> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://committees.docs.intersectmbo.org/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://committees.docs.intersectmbo.org/intersect-budget-committee/committee-meeting-notes/2026-meeting-notes/budget-committee-weekly-meetings/march-30-2026-budget-comm-minutes.md). # March 30, 2026 Budget Comm Minutes ### Budget Committee Weekly Meeting — March 30th, 2026 **Date:** March 30, 2026 **Time:** 08:58 EDT **Attendees:** Ahmed Kadiri, Christina Gianelloni, Dynamic Strategies (Dimitri), Eric Helms (SCATDAO), Jose Velazquez, Kriss Baird, Kristijan (Chris) Kowalsky, Lloyd Duhon (Secretary), Megan Hess (Chair), Nicolas Cerny, Otávio Lima, Ryan (Cerkoryn), Simo Simovic (Project Manager), Tevo Kask **Quorum:** Confirmed (8 of 10 voting members present at roll call; Otávio Lima and Jose Velazquez joined shortly after). *** ### 1. Opening and Communications Update Lloyd opened the meeting and confirmed quorum. He provided a status update on video production: * **Election videos** were delivered Friday — the most time-critical item is now off the desk. * The **first budget explainer video** is in final QA. Feedback was that Lloyd appeared on screen too much without enough information graphics; revisions were made Friday and this morning. Final delivery expected today. * The **second video** (targeted at the CDC and vendors filling out proposals, leveraging the application template) was filmed Friday and is now in post-production. Expected delivery before end of week. *** ### 2. Project Status Update Simo provided an overall project update: * **Application is in final QA.** A go-live readiness meeting is scheduled for **Thursday** to surface any major issues or blockers. * If Thursday's review is clean, the team will be ready to **go live the following week** to support the **April 16 submission window opening** (timing intentionally falls after Easter, with the 6th–16th held as a buffer). * Simo will work with the Ecclesia team this and next week to document any final tweaks (screenshots and walkthroughs for proposing, commenting, voting, etc.). Voting documentation from last year is largely reusable. * Comms work on the application is in progress and will be coordinated with Aleryssa and the comms team for promotion. * Communications regarding **the question raised on X** (transparency around how proposals will be ranked if the full SECL is not used) are being prepared. Simo emphasized that the committee was transparent throughout — the ranking approach was disclosed in advance, the committee never claimed it would use the entire SECL, and final amounts depend entirely on DRep approval. * **Info action standing:** Currently at **62% Yes**. #### 2.1 Decision: Date Publication Gated on Go-Live Readiness **Nico** recommended that publication of specific dates should be **contingent on a successful go-live readiness review**, to avoid a repeat of last year's date pivots. The committee aligned on this approach. **Direction:** April 16 is the kickoff/submission-window-open date. Publication of the full date timeline will follow the successful Thursday go-live readiness review. Voting will not start before June (to preserve flexibility for window adjustments if needed). **Submission window:** \~4 weeks open. **Review window:** \~6 weeks. *** ### 3. Committee Composition and Recruitment **Kristijan Kowalsky** opened a discussion on upcoming committee elections: * **Five seats open**, **three currently empty** (loss of Rita, Mercy, and one previously unfilled seat). * **Three voting members up for renewal:** Megan, Dimitri, and Kriss Baird. * New terms will be **18 months** (vs. the previous 12) to align the committee on a regular cycle. * **X-Spaces / Meet-the-Committee** event is upcoming. #### 3.1 Recruitment Challenges Discussion A substantial portion of the meeting was devoted to candid discussion of how to attract qualified, active applicants: * **Kristijan** noted that recent CVs show experience but no prior engagement — applicants who had never joined a public meeting. He emphasized this is "a working committee, not a club med," and that fresh, active participants are needed because some long-tenured members are jaded and burned out. * **Christina Gianelloni** observed that there is a community perception that they "can't participate." She urged committee members to personally and visibly invite people, since outreach from voting members carries more weight than from official channels alone. * **Lloyd** agreed and committed to coordinating with Lissa to add **regular weekly comms reminders** about the open public meetings (e.g., "Don't forget: Budget Committee meets Mondays at this time, come join and watch."). * **Christina** added that she sees comments from people (e.g., Jenny) saying "I didn't know this was open" — there is still a comms reach gap. * **Jose Velazquez** suggested funding a community engagement role — someone running regular Twitter Spaces, educational content, and gathering community sentiment, since many people don't read the full Intersect newsletter and rely on Spaces and social to catch up. * **Tevo Kask** observed two sides: it should be relatively easy to attract participation in budget discussions because they're tangibly close to outcomes in Cardano; but joining the committee itself is harder because expertise is not consistently recognized or compensated. He noted he was personally surprised the budget process had quietly started weeks ago without a clear public kickoff signal. * **Lloyd** clarified: the committee deliberately wanted **info action approval before formal kickoff**, which is exactly the phase being completed now. * **Nico** offered the counterpoint that there are limits to outreach efficacy. Many blog posts and Spaces have already been done. He'd rather spend his time **improving the process** than spending five hours in Spaces. He also noted the committee's name itself is misleading — "budget process committee" would be more accurate, since the committee runs the process rather than holding the budget. * **Christina** pushed back gently, suggesting the committee is in a phase of jadedness that mirrors how she once viewed long-tenured members when she joined in 2022. She argued this is precisely the moment when bringing in new, passionate members matters most. She offered to consider applying herself, noting her hesitation has been about Pragma being perceived as a conflict of interest — though she acknowledged that simply talking to the committee already gets her labeled as part of "a cabal." * **Christina** also shared difficult market context from recent ecosystem events (Buenos Aires, Builder Fest): the Node Diversity workshop was a positive moment, but at Builder Fest the dominant conversation was builder survival — multiple businesses asking whether they would still be open by summer. #### 3.2 Suggested Tactical Step **Christina** suggested that instead of comms only originating from the official account, **individual committee members should also share** weekly meeting outcomes ("we discussed X, achieved Y, still working on Z"). She noted strong organic engagement when she personally posted about the meetings. *** ### 4. Budget Ask Document — Working Session Simo pulled up the working budget ask document. Lloyd reiterated this is **the critical item over the next two weeks** — the committee's own budget ask should be ready as close to the submission window opening as possible. **Note:** Document access is currently restricted to committee members. #### 4.1 Initiative Status Recap Simo summarized the state of the document: * **Initiative 1 (Budget Process)** — already discussed in prior sessions. * **Initiative 2 (Tooling)** — small line item. * **Initiative 3 (Treasury Transparency Initiative)** — Megan has expanded this with timeline, deliverables, and detail. Megan acknowledged she "got into it" and may have written more than necessary; can be trimmed. * **Initiative 4 (Audits)** — no funding requested (covered in core budget). #### 4.2 DRep Compensation — Confirmed Out of Scope **Dimitri** confirmed he had previously drafted two proposals: one on DRep compensation, one on treasury sustainability. * The **treasury sustainability** proposal is **included** in the budget ask. * The **DRep compensation** proposal will be **removed**. Megan and Simo confirmed there is no consensus on the committee that this is within the committee's remit; it may belong with another committee or a future cycle. * Dimitri accepted this, noting only that "DReps and committee members will only do so much for free" — incentivization remains a real issue, but a placeholder isn't appropriate without consensus. *** ### 5. Treasury Transparency Initiative — Substantive Refinement #### 5.1 Dashboards: Improve, Don't Rebuild **Nico** raised a concern about the current draft language around developing new dashboards: * "We have dashboards. We should rather improve those instead of building a new one. Everyone needs to relearn which dashboard to look at." * Existing tools: the **SundaeSwap dashboard**, the **Savos dashboard**, and **treasury.fi**. * Nico suggested the committee may need to make a decision to consolidate — having both the SundaeSwap and Savos dashboards is itself confusing. **Lloyd** added a principle: any dashboard work funded by the committee should be on **open-source repositories**. He believes treasury.fi is open source and would prefer the committee improve that repository (and encourage others to fork/extend it) rather than fund a competing build. **Kriss Baird:** Agrees there is value in multiple touch points, but if the question is resource allocation, consolidation makes sense. **Dimitri:** Prefers a single dashboard for focus, ideally housed under either the **Cardano Foundation** or **Intersect** umbrella — those brands carry more trust than third-party providers like Zerus. #### 5.2 Proposed First Step — Dashboard Census **Megan** proposed that the **first step** in the Treasury Transparency Initiative should be a **community-consultative census of existing tooling**: * Identify what dashboards/tools already exist. * Identify gaps in the data they expose. * Identify opportunities to consolidate. * Heavy committee involvement in this step. * Add specific deliverables for the first two months around "consolidate existing dashboards" rather than build new. **Lloyd** agreed and proposed wording along the lines of: "Ensure the dashboards are open source and available from a repository, and seek improvements on those dashboards." **Christina** volunteered to participate in the working group on this — she has encountered specific data gaps in her ongoing work and can contribute concrete examples. #### 5.3 Reframing the Target Outcome **Nico** proposed sharpening the target outcome language for Initiative 3: * **Current draft:** "improved treasury visibility, informed decision-making, community engagement, reusable tools." * **Proposed:** "A **robust transparency standard** that can be used by anyone in the community" — leveraging the smart contract patterns that funded teams use, so anyone can pull and visualize the data. * Framing: the committee's job is to ensure capital can be allocated as efficiently as possible in a decentralized governance model. Transparency and a level playing field for DReps reviewing proposals is how the committee contributes to that. *** ### 6. Market Context and Strategic Framing A broader strategic discussion arose from the recruitment conversation, which the committee captured for context: * **Kristijan** shared a cautionary signal from another L1: a chain he was approached about in Q3 2025 has now seen its value drop \~90% with no liquidity remaining. The team has effectively moved away from being an L1 and pivoted to fund management. He warned the same scenario is plausible for any L1 in 12 months and urged action now while there is still liquidity. He also noted he is traveling to **Tokyo next week** for a unified Cardano events event with a side session for the Japanese DRep community; he is working with Fred and Simo on a deck explaining the budget process and the case for unlocking the treasury to support builders. Trip funded by Intersect and his company. * **Dimitri** offered the market-maker perspective: the market is aware the treasury is being spent. Sophisticated market makers will lower bids in anticipation of treasury sell flow rather than absorb it. The committee's framing must acknowledge this — spend the treasury within the **NCL framework**, with discipline, on initiatives that drive **users and transactions** (per the Product Roadmap 2030 emphasis). * **Kristijan** emphasized this is not pessimism but a call to action: "Don't wait for ADA to go to $1 to spend. You need to bumpstart the economy." * **Nico** brought the discussion back to committee scope: the committee's contribution to this larger problem is exactly what Initiative 3 is targeting — making capital allocation more efficient through transparency. *** ### 7. Homework Before Wednesday's Working Session * **All members:** Review and provide feedback on **Initiative 3 (Treasury Transparency Initiative)** in the budget ask document. Goal is to finalize within the next 1–2 weeks. * **Megan:** Consider trimming where Initiative 3 detail is excessive; refine the first-two-months deliverable around dashboard census/consolidation. * **Simo:** Continue populating the template so the committee's own proposal can be submitted from April 16. *** ### 8. Action Items | Action | Owner | Notes | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- | | Hold go-live readiness meeting; gate publication of full date timeline on a clean review | Simo | Thursday this week | | Publish budget process date timeline (April 16 kickoff confirmed; voting not before June) | Simo / Lloyd / Comms | After successful Thursday review | | Document Ecclesia application screenshots and walkthroughs (proposing, commenting, etc.) | Simo / Ecclesia team | This and next week | | Coordinate with Aleryssa and comms team on application launch promotion | Simo | This week | | Issue communication on transparency of SECL ranking approach (response to X discussion) | Simo / Comms | This week | | Add weekly comms reminders about open public Budget Committee meetings | Lloyd / Lissa | Recurring; CBC channel | | Deliver first budget explainer video (final QA fixes) | Lloyd | End of day today | | Deliver second video (vendor / proposal-template focus) | Lloyd | Before end of week | | Remove DRep compensation line item from budget ask | Simo / Megan | Confirmed no committee consensus to include | | Refine Initiative 3 target outcome language to "robust transparency standard" framing | Megan / Nico | Per Nico's proposed reframing | | Reframe Initiative 3 first-step deliverables around dashboard **census, consolidation, and open-source improvement** (not new builds) | Megan | Specific milestones for first two months | | Stand up community working group on dashboard data gaps; include Christina | Lloyd / Megan | Working-group activation upon initiative approval | | Committee members share weekly meeting outcomes from personal accounts | All members | Tactical recruitment / visibility step | | Finalize Tokyo DRep deck (budget process explanation + call to action) | Kristijan / Fred / Simo | For next week's Tokyo trip | | Review and provide feedback on Initiative 3 before Wednesday's working session | All committee members | | | Continue populating committee budget template for April 16 submission | Simo / Lloyd | Target: ready as close to submission window opening as possible | *** ### 9. Adjournment Lloyd thanked the committee for a substantive discussion that, while wide-ranging, produced concrete direction on Initiative 3 framing, dashboard strategy, and recruitment tactics. He noted that "these conversations are actually what moves these balls forward." **Headline outcomes:** * **Info action at 62% Yes.** * **April 16 confirmed** as the submission-window kickoff; full date timeline publication gated on Thursday's go-live readiness review. * **DRep compensation** removed from the committee's budget ask (no consensus); will be considered elsewhere or in a future cycle. * **Treasury Transparency Initiative** sharpened: target outcome reframed as a "robust transparency standard"; first-step deliverables shifted toward **census, consolidation, and open-source improvement** of existing dashboards (treasury.fi, SundaeSwap, Savos) rather than new builds. * Recruitment push: weekly meeting reminders to be added to comms; committee members encouraged to share weekly outcomes from personal accounts. * Wednesday working session will continue refinement of the committee's own budget ask. The meeting closed promptly to allow members to attend the Intersect Steering Committee call immediately following. Meeting adjourned at **00:59:10**. --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. Learn more at gitbook.com. ## Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. 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