Cardano Devs Win 96M ADA Funding for Major Network Upgrades – Bullish Momentum Ahead

Cardano's engineering corps just unlocked a 96 million ADA war chest—fuel for its next-gen protocol upgrades. Treasury approval signals institutional confidence as ADA eyes its next rally.

Breaking Down the Spend

Those 96 million tokens (worth ~$48M at press time) will turbocharge Cardano's scalability roadmap. Expect layer-2 solutions, governance overhauls, and—if history repeats—another round of 'when smart contracts?' memes from impatient degens.

Why This Matters

Unlike certain proof-of-work chains bleeding devs, Cardano keeps shipping. The funding greenlight proves decentralized treasuries can actually work—take notes, crypto politicians.

Market Ripple Effect

Traders are front-running the news, naturally. ADA's 20% monthly gain looks suspiciously like the pre-pump phase before previous major upgrades. Just don't tell the SEC this isn't a security.

The Bottom Line

Cardano's playing the long game while competitors chase hype cycles. Whether that translates to ADA flipping ETH remains crypto's favorite parlor bet—but for now, the smart money's on continued infrastructure dominance.

Cardano Ties 96M ADA Funding to Milestone Delivery

The funding, which will be released in stages, is tied to delivery milestones overseen by Intersect, a member-based governance body for the cardano ecosystem.

IOG will be required to submit monthly progress reports, detailed timesheets, and quarterly budget breakdowns.

Smart contracts and a dedicated committee will provide additional layers of oversight to ensure accountability.

Among the planned upgrades are enhancements to Hydra, Cardano’s scalability protocol designed for high-speed, low-cost transactions.

Project Acropolis, another major initiative, aims to redesign the Cardano node to make it more modular and developer-friendly, key to attracting and onboarding new CORE contributors.

IOG also plans to implement performance improvements to reduce RAM usage and operating costs for stake pool operators, while laying the groundwork for more advanced smart contract capabilities and seamless interoperability with other chains.

Currently, Cardano processes blocks in an average of 20 seconds, with a transaction cost of around 0.34 ADA, according to blockchain analytics firm Messari.

The proposed upgrades are expected to make the network more competitive and cost-efficient.

While the proposal ultimately passed, it did draw scrutiny from several community members.

Today, the @IntersectMBO Board of Directors has to resolve a difficult situation. If you are a DRep engaged in the Budget Reconciliation Process, you already know that members of the Intersect Technical Steering Committee (TSC) have put forth a proposal outlining their vision…

Concerns centered around the size of the funding request, a perceived lack of transparency regarding how resources WOULD be allocated, and whether breaking the proposal into smaller, separately voted sections would have been more appropriate.

A competing proposal from Cardano’s Technical Steering Committee was submitted but not endorsed by Intersect.

Intersect board member Adam Rusch emphasized that it was up to the community to choose the direction forward.

Cardano, Solana, Ethereum Lead 2025 Blockchain Upgrade Wave

Cardano joins other major blockchain networks rolling out upgrades this year.

Solana recently increased its block capacity by 20% to 60 million compute units.

Ethereum, meanwhile, raised its gas limit to nearly 45 million and implemented the Pectra hard fork in May, with further upgrades planned for 2025.

Last month, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said an audit of Input Output Global’s (IOG) ADA holdings is nearly ready for public release, with plans to livestream the full report once finalized.

The audit follows a wave of accusations leveled earlier this year, including claims that Hoskinson misappropriated $600 million in ADA through manipulation of the Cardano ledger.

One allegation, made by NFT artist Masato Alexander, accused Hoskinson of using a “genesis key” to seize control of $619 million during Cardano’s 2021 Allegra hard fork. Hoskinson has denied the allegations.