Yes Treasury Withdrawals Committed

Cardano Builder DAO

2026-07-18

Summary

RCADA votes YES on Cardano Builder DAO.

This is a cautious YES.

RCADA supports this proposal because Cardano needs effective ways to fund builders who can create measurable ecosystem growth. The Cardano Builder DAO is attempting to provide a focused, smart contract-governed funding pathway for projects that can improve meaningful Cardano metrics such as monthly active users, monthly on-chain transactions, and total value locked.

RCADA views the Builder DAO as a useful experiment in more specialised, outcome-oriented Treasury funding. The proposal builds on prior operating experience, including completed funding rounds, builder participation, KPI tracking, process improvements, and the return of unused ADA to the Cardano Treasury.

RCADA’s support comes with strong expectations around transparency, conflict-of-interest management, proposal review, milestone validation, KPI integrity, voting transparency, and post-funding accountability.

Key Considerations

  • The proposal creates a builder-led, smart contract-governed funding mechanism for Cardano ecosystem growth.
  • The Builder DAO is focused on measurable ecosystem KPIs, including monthly active users, monthly on-chain transactions, and total value locked.
  • The DAO has already completed multiple funding rounds and distributed capital across multiple builder proposals.
  • The proposal states that the DAO has distributed 11.1M ADA across 34 proposals in two funding rounds.
  • The proposal states that Round 1 funded 20 companies and Round 2 funded 14 companies.
  • The proposal states that the DAO returned 354,790 ADA of unused funds to the Cardano Treasury after the first two governance rounds.
  • The DAO uses a member-governed structure and smart contract-governed funding process.
  • The proposal includes an independent administrator/council model, with funds held separately and not delegated to an SPO.
  • The Cardano Builder DAO only receives funds after milestone completion is validated and confirmed by the administrator.
  • Builder-led review can bring practical ecosystem knowledge into funding decisions.
  • Builder-led funding also creates conflict-of-interest and insider-preference risks that must be actively managed.
  • Some Builder DAO participants may be closely connected to other Treasury proposals or ecosystem funding requests.
  • KPI-based funding should avoid superficial metric chasing and should continue moving toward verifiable on-chain measurement.
  • RCADA supports continued funding while expecting high standards of fairness, transparency, accountability, fiscal discipline, and measurable impact.

What this action does

This Governance Action proposes Treasury funding for Cardano Builder DAO.

The Cardano Builder DAO is intended to function as an ecosystem-wide, purpose-built, smart contract-governed funding mechanism for Cardano builders.

Its purpose is to allocate capital to projects that can advance Cardano’s Vision 2030 through measurable ecosystem outcomes, including:

  • monthly active users;
  • monthly on-chain transactions;
  • total value locked;
  • real ecosystem usage;
  • application-layer growth;
  • builder retention;
  • adoption