure can scale with L1 throughput increases by eliminating the requirement for every data provider to index the entire blockchain. The operational subsidy ensures the existing free tier remains stable and reliable as that transition takes place. |
### **2.5 Pillars**
| Cardano 2030 Pillars | Alignment | Pillar Alignment Description |
| ----- | ----- | ----- |
| **Pillar 1: Infrastructure & Research Excellence** *Keep Cardano secure, fast, and interoperable so it can host more economic activity.* | Yes - Fully | Project Cayley keeps Cardano developer friendly and ensures infrastructure remains affordable and economically viable as the chain scales. The operational subsidy ensures no gap in service quality during the transition to decentralized infrastructure, maintaining the reliability developers depend on. |
| **Pillar 2: Adoption & Utility** *Driving widespread, non-speculative utility by focusing on high-value industry verticals, superior user experience (UX), and enterprise-grade security.* | Yes - Fully | Project Cayley drives adoption by making Cardano data more accessible and practical for real-world use cases. Sliced indexing enables developers and enterprises to build more efficiently, while the free tier subsidy ensures continued zero-barrier access for the 90% of developers currently relying on Blockfrost. The security audit ensures enterprise-grade reliability before public launch. |
| **Pillar 3: Governance** *Cardano governance must be hard to capture, easy to use, and paced. This builds directly on Cardano’s tripartite model of DReps, Constitutional Committee, and SPOs.* | N/A | |
| **Pillar 4: Community & Ecosystem Growth** *Driving global engagement through a market-centric approach, cultivating a skilled developer base, and proactively demonstrating ecosystem value.* | Yes - Partially | Project Cayley grows the ecosystem by onboarding SPOs as Icebreakers, giving them a new economically viable role as data providers. The free tier subsidy directly supports community growth by keeping access to Cardano data free for developers of all sizes. |
| **Pillar 5: Ecosystem Sustainability & Resilience** *Ensuring the long-term financial health and operational integrity of the network infrastructure.* | Yes - Fully | Project Cayley contributes to long-term sustainability by significantly reducing infrastructure costs for operators and developers. The operational subsidy ensures that the cost of community-critical free infrastructure is shared equitably across the ecosystem rather than borne by a single entity, improving long-term financial resilience. |
**Cardano 2030 Pillars:** [https://product.cardano.intersectmbo.org/vision/strategy-2030/](https://product.cardano.intersectmbo.org/vision/strategy-2030/)
### **3.0 Treasury Governance & Compliance**
**3.1 Contract Management**
A written off-chain Legal Contract will be created between Input Output and the Cardano Development Holdings (CDH), as mandated by the Constitution, and will be administered by Intersect. This will include details of the project delivery schedule and dispute resolution.
**Project Delivery**
All milestones, acceptance criteria, payment amounts and expected delivery dates will be agreed between the Input Output and Intersect, acting on behalf of the CDH. Input Output will deliver according to the agreed-upon project schedule within the Legal Contract, of which the necessary information will be made public via the budget management platform via transaction metadata.
Defined by the milestones within a Legal Contract, Input Output will submit and attest milestone acceptance to the community, Intersect or 3rd Party Assurer.
Project progress will be monitored via Intersect's delivery assurance function which will be communicated to the community.
Acceptance of the work will be supported by a 3rd Party Assurer, who will be responsible for reviewing and signing off the work completed at each project milestone against the corresponding milestone deliverables detailed within the Legal Contract. This work is funded from a portion of this treasury withdrawal.
**3.2 Auditable Accounts & Fund Delegation**
**Budget Management Tooling**
To administrate treasury funds on-chain, Intersect will utilize the treasury management smart contract framework developed by Sundae Labs. The smart contracts have been extensively tested including audits from TxPipe and MLabs.
Final mainnet validation test can be seen via the Disburse action within transaction: 0f591dc544ae14102dbb4a74d5311a6acffc1772b163d8b7a9656b9525950b17
This withdrawal will utilise Intersect’s 2025 treasury reserve contract with address being: stake17xzc8pt7fgf0lc0x7eq6z7z6puhsxmzktna7dluahrj6g6ghh5qjr
Funds will later be migrated to a 2026 treasury reserve contract once established.
**Budget Management Specifics**
Intersect will utilize a single Treasury Reserve Smart Contract (TRSC), with many Project-Specific Smart Contracts (PSSC), managed by Intersect. Intersect's management consists of three 'admin' and two Intersect 'leadership' roles. An Oversight Committee consisting of five external, independent third-party entities will provide checks and balances on Intersect, and safeguard against errors and unilateral control. The administration of both TRSC and PSSCs will be managed by Intersect, with external oversight on certain actions from the Oversight Committee.
The 2025 TRSC Oversight Committee consists of Sundae Labs, Cardano Foundation, Dquadrant, Xerberus and NMKR. Their role is to independently verify key administrative actions using on-chain logic, ensuring accuracy and consistency without exercising discretion over governance decisions.
For all details on Intersect's configuration please see the Smart Contract Guide on the knowledgebase.
The high level permissions are as follows:
* TRSC Fund and PSSC Modify
* Two of the three Intersect admins, two of the five trusted entities and one of the two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
* TRSC Disperse
* Two of three Intersect admins, three of five trusted entities and two of two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
* TRSC Pause and Resume
* Two of three Intersect admins, and one of two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
* TRSC Sweep
* One of three Intersect admins, and one of two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
* TRSC Reorganize
* Two of three Intersect admins and three of five trusted entities must authorize
**Processes**
Upon enactment of this governance action, funding for this project will be directed into the TRSC's stake account. All instances of TRSC and PSSC can not be staked with a SPO and will be delegated to the auto-abstain predefined DRep. From here funds will be withdrawn into a UTxO remaining at the TRSC.
When a 2026 TRSC is established, the funding for this project will be migrated via the ‘disburse’ action.
When the Legal contract is prepared and Input Output is ready, funding for this project will be transferred using the Fund action to a PSSC. All milestones will be outlined within the metadata.
A dashboard will be available for the community to audit the TRSC or PSSC and track metrics related to this withdrawn ada as well as being immutably verifiable on chain.
#### **3.3 Funding Denomination**
All amounts in this proposal are denominated in ada (₳). The total Treasury ask is ₳7,916,666. USD figures ($1,900,000) are provided for reference only, based on an ADA/USD rate of 0.24.
#### **3.4 Refund Conditions**
All funds not disbursed by the end of the delivery period will be returned to the Cardano Treasury. A final reconciliation will be published as part of the oversight reporting cycle. In the event of partial delivery or scope reduction, unspent funds associated with cancelled or reduced deliverables will be returned proportionally.
#### **3.5 Prior Treasury Receipts**
IO and its affiliated entities have been accountable for delivery of work funded by the Cardano Treasury. The total funds allocated has been ₳130,708,860 across a number of projects within Treasury Smart Contract, to date IOG has withdrawn ₳78,459,777.
| Workstream | Ada received | % of allocation | Corresponding Governance Action |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: |
| Blockfrost | ₳1,137,500 | 88% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#2 |
| Catalyst | ₳3,095,400 | 60% *\* | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#23 |
| IOE | ₳47,159,487 | 49% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#1 |
| IOR | ₳26,840,000 | 100% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#32 |
| Governance | ₳227,390 | 38% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#22 |
*\*Note: for Catalyst this only reflects the workstream that focuses on the Hermes Infrastructure and UX/UI improvements, not the execution and operation of Funds 14-16. Per [Info Action](https://explorer.cardano.org/governance-action/gov_action1k5vwlfrxtyusd2ec37tckd54gjvqn2kd72xj4t6wkkapdv7zfg0qq468n2r) this is in the process of transitioning to Cardano Foundation.
#### **3.6 Net Change Limit Compliance**
The requested amount does not at time of submission, on its own or in aggregate, breach the applicable [350M Net Change Limit](https://explorer.cardano.org/governance-action/gov_action1m3xx08yv788vfxqh6nfvrjtvmqpwezsy0ggaczctkyjmttc2wmxsq4jsr7q) covering Epoch 613 to Epoch 713.
In accordance with the guardrail *TREASURY-02a*, this withdrawal does not exceed the NCL at the moment of submission.
#### **3.7 Audit & Oversight**
Audit and oversight costs are included within the overhead applied to this proposal. The Intersect administration fee covers administrative oversight and is reflected within the cost of this proposal. Independent oversight will be provided through Intersect and technically capable third-party, including reporting obligations and milestone-based disbursement controls.
부가 정보
| 트랜잭션 해시 | 73e171a4c0730b4b59ecae271ab89f12a9d56360b02920e1f95107dbdc1d6762 |
|---|---|
| 블록 타임 | 1776863461 |
| Proposal ID | gov_action1w0shrfxqwv95kk0v4cn34wylz25a2cmqkq5jpc0e2yrahhqava3qwt8k9fx |
| Proposal Index | 7 |
블록프로스트: 유지 관리 및 차세대 인덱싱에 대한 제안
현재 어디까지 왔나
📊 제안서 투표현황
DRep 투표현황
SPO 투표현황
헌법위원회 투표현황
📝 상세 설명
🇰🇷 한글 버전
- 에이다가 Leios를 준비함에 따라 전체 블록체인 데이터셋의 인덱싱 비용은 대폭 증가할 것으로 예상됨 .
- 현재 데이터 서비스 인프라에 참여하려면 전체 체인을 인덱싱해야 하며, 이는 소규모 운영자를 배제하고 소수 제공자에게 인프라를 집중시킴 .
- Project Cayley는 분산형 슬라이스 인덱싱을 도입하여 SPO와 노드 운영자가 인덱싱 및 서비스할 체인의 일부를 선택할 수 있게 함 .
- 이는 참여 장벽을 낮추고 생태계 전반의 인프라 비용을 절감하며 체인 확장에 따른 데이터 서비스 인프라의 탈중앙화를 유지함 .
- 모듈형 멀티체인 아키텍처를 통해 개발자는 통합 API로 에이다, Midnight, Bitcoin의 데이터에 접근할 수 있음 .
- 본 제안은 차세대 인덱싱 아키텍처 구축을 위한 Project Cayley에 $1M, Blockfrost의 무료 티어 인프라 유지를 위한 운영 보조금 $0.9M를 요청함 .
- 총 요청 금액은 ₳7.92M임 ($0.24/₳ 기준 $1.9M) .
- ■ 주석 *Blockfrost: 에이다 블록체인 데이터에 접근할 수 있게 해주는 API 서비스 **Leios: 에이다의 네트워크 처리량과 효율성을 높이기 위한 업그레이드 단계 ***SPO: 스테이크 풀 운영자 (Stake Pool Operator) ****API: 응용 프로그램 프로그래밍 인터페이스
- Project Leios 도입으로 데이터셋 성장이 가속화되면 인프라 유지 부담은 더욱 커질 것으로 전망됨 .
- Project Cayley는 탈중앙화 슬라이스 인덱싱을 통해 SPO와 노드 운영자가 전체 데이터셋 없이도 인프라에 참여하게 하여 수십만 달러의 비용을 절감함 .
- 모듈형 멀티체인 아키텍처는 개발자가 단일 API로 여러 체인에 쉽게 통합할 수 있도록 지원함 .
- Blockfrost는 생태계 무료 API 트래픽의 90%를 처리하며 비용을 전액 부담해 왔으나, 서비스 유지를 위해 에이다 국고의 운영 보조금이 필요함 .
- 총 ₳7.92M($1.9M 상당)의 자금을 요청하며, 이는 Project Cayley 구축과 무료 인프라 운영 지원에 사용됨 .
- 2026년 2분기 인덱서 출시를 시작으로 3분기 GraphQL API 제공, 4분기 비트코인 지원 확장을 단계별로 수행함 .
- 예산은 R&D 42.1%, 보안 감사 10.5%, 운영 및 인프라 47.4% 비율로 배분됨 .
- ■ 주석 *SPO: 스테이크 풀 운영자 **Project Leios: 에이다 네트워크의 확장성을 높이기 위한 프로젝트 ***API: 소프트웨어 간 데이터 통신을 위한 인터페이스 ****GraphQL: 효율적인 데이터 요청을 위한 쿼리 언어 *****SLA: 서비스 제공자와 사용자 간의 품질 보장 계약 ******DSL: 특정 영역의 문제를 해결하기 위해 설계된 언어 *******MVP: 핵심 기능을 갖춘 최소 기능 제품 ********DevOps: 소프트웨어 개발과 운영의 통합 프로세스
- Leios 도입으로 처리량이 증가함에 따라 발생하는 막대한 인덱싱 비용을 절감하여 개발자 진입 장벽을 낮춤 .
- Blockfrost는 공공 인프라로서 무료 티어 트래픽의 90%를 처리하며 생태계 성장을 지원해 왔음 .
- 에이다 국고에 0.9M 달러의 운영 보조금을 요청하여 서비스 연속성과 99.9%의 가동 시간을 보장하고자 함 .
- 보조금 중 0.6M 달러는 전문 인력 운영에, 0.3M 달러는 인프라 유지 비용으로 사용될 예정임 .
- Cayley는 비트코인 등 타 생태계로 확장 가능한 멀티체인 구조를 통해 에이다의 경제적 기회를 확대함 .
- 본 제안은 에이다 2030 비전의 인프라 우수성, 채택, 커뮤니티 성장 및 지속 가능성 원칙에 부합함 .
- 자금 관리는 Intersect와 Sundae Labs의 스마트 컨트랙트 프레임워크를 통해 투명하게 운영됨 .
- 총 요청 금액은 ₳7.9M이며, 미집행 자금은 국고로 반환되는 환불 조건을 포함함 .
- 모든 이정표와 결과물은 제3자 확약 기관의 검토를 거쳐 커뮤니티에 공개될 예정임 .
- ■ 주석 *Cayley: 에이다 데이터 인프라 효율화 프로젝트 **Leios: 에이다 네트워크의 처리량을 확장하는 프로토콜 ***Indexing: 블록체인 데이터를 검색 가능한 형태로 정리하는 과정 ****Blockfrost: 에이다 생태계의 주요 API 및 데이터 서비스 제공 플랫폼 *****KPI: 핵심 성과 지표 ******Treasury: 에이다 생태계 운영 및 발전을 위한 국고 *******SPO: 스테이크 풀 운영자 ********Net Change Limit: 에이다 국고 인출 한도 제한 규정 *********Intersect: 에이다 생태계 거버넌스 및 프로젝트 관리 기구 **********Smart Contract: 블록체인 기반 자동 실행 계약 ***********UTxO: 미사용 트랜잭션 출력값 ************DRep: 위임 대표자
🇺🇸 English
One of the primary challenges in decentralizing access to data-providing services such as Blockfrost is the substantial amount of resources required to index the entire Cardano blockchain dataset, even when only a fraction of that data is needed in practice.
As Cardano prepares for Leios, the cost of indexing the full blockchain dataset will grow substantially. Today, participating in data-serving infrastructure requires indexing the entire chain. This prices out smaller operators and concentrates infrastructure around fewer providers.
Project Cayley introduces decentralized slice indexing — allowing SPOs and node operators to choose which portions of the chain they want to index and serve. This lowers the barrier to participation, reduces infrastructure costs across the ecosystem, and keeps data-serving infrastructure decentralized as the chain scales. Its modular multi-chain architecture further enables developers to access data across Cardano, Midnight, and Bitcoin through a unified API.
This proposal funds two components: Project Cayley ($1,000,000) to build the next-generation indexing architecture, and an operational subsidy ($900,000) to maintain the free-tier infrastructure that Blockfrost has funded entirely on its own since inception. **Total ask: ₳7.92M** ($1,900,000 at $0.24/₳).
One of the primary challenges in decentralizing access to data-providing services such as Blockfrost is the substantial amount of resources required to index the entire Cardano blockchain dataset, even when only a fraction of that data is needed in practice. This challenge becomes increasingly significant when considering Cardano's planned scalability improvements under Project Leios and the substantial impact its adoption will have on the growth of the Cardano dataset.
Project Cayley addresses this directly by introducing decentralized slice indexing — empowering SPOs and other Cardano node operators of all sizes to participate in data-serving infrastructure without the burden of maintaining a full dataset index, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure costs across the ecosystem. Its modular multi-chain architecture will further enable application developers to seamlessly integrate and reach different blockchain ecosystems with significantly greater ease, benefiting from reduced integration time and a unified API across chains.
Since its first day of operation, Blockfrost has provided free API access to the Cardano blockchain for developers and projects across the ecosystem — absorbing 100% of the infrastructure cost of that free tier without ever passing it on to users. Today, Blockfrost serves approximately 90% of all free-tier API traffic, making it the de facto data access layer for a significant portion of the ecosystem's builders and applications. This was a deliberate choice to lower barriers to entry and accelerate Cardano adoption — and as we scale Cardano with Leios, ensuring that infrastructure remains freely accessible and distributed is more important than ever.
This proposal therefore addresses both challenges: funding Project Cayley to build the decentralized infrastructure the ecosystem needs at scale, and asking the Cardano Treasury to assume its fair share of the cost of free-tier infrastructure that Blockfrost has carried alone since inception — an operational subsidy to keep this service running, maintained, and freely accessible to developers while the decentralized infrastructure matures.
The total funding ask is ₳7.92M (equivalent to $1,900,000 at a reference rate of $0.24/₳).
#### **Deliverables**
| Sequence | Item Description |
| :---- | :---- |
| *Q2 2026* | **Milestone 1: Indexer first release** Implement DSL 0.1 and the Mandoline indexer with initial Cardano support as an MVP release. **Milestone 2:** Service Level Compliance — Demonstrate continued adherence to a 99.9% uptime SLA for the community free tier during Q2 2026. |
| *Q3 2026* | **Milestone 3: Provider API Layer** Expose indexed Cardano data via a GraphQL API interface for consumers. **Milestone 4:** Service Level Compliance — Demonstrate continued adherence to a 99.9% uptime SLA for the community free tier during Q3 2026. |
| *Q4 2026* | **Milestone 5: Bitcoin Indexer** Extend DSL 0.1 and Mandoline to support Bitcoin alongside Cardano. **Milestone 6:** Service Level Compliance — Demonstrate continued adherence to a 99.9% uptime SLA for the community free tier during Q4 2026. |
#### **High level estimates**
* 1 project manager for 9 months
* 1 community coordinator for 9 months
* 4 engineers for 9 months
* 3 devops for 9 months
#### **Budget Allocation**
| Component | Weight | Allocation (ADA) | Allocation (USD) |
| :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- |
| Product, Engineering and R&D | 42.1% | ₳3,333,333 | $800,000 |
| Security Audits | 10.5% | ₳833,333 | $200,000 |
| Ops & Infrastructure | 47.4% | ₳3,750,000 | $900,000 |
| **TOTAL** | | **₳7,916,666** | **$1,900,000** |
**2.1 Making Data Infrastructure Affordable**
Project Cayley addresses one of the most pressing infrastructure challenges facing the Cardano ecosystem today and in the near future. As Leios scales Cardano throughput, the cost of full-chain indexing becomes increasingly prohibitive — Cayley tackles this head-on by enabling sliced indexing, projected to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure costs across the ecosystem. This makes building on Cardano significantly more affordable, lowering barriers for developers and operators of all sizes while keeping decentralization economically viable at scale.
| Throughput (TxkB/s) | Raw Growth (GB/mo) | Indexed Growth (TB/mo) | Indexed Cost ($/mo) | Indexed Cost ($/yr) | Yearly % Incr from 1.3TB | 5-yr Cumul. Growth (TB) | 5-yr Cumul. Cost ($) | 5-yr % from current state |
| :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- | :---- |
| 150 | \~394 | \~3.94 | \~$263.50 | \~$3,162 | \~3,637% | \~236.4 | \~$15,810 | \~18,185% |
| 200 | \~526 | \~5.26 | \~$376.40 | \~$4,517 | \~4,855% | \~315.6 | \~$22,585 | \~24,277% |
| 250 | \~657 | \~6.57 | \~$439.20 | \~$5,270 | \~6,065% | \~394.2 | \~$26,350 | \~30,323% |
| 300 | \~788 | \~7.88 | \~$546.40 | \~$6,557 | \~7,274% | \~472.8 | \~$32,785 | \~36,369% |
| 350 | \~920 | \~9.20 | \~$655.90 | \~$7,871 | \~8,492% | \~552.0 | \~$39,355 | \~42,462% |
Table 2.1: Predicted growth patterns based on CIP-0164 for a single indexer (we have more than 100+ Icebreakers)
Beyond cost savings, the multi-chain architecture extending to Bitcoin and other ecosystems opens up new economic opportunities by positioning Cardano infrastructure as a unified data layer across blockchains, broadening the addressable market and attracting developers from outside the ecosystem.
### **2.2 Sustaining Ecosystem-Critical Infrastructure**
Blockfrost has operated as public infrastructure since day one, offering free access to Cardano data to any developer who needs it. This has never been a commercial decision — it has been a subsidy paid by Blockfrost to the ecosystem. The scale of that subsidy is now significant: approximately 90% of all free-tier Cardano API traffic flows through Blockfrost's infrastructure, representing a broad base of projects, developers, and users who depend on its continued availability.
Asking the Cardano Treasury to share that cost is a recognition that community infrastructure is best sustained as a shared responsibility across the ecosystem. The $900,000 operational subsidy ensures continuity of a service the ecosystem already relies on, with no disruption to the developers and applications that depend on it.
The operational subsidy breaks down as follows. $600,000 covers the personnel required to operate the free tier reliably — three DevOps engineers in a follow-the-sun rotation ensuring round-the-clock coverage and incident response, a dedicated developer for ongoing maintenance and bug fixes, and support staff handling developer-facing queries and incident communication. The remaining $300,000 covers the underlying infrastructure costs required to sustain the service at the reliability standard committed to in this proposal.
In parallel, Blockfrost is actively reworking its commercial model to ensure that future pricing and access structures do not create barriers or negative dependencies for the ecosystem. This work is being undertaken with ecosystem health as a primary consideration, ensuring that as the decentralized infrastructure matures, the commercial model evolves in a way that complements rather than competes with community interests.
### **2.3 KPIs**
| Core Cardano 2030 KPIs (Adoption) | Alignment | KPI Alignment Narrative |
| ----- | ----- | ----- |
| **TVL** | N/A | |
| **Monthly Transactions** | N/A | |
| **Monthly Active Users (MAU)** | Yes - Enables / Indirectly | Cayley reduces infrastructure costs for data-providing services, enabling smaller operators and new applications to participate in the ecosystem. The free tier subsidy ensures existing developers and applications are not disrupted, collectively supporting growth in active users. |
### **2.4 Additional KPIs**
| Additional Cardano 2030 KPIs (Adoption) | Alignment | KPI Alignment Narrative |
| ----- | ----- | ----- |
| **Reliability:** Monthly Uptime (6 epochs) | Yes - Directly | Cayley's decentralized slice indexing enables a higher number of operators to participate in data infrastructure by lowering resource requirements, reducing single points of failure. The operational subsidy funds a dedicated DevOps team in a follow-the-sun rotation, ensuring 99.9% uptime of the community free tier throughout the transition. |
| **Operational Resilience:** Voting Power Distribution of Controlling Stake | N/A | |
| **Operational Resilience:** Alternative Full Node Clients | **N/A** | |
| **Revenue / Adoption:** Annual Protocol Revenue | **Yes - Enables** | Cayley reduces operational costs for data infrastructure, enabling more economically viable applications and services. Sustaining the free tier through the subsidy ensures no disruption to existing applications, collectively driving increased transaction volume and protocol fee revenue. |
| **Governance:** Drep Participation Rate | **N/A** | |
| **Scalability:** Throughput Capacity per day | **Yes - Directly** | Cayley ensures data infrastructure can scale with L1 throughput increases by eliminating the requirement for every data provider to index the entire blockchain. The operational subsidy ensures the existing free tier remains stable and reliable as that transition takes place. |
### **2.5 Pillars**
| Cardano 2030 Pillars | Alignment | Pillar Alignment Description |
| ----- | ----- | ----- |
| **Pillar 1: Infrastructure & Research Excellence** *Keep Cardano secure, fast, and interoperable so it can host more economic activity.* | Yes - Fully | Project Cayley keeps Cardano developer friendly and ensures infrastructure remains affordable and economically viable as the chain scales. The operational subsidy ensures no gap in service quality during the transition to decentralized infrastructure, maintaining the reliability developers depend on. |
| **Pillar 2: Adoption & Utility** *Driving widespread, non-speculative utility by focusing on high-value industry verticals, superior user experience (UX), and enterprise-grade security.* | Yes - Fully | Project Cayley drives adoption by making Cardano data more accessible and practical for real-world use cases. Sliced indexing enables developers and enterprises to build more efficiently, while the free tier subsidy ensures continued zero-barrier access for the 90% of developers currently relying on Blockfrost. The security audit ensures enterprise-grade reliability before public launch. |
| **Pillar 3: Governance** *Cardano governance must be hard to capture, easy to use, and paced. This builds directly on Cardano’s tripartite model of DReps, Constitutional Committee, and SPOs.* | N/A | |
| **Pillar 4: Community & Ecosystem Growth** *Driving global engagement through a market-centric approach, cultivating a skilled developer base, and proactively demonstrating ecosystem value.* | Yes - Partially | Project Cayley grows the ecosystem by onboarding SPOs as Icebreakers, giving them a new economically viable role as data providers. The free tier subsidy directly supports community growth by keeping access to Cardano data free for developers of all sizes. |
| **Pillar 5: Ecosystem Sustainability & Resilience** *Ensuring the long-term financial health and operational integrity of the network infrastructure.* | Yes - Fully | Project Cayley contributes to long-term sustainability by significantly reducing infrastructure costs for operators and developers. The operational subsidy ensures that the cost of community-critical free infrastructure is shared equitably across the ecosystem rather than borne by a single entity, improving long-term financial resilience. |
**Cardano 2030 Pillars:** [https://product.cardano.intersectmbo.org/vision/strategy-2030/](https://product.cardano.intersectmbo.org/vision/strategy-2030/)
### **3.0 Treasury Governance & Compliance**
**3.1 Contract Management**
A written off-chain Legal Contract will be created between Input Output and the Cardano Development Holdings (CDH), as mandated by the Constitution, and will be administered by Intersect. This will include details of the project delivery schedule and dispute resolution.
**Project Delivery**
All milestones, acceptance criteria, payment amounts and expected delivery dates will be agreed between the Input Output and Intersect, acting on behalf of the CDH. Input Output will deliver according to the agreed-upon project schedule within the Legal Contract, of which the necessary information will be made public via the budget management platform via transaction metadata.
Defined by the milestones within a Legal Contract, Input Output will submit and attest milestone acceptance to the community, Intersect or 3rd Party Assurer.
Project progress will be monitored via Intersect's delivery assurance function which will be communicated to the community.
Acceptance of the work will be supported by a 3rd Party Assurer, who will be responsible for reviewing and signing off the work completed at each project milestone against the corresponding milestone deliverables detailed within the Legal Contract. This work is funded from a portion of this treasury withdrawal.
**3.2 Auditable Accounts & Fund Delegation**
**Budget Management Tooling**
To administrate treasury funds on-chain, Intersect will utilize the treasury management smart contract framework developed by Sundae Labs. The smart contracts have been extensively tested including audits from TxPipe and MLabs.
Final mainnet validation test can be seen via the Disburse action within transaction: 0f591dc544ae14102dbb4a74d5311a6acffc1772b163d8b7a9656b9525950b17
This withdrawal will utilise Intersect’s 2025 treasury reserve contract with address being: stake17xzc8pt7fgf0lc0x7eq6z7z6puhsxmzktna7dluahrj6g6ghh5qjr
Funds will later be migrated to a 2026 treasury reserve contract once established.
**Budget Management Specifics**
Intersect will utilize a single Treasury Reserve Smart Contract (TRSC), with many Project-Specific Smart Contracts (PSSC), managed by Intersect. Intersect's management consists of three 'admin' and two Intersect 'leadership' roles. An Oversight Committee consisting of five external, independent third-party entities will provide checks and balances on Intersect, and safeguard against errors and unilateral control. The administration of both TRSC and PSSCs will be managed by Intersect, with external oversight on certain actions from the Oversight Committee.
The 2025 TRSC Oversight Committee consists of Sundae Labs, Cardano Foundation, Dquadrant, Xerberus and NMKR. Their role is to independently verify key administrative actions using on-chain logic, ensuring accuracy and consistency without exercising discretion over governance decisions.
For all details on Intersect's configuration please see the Smart Contract Guide on the knowledgebase.
The high level permissions are as follows:
* TRSC Fund and PSSC Modify
* Two of the three Intersect admins, two of the five trusted entities and one of the two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
* TRSC Disperse
* Two of three Intersect admins, three of five trusted entities and two of two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
* TRSC Pause and Resume
* Two of three Intersect admins, and one of two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
* TRSC Sweep
* One of three Intersect admins, and one of two Intersect leadership sign-off must authorize
* TRSC Reorganize
* Two of three Intersect admins and three of five trusted entities must authorize
**Processes**
Upon enactment of this governance action, funding for this project will be directed into the TRSC's stake account. All instances of TRSC and PSSC can not be staked with a SPO and will be delegated to the auto-abstain predefined DRep. From here funds will be withdrawn into a UTxO remaining at the TRSC.
When a 2026 TRSC is established, the funding for this project will be migrated via the ‘disburse’ action.
When the Legal contract is prepared and Input Output is ready, funding for this project will be transferred using the Fund action to a PSSC. All milestones will be outlined within the metadata.
A dashboard will be available for the community to audit the TRSC or PSSC and track metrics related to this withdrawn ada as well as being immutably verifiable on chain.
#### **3.3 Funding Denomination**
All amounts in this proposal are denominated in ada (₳). The total Treasury ask is ₳7,916,666. USD figures ($1,900,000) are provided for reference only, based on an ADA/USD rate of 0.24.
#### **3.4 Refund Conditions**
All funds not disbursed by the end of the delivery period will be returned to the Cardano Treasury. A final reconciliation will be published as part of the oversight reporting cycle. In the event of partial delivery or scope reduction, unspent funds associated with cancelled or reduced deliverables will be returned proportionally.
#### **3.5 Prior Treasury Receipts**
IO and its affiliated entities have been accountable for delivery of work funded by the Cardano Treasury. The total funds allocated has been ₳130,708,860 across a number of projects within Treasury Smart Contract, to date IOG has withdrawn ₳78,459,777.
| Workstream | Ada received | % of allocation | Corresponding Governance Action |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: |
| Blockfrost | ₳1,137,500 | 88% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#2 |
| Catalyst | ₳3,095,400 | 60% *\* | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#23 |
| IOE | ₳47,159,487 | 49% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#1 |
| IOR | ₳26,840,000 | 100% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#32 |
| Governance | ₳227,390 | 38% | 8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e#22 |
*\*Note: for Catalyst this only reflects the workstream that focuses on the Hermes Infrastructure and UX/UI improvements, not the execution and operation of Funds 14-16. Per [Info Action](https://explorer.cardano.org/governance-action/gov_action1k5vwlfrxtyusd2ec37tckd54gjvqn2kd72xj4t6wkkapdv7zfg0qq468n2r) this is in the process of transitioning to Cardano Foundation.
#### **3.6 Net Change Limit Compliance**
The requested amount does not at time of submission, on its own or in aggregate, breach the applicable [350M Net Change Limit](https://explorer.cardano.org/governance-action/gov_action1m3xx08yv788vfxqh6nfvrjtvmqpwezsy0ggaczctkyjmttc2wmxsq4jsr7q) covering Epoch 613 to Epoch 713.
In accordance with the guardrail *TREASURY-02a*, this withdrawal does not exceed the NCL at the moment of submission.
#### **3.7 Audit & Oversight**
Audit and oversight costs are included within the overhead applied to this proposal. The Intersect administration fee covers administrative oversight and is reflected within the cost of this proposal. Independent oversight will be provided through Intersect and technically capable third-party, including reporting obligations and milestone-based disbursement controls.