Innovation Budget

Here you can find all the details about the proposed Innovation budget for 2025

You can provide feedback on this proposal on the Cardano Forum here

The budget process and supporting documentation represent a collaborative work-in-progress, compiled from inputs across Intersect committees and working groups. All figures, timelines, and proposals are strictly indicative and subject to community feedback, market conditions, and on-chain approvals. Nothing herein is finalized.

The detailed spreadsheet can be found here

Membership and Community Committee members

This proposal was defined by the Membership and Community committee via community consultation

Name
Role

Nori Nishigaya

Chair

Darlington Wleh

Co-Chair

Terence McCutcheon

Secretary

Katarina Ciric

Voting Member

Yuki Oishi(Yuta)

Voting Member

Ben Hart

Voting Member

Matthew Capps

Voting Member

Ha Nguyen

Voting Member

Sheldon Hunt

Voting Member

Sanjaya W

Voting Member

Akheel Fouze

Voting Member


Proposal Summary

The proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal period will encompass all funding requests made by the Members and Community Committee (MCC). The main goal of the innovation budget is to enhance community engagement by organizing events, forums and online platforms, all facilitated by Intersect. It encourages collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and meaningful contributions whilst ensuring members feel connected and valued. The MCC oversees Intersect’s Membership; In turn, the MCC manages the tiered membership levels with tailored benefits and participation opportunities. This promotes inclusivity and aligning engagement with members’ interests. Additionally, the MCC manages the Community Incentive Program. The goal of the program is to recognize and motivate valuable community contributions; This is to drive and strengthen active Cardano community participation whilst fostering innovation.

The proposed Innovation Budget is ₳ 77,526,800. This is to be managed by two Treasury withdrawal actions using smart contract:

June 2025

₳ 75,500,000 - Catalyst (includes 3, 20m ada funds and costs associated)

June 2025

₳ 2,026,800 - MCC


Abstract

The MCC of Intersect is proposing to break down the innovation budget for the following four sub buckets:

  • Community Hubs: To build and expand the Cardano Community Hubs

    • Expand existing and establish new community hubs to broaden access.

    • Gather input from the community to help prioritize new product and feature requests to drive ecosystem innovation.

    • Facilitate ecosystem input through the quarterly budget and priorities review cycle.

  • Education Programs: The goal is to educate the community for greater agency and participation.

    • Launch Intersect membership education programs to ensure members understand the opportunities that membership confers.

    • Create educational internships and an accessible membership tier.

    • Provide educational materials to help the community learn and have more agency and increase participation

    • Creative Commons licensed Cardano Educational materials

  • Membership Services: The goal is to grow and support the Intersect Membership

    • Host annual member meetings and town halls to foster collaboration.

    • Run Town Halls in multiple timezones and languages

    • Drive membership campaigns to grow the Cardano community.

    • Helping facilitate quarterly budget review cycles

  • Catalyst: Community Grants, supporting the Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem innovation.

    • Support ecosystem innovation through Project Catalyst

    • Experiment with a retroactive funding model to support impactful projects

    • Facilitate community grants and support builders through direct funding and mentorship.

    • Continue to upgrade the technical infrastructure and voting stack to empower Cardano communities with new open source capabilities

Motivation

The MCC goals align with Cardano’s strategic objectives for decentralization, innovation, and adoption. By focusing on education, outreach, and builder support, the initiative contributes directly to ecosystem sustainability and community growth. Moreover, it ensures Intersect’s goals are closely integrated with the community’s needs, fostering a culture of collaboration and trust.

The MCC have identified how the investment in each of the sub-buckets can produce the value into Cardano’s community and ecosystem. The motivation stems from historical success from things such as Community Hubs.

The MCC goals and core motivators are:

  • Intersect membership education programs

  • Regional community hubs expansion

  • Workshops, hackathons, and meetups

  • Community grants and builder support framework

  • 2nd Annual members meeting(s)

Catalyst’s goals and core motivators are:

  • Run 3 Project Catalyst funding rounds in 2025

  • Launch new Retroactive Funding experiment

  • Deliver on improved tooling, voting and engagement methods

  • The number of initiatives funded through the MCC grants program, and the number of community members involved in the quarterly ecosystem budget review.

Rationale

Community Hubs sub-bucket

The proposed budget for the Community Hubs sub-bucket is 3,226,667 ada.

See: Community hubs | Intersect - Knowledge Base

  • Associates and Individual and Enterprise memberships increased

  • The volume of events and engagements delivered

  • Feedback and surveys conducted to capture member wants and needs

  • Support and delivery of events on behalf of Intersect around the globe

  • Hubs around the world conduct town halls etc. and have the capacity to serve multiple time zones.

Education Programs sub-bucket

The proposed budget for the Community Hubs sub-bucket is 1,116,667 ada.

  • The volume of people (Associates, Members and non-members) that use the created educational content.

  • The volume of content delivery based on open source materials created by the community to increase community agency and participation

Membership Services sub-bucket

The proposed budget for the Community Hubs sub-bucket is 1,109,333 ada.

  • Membership numbers

  • Voting engagement

  • Ensuring that qualified members represent each committee

  • Town Hall community engagement

Catalyst sub-bucket

The proposed budget for the Community Hubs sub-bucket is 75,500,000 ada.

Video presentation of Catalyst Team’s Cardano Budget Proposal Presentation Slides

Catalyst 2025 Catalyst Team’s Cardano Budget Proposal Presentation slides

Catalyst 2025 goals are to continue driving significant innovation and impact in the Cardano ecosystem through a comprehensive approach to funding, governance, and infrastructure development. The proposed initiatives offer objectives that will foster ecosystem growth, enhance community participation through transformative technical advances that empower and include Cardano token communities to be able to participate in distributed decision making, incentive-driven building, while continuing to ensure efficient fund allocation for the core Cardano startup ecosystem.

Funding Impact and Innovation Support

The allocation of ₳60M across three funding rounds (Fund 14, 15, and 16) is expected to support 500-700 new Cardano projects in 2025. This substantial investment aims to yield tangible results:

  • 30-40% of allocated funds (₳24-₳30M) are projected to result in real-world adoption or industrial use-case partnerships.

  • Funding will be strategically distributed across four key areas: early-stage R&D, later-stage product development, grassroots ecosystem initiatives, and open-source software development.

The introduction of a Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) model, with ₳5M allocated, will incentivize high-quality contributions by rewarding completed, high-impact work. This approach ensures that valuable public goods such as open-source software, developer tools, and educational content receive appropriate recognition and provides abilities to address underrepresented regional support.

Infrastructure and Technical Advancements

Catalyst 2025 Technical Upgrades and Fund Roadmap

Four key technical milestones will enhance Catalyst's infrastructure:

  1. CAT1: Catalyst Native Mobile App is expected to increase participation by 30-50% by improving accessibility for mobile-first users.

  2. CAT2: CNT Ecosystem Support will enable decentralized funding campaigns for Cardano Native Tokens, enhancing their utility for governance and ecosystem growth, empowered to launch new co-funding initiatives.

  3. CAT3: Hardening Hermes will decentralize and enhance voting security, reducing governance manipulation risks.

  4. CAT4: Alternative Voting Mechanisms will introduce Quadratic Voting and Time-Weighted Stake models, improving project success rates by fostering better-informed voter decisions, reducing the risk of fund misallocation in each funding round.

Governance and Participation Enhancement

Project Catalyst aims to significantly improve governance and community participation:

  • Voter participation is expected to grow from 7,000+ to 10,000+ wallets, increasing the legitimacy of governance decisions by improving UX

  • The implementation of Decentralized Representatives (DReps), Quadratic Voting (QV), and Time-Weighted Stake models will lead to more representative decision-making, reducing potential whale dominance.

  • Each funding round is projected to see 300,000-400,000 votes cast, reflecting up to 30% growth in fund-on-fund participation.

Community Empowerment and Regional Support

The allocation of 500,000 ada for community hubs through the Intersect RFP process will create funding opportunities tailored to regional and emergent needs. This initiative will empower underrepresented communities and foster localized innovation. The Membership and Community Committee will collaborate with the community and Catalyst Team to define and implement scope and strategy through Catalyst.

Operational Efficiency and Infrastructure Upgrades

The ₳10M allocated for operating expenses is strategically distributed to ensure efficient fund operations and technical development. This budget supports a team of 32 full-time employees (FTEs) and additional subcontractors, divided into two main groups:

Fund Operations Team (12 FTEs)

Estimated budget allocation: ₳3.3M

This team is responsible for the overall management and execution of Catalyst funds. Their roles include:

  • Leadership and Management

  • Fund Administration Operators

  • Product Owners

  • Community Managers

  • Communications

  • ProjectCatalyst.io maintenance

Technical Team (20 FTEs + Subcontractors)

Estimated budget allocation: ₳6.7M

This larger team focuses on the technical aspects of Catalyst, including development, design, and quality assurance. The team comprises:

  • Architecture and Engineering Leads

  • Product Managers

  • Rust and Flutter Engineering

  • UX Product Designers

  • QA Testers and Engineers

  • Full-stack Developers

  • Site Reliability Engineers

This technical team allocation includes funds for subcontractors who provide specialized skills or additional capacity as needed.

The budget distribution reflects the complex and multifaceted nature of Catalyst operations, ensuring comprehensive coverage of all aspects from fund management to technical infrastructure. This allocation aims to maximize efficiency in delivering the milestones and activities outlined for each Catalyst fund cycle, including parameter setting, campaign launches, proposal submissions, community review, voting processes, regulatory compliance, project onboarding, accountability, funding distribution, and technical upgrades.

2025 Funding Rounds.

The proposal comprises three rounds of community funds of 20m ada each. The funds are focused on supporting community-decided open innovation opportunities, centred around four core workstreams, categorised as:

  • Cardano Concepts: supporting early stage use-case application development and demonstration from proof of concept (POC) to minimum viable product (MVP)

  • Cardano Partners & Products: supporting later stage market-ready products and use-case implementation for single applicants or in collaboration with industry leading partners to deliver real world pilot-trials

  • Cardano Open: Developers: Focused on supporting Cardano’s open source developer ecosystem efforts. Intended for the scope of this category to be set in consultation with the Open Source Committee.

  • Cardano Open: Ecosystem: Focused on non-technical proposals for grassroots Cardano regional growth and community-building projects. Intended for the scope of this category to be set in consultation with the Membership and Community Committee and relevant working group participants.

New funding initiatives:

  1. 5m allocated for Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) RetroPGF is a mechanism used in other ecosystems to reward and fund impactful work after it has been completed, rather than providing funding upfront. This approach incentivizes individuals and teams to create high-quality public goods by ensuring they will be rewarded based on the value their contributions generate. Public goods that provide significant value, such as open-source software, developer tools, and educational content, are key candidates. RetroPGF occurs in structured funding rounds, each round targets specific types of contributions, such as ecosystem tools or educational initiatives. RetroPGF fills a gap for Cardano whereby builders are rewarded post-fact, even if they weren’t approved to deliver the project via the general Catalyst funding streams in Cardano Use Case and Cardano Open categories. Additionally RetroPGF could become regionally focused, whereby portions of the funding allocation can be ringfenced for projects centred on and/or originating from specific regions. RetroPGF will mark an exciting evolution and extension to the kinds of programs Catalyst can facilitate on behalf of and for the betterment of the Cardano community.

  2. Cardano Committee RFPs Catalyst can also enhance the operations of Cardano committees by offering a comprehensive suite of tools to streamline and professionalize their workflows. By providing a structured framework for setting the scope of requirements and administering contracts, Catalyst enables committees to define clear objectives and align resources effectively. Facilitating with tools for drafting and distributing Requests for Proposals (RFPs) or Invitations to Tender (ITTs) the collection of responses, ensuring that all submissions meet predefined criteria. This allows committees to efficiently evaluate proposals while maintaining transparency and accountability. Additionally, by incorporating mechanisms for Expression of Interest (EOI) submissions and whitelist-based filtering, Project Catalyst ensures that only qualified entrants move forward, reducing administrative overhead and improving the quality of submissions. Beyond managing incoming proposals, Catalyst offers to support committees in automating the allocation of proposals to Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for thorough evaluation. This ensures a fair and consistent assessment process, where solutions align with the defined objectives. Furthermore, Catalyst can streamline the administration of milestone-based Statements of Work (SOWs), ensuring that deliverables are tracked and tied to project outcomes. The Catalyst platform's tooling enables committees to monitor progress and enforce accountability at every stage, from generating solutions to implementing them. By integrating these capabilities, Catalyst provides Cardano committees with an end-to-end solution for managing complex projects, fostering efficiency, and driving impactful outcomes.

Fund Operations services and Catalyst platform R&D

The Catalyst team proposes to continue its involvement as the Catalyst Fund Operations service provider for the Cardano community and provide baseline infrastructure including operating services for proposal submission, community review, privacy preserving voting, cohort management, and funding administration.

  • Coordinate, launch, and fully execute the next three Catalyst funding round campaigns at a level of 20m ada per fund

  • Maintain all existing Catalyst voting system infrastructure and tools so they are readily available for use during each funding round.

  • Coordinate and manage the milestone-based funding and proof-of-achievement accountability model to onboard newly approved projects and oversee the ongoing funding disbursement requirements for all pre-existing, active projects from Fund2-Fund13 and all newly approved projects (Fund14-Fund16)

  • Extend the capabilities of Catalyst user experience and underlying infrastructure (CAT1-4)

CAT1: Catalyst Native Mobile App

This will deliver an open source native-mobile version of the proposal, commenting, and voting experience for community users in Fund16, that leverages existing UX design system and Flutter for its cross-platform portability.

Outcome: unlock the full end-to-end Catalyst experience for mobile-only community members to reduce barriers to entry and boost adoption (especially in emerging markets with low rates of desktop ownership).

Features:

  • Mobile Wallet Connect Research: understand existing solutions and challenges to determine best approach

  • Mobile Design Research: test and validate approaches to translating desktop UX to mobile

  • iOS / Android SDKs: implement enabling SDKs for mobile wallet connect and other platform-specific needs

  • Deployment Pipeline: enable seamless native app deployment, without reliance on other teams

  • Account Restoration: allow a user to easily restore an existing account to a new device

  • Teams, Proposals, Comments: allow a user to create proposals, alone or with a team, and comment on them

  • Voting, Dreps, Delegation: allow a user delegate voting power, and vote on behalf of themselves or others

CAT2: Alternative Voting Mechanisms:

Implement research for Quadratic Voting + Time weighted stake, and provide a choice of mechanism configurable by campaign administrators

CAT3: CNT Ecosystem support:

This will deliver Cardano Native Token (CNT) communities support to administer funding using the Catalyst suite of community decision-making tools,

Features:

  • Cardano Native Token Support: index Cardano holdings and make them available to Catalyst tools

  • Campaign Admin, Setup Native Brand, Build Forms: external admin can launch and operate campaign

  • Discover, Subscribe, and Interact w/ Brands: allow user to find and participate in many programs

  • Legacy Integrations & Deployments: upgrade legacy tools and integrations to support concurrent programs

CAT4: Hardening Hermes:

Hermes is the underlying infrastructure for decentralising UX, enabling high-availability of an application engine that provides distributed storage and event processing for voting events, proposals, and role-based actions in a responsive user interface. This initiative will extend the MVP capabilities developed to date and get Hermes into a redistributable, production-ready state for delivering fully decentralised voting.

Budget Details

Requested budget: ₳ 77,526,800

The detailed spreadsheet can be found here

Title
Description
ROI
Total Expenditure (₳)

Community Hubs: Build and expand Cardano Community Hubs

Considering that Intersect's committees and boards play an important role in the off-chain governance process and are elected through elections by Intersect members, regional hubs that expand and educate Intersect members are very important. To enable the establishment of hubs around the world, we will abolish the provision of a uniform fixed reward to hubs. MCC can approve any hub and hub manager and distribute funds through the following three RFPs with hub managers. MCC will constantly monitor the overall fund distribution to ensure that fund distribution is merited by member growth potential and regional market exposure. We will make public how much money has been sent to which region.

Check the breakdown.

₳1,316,800

Drive membership offline/online / Internal management and others

・Promoting MCC-defined KPIs through hosting or participating in offline events and providing benefits(Including AMM and Intersect Town Halls in different time zones) ・Promoting MCC-defined KPIs through online social networking and chat management and benefit provision(Including AMM and Intersect Town Halls in different time zones) ・Promoting activities that are not included in internal management or MCC-defined KPIs but are useful for the development of the Cardano ecosystem:

(1). Increase in Membership Diversity -By Membership Type: Individual Members: +3,000 / Enterprise Members:+50 / Educational Members: +200 -Ecosystem Contributors: +200 - Create a list of over 500 potential members from the ecosystem, aiming for 50% to join Intersect. This includes roles such as Delegate Representatives (DReps), Stake Pool Operators (SPOs), ICC Members, Constitutional Delegates, Alternates, Ambassadors, Developers, and enterprises within the Cardano ecosystem. (2). Member Retention Rate - Target: Maintain a 70% retention rate. (3). Active Member Participation - Voting in Elections: Aim for a 50% voting rate in committee and board elections. (4). Contributions Beyond Membership - Engagement in Committee Activities: Over 70% of the hubs should participate in at least three budget-related activities of other committees, such as supporting on-chain governance, expanding Cardano’s user base, and engaging in tech hackathons.

Hub continuity (short term until end of H1 2025)

Interim hub funding for H1 2025. This is to continue the good work of the 6 current hubs under short term contracts (where current ones have expired) from March to the end of June 2025. This cost line it to support 46 hubs for 4 months each.

Continuation of event delivery, engagement, education, driving memebrship and encouraging participation in Intersect governance. We can't afford a gap in engagement or risk losing people

Education programs: Educate the community for greater autonomy and participation

1. Provide education programs to enhance community autonomy and participation. 2. Establish educational internships and affordable membership tiers to encourage engagement. 3. Develop a university network and Creative Commons educational materials through RFPs. 4. Support Intersect adoption with guides and resources and community education . 5. Offer practical education on Catalyst, DeFi, security, and participation in the Cardano ecosystem.

Check the breakdown.

₳470,000

University Network

Build a University Network to get students interested and learning the right coding languages and skills Look to build some internships with Ecosystem organisations

Generate a network of educational partners to collate and share a syllabus of intro and learning content Support learning and provide certification. Encourage people to become DReps or an SPO Sponsor and promote those new skills by creating opportunities with ecosystem partners Promote the success stories back through the education system for others to see that there is an opportunit

Creative Commons licensed Cardano Educational materials

1.Intersect Usage Support ($50,000) Develop guides, videos, and chat groups for Intersect usage. Provide resources for non-members, members, committees, working groups, and SIGs. Supported by the Community Support WG and Group Design WG. Exclusive content for members, including Cardano updates, research, and educational resources. 2.Cardano Community Education (Excluding On-Chain Governance) ($125,000) MCC will create educational materials for the internal Cardano community. Covers Catalyst participation, DeFi engagement, fraud cases, and ADA security best practices. Excludes on-chain governance (handled by Civic Committee) and external education (handled by G+MC).

- Educational content is viewed by 30% of Intersect members. - Create material for the community to use, remix, recyle to create engaging educational resources - Increase in knowledge and awareness of Intersect and Cardano - what we do, how we benefit the wider Cardano ecosystem. - Global outreach. language accessibility - Educational materials to help enterprises to onboard to Cardano and better understand the value proposition of the technology and how to use Cardano in their initiatives

Membership Support: Grow and support the intersect Membership

Launch Intersect membership marketing programs to ensure members understand the opportunities that membership confers.

Check the breakdown.

₳240,000

Developing community-driven benefits for individual and enterprise memberships

Developing community-driven benefits for individual and enterprise memberships

Ultimately, the goal is to help achieve the ROI target of MCC-0001-2025.

Intersect Global Town hall

Intersect Global Town hall - Outsourcing costs

Town Hall attendance will be tracked to ultimately help achieve the ROI target of MCC-0001-2025.

Community Grants - Support Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Innovation

Support ecosystem innovation through Project Catalyst Experiment with a retroactive funding model to support impactful projects Facilitate community grants and support builders through direct funding and mentorship. The MCC will have a 500,000 ada to create funding opportunities for the community through community hubs using the Intersect RFP process. The breakdown of the Catalyst 75m ada is as follows: 3 funds: 20m ada * 3 = 60m ada, 5m ada from RetroPGF, and 10m ada for operating expenses.

Goals include offering community grants and supporting builders through direct funding and mentorship. Gather and prioritize new product and feature requests to drive ecosystem innovation from the lens of the community and input through the hubs. This might be regional needs or emergent needs as we get into 2025. Providing transparent and responsive oversight and deploying new approaches to operating Catalyst to simplify access to Cardano funding, increase opportunities to participate in the Cardano ecosystem and enhance the likelihood of success for funded projects. Each Catalyst fund, when combined with state-of-the-art administrative tools and best practices, is an opportunity for the entire Cardano ecosystem to band together to deliver a more inclusive, equitable, and productive future.

₳75,500,000

Catalyst Fund 14

Fund 14 Target launch is March / April as soon as the budget is approved. Funds won't need to be drawn down to begin funding distribution +3 months from Launch (June-July 2025)

Goals are to support 150-250 new Cardano projects by leveraging Catalyst’s proven infrastructure, iterative improvements, and experience in decentralised grant-making. With a well-established governance framework, this initiative ensures efficient fund distribution, structured community coordination, and measurable ecosystem growth. Funding will be strategically allocated across four key areas: early-stage R&D from concept to MVP, later-stage product development and pilots with leading brands and institutions, grassroots ecosystem initiatives supporting community builders and marketers, and open-source software development.

₳20,000,000

Catalyst Fund 15

Fund 15 Target launch is July and funds will begin distribution approximately +3 months from Launch (Oct-Nov 2025)

Goals are to support 150-250 new Cardano projects by leveraging Catalyst’s proven infrastructure, iterative improvements, and experience in decentralised grant-making. With a well-established governance framework, this initiative ensures efficient fund distribution, structured community coordination, and measurable ecosystem growth. Funding will be strategically allocated across four key areas: early-stage R&D from concept to MVP, later-stage product development and pilots with leading brands and institutions, grassroots ecosystem initiatives supporting community builders and marketers, and open-source software development. Each category will reinforce decentralised governance, with an estimated 300,000-400,000 votes cast, reflecting up to 30% growth in fund-on-fund participation and further strengthening community engagement in decision-making.

₳20,000,000

Catalyst Fund 16

Fund 16 Target launch is October/November and funds will begin distribution approximately +3 months from Launch (Jan-Feb 2026)

Goals are to support 150-250 new Cardano projects by leveraging Catalyst’s proven infrastructure, iterative improvements, and experience in decentralised grant-making. With a well-established governance framework, this initiative ensures efficient fund distribution, structured community coordination, and measurable ecosystem growth. Funding will be strategically allocated across four key areas: early-stage R&D from concept to MVP, later-stage product development and pilots with leading brands and institutions, grassroots ecosystem initiatives supporting community builders and marketers, and open-source software development. Each category will reinforce decentralised governance, with an estimated 300,000-400,000 votes cast, reflecting up to 30% growth in fund-on-fund participation and further strengthening community engagement in decision-making.

₳20,000,000

Catalyst RetroPGF

RetroPGF is a mechanism used in other ecosystems to reward and fund impactful work after it has been completed, rather than providing funding upfront. This approach incentivizes individuals and teams to create high-quality public goods by ensuring they will be rewarded based on the value their contributions generate.

Public goods that provide significant value, such as open-source software, developer tools, and educational content, are key candidates. Initiative will foster new forms of collaboration with ecosystem stakeholders, enabling community representatives and committee members to co-create the scope and eligibility criteria, providing more community participation in ecosystem growth initiaitives.

₳5,000,000

Catalyst Operations and improvements

Goals are to continue to ensure uninterrupted, community-driven funding through Fund14, Fund15, and Fund16, while maintaining transparency, trust, and accountability in fund allocation. This includes expanding funding models with Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) to reward completed, high-impact work and empowering underrepresented regional communities with dedicated funding and support. Additionally, Catalyst Working Group outputs from 2024 aim to refine fund distribution and enhance ecosystem participation, supported with Catalyst’s infrastructure upgrades over four key technical milestones: CAT1: Catalyst Native Mobile App to improve accessibility for mobile-first users CAT2: CNT Ecosystem Support to enable decentralized funding campaigns for Cardano Native Tokens CAT3: Hardening Hermes to decentralize and enhance voting security; and CAT4: Alternative Voting Mechanisms to introduce Quadratic Voting and Time-Weighted Stake models for fairer governance. These upgrades ensure Catalyst remains scalable, inclusive, and a driving force for Cardano’s long-term innovation

Direct Funding Impact ROI: ₳60M allocated is expected to fund ~500–700 projects in 2025, given 757 projects were funded in 2024s previous 3 funding rounds. Funding outcomes project that 30-40% of ₳60m allocated to Catalyst-funded projects will result in real-world adoption or industrial use-case partnerships Estimated ₳24-₳30M of the proposed ₳60m deployed into high-impact projects delivering functional dApps, use-cases, and tools. Governance & Participation ROI: (including CAT4: Alternative Voting Mechanisms) Voter participation growth from 7,000+ to 10,000+ wallets, increasing governance legitimacy and funding decentralization. More representative decision-making through introducing DReps into Catalyst, Quadratic Voting (QV), and QV + Time-Weighted Stake models, reducing potential for whale dominance. ROI from implementing new decision-making mechanisms produces a higher proportion of community-aligned projects and a reduced risk of whale-aligned selections. Catalyst Infrastructure & Technical ROI: Mobile App (CAT1) expands accessibility, increasing participation by 30-50% at a minimum. Decentralized Voting (CAT3: Hermes) strengthens decentralization, security, and transparency, reducing governance manipulation risks. CNT Ecosystem (CAT2) enables Cardano Native Token issuers to launch new funding and cofunding initiatives with ROI enhancing CNT utility for governance, token distribution, and ecosystem growth in each CNT community. Alternative Voting Mechanisms (CAT4) increases project success rate through better voter-informed decisions, each round reducing potential for fund misallocation against community choices.

Core Operations for 3 funds ₳3,300,000 Communications, Town Halls 110,000 F15 & F16 Launch events 198,000 Proposal sourcing 165,000 Community review 88,000 Technology Provision 275,000 Cohort management 165,000 Funding administration 110,000 Data publishing 55,000 1 Fund Total ₳1,166,000 Catalyst Native Mobile App (CAT1) 1,809,000 CNT Ecosystem Support (CAT2) 1,541,000 Hardening Hermes (CAT3) 2,680,000 Alternative Voting Mechanisms (CAT4) 670,000 Catalyst Improvements Total ₳6,600,000

MCC Community Grants

The MCC will have a 500,000 ada to create funding opportunities for the community using the Intersect RFP process.

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