Cardano Developer Seeks Reduced Funding of $46.8 Million for Expansion and DeFi Integration

Input Output, the company responsible for building and maintaining the Cardano blockchain, has requested significantly less funding from the project's community treasury for 2026. The company has submitted nine proposals amounting to $46.8 million, down from $97.5 million in the previous year. These proposals focus on enhancing Cardano's scalability and exploring Bitcoin DeFi opportunities. The reduced funding request marks the first step in Input Output's plan to decrease its reliance on community funds and eventually become self-sustaining. The proposals are divided into two main categories: scaling and Bitcoin DeFi. The former includes a consensus upgrade called Leios, which aims to increase Cardano's transaction processing capacity by 10 to 65 times. The latter involves a system called Pogun, designed to facilitate Bitcoin-based decentralized finance on Cardano. Other proposals cover performance improvements, security testing, and developer tools. Each proposal is tied to specific delivery milestones, ensuring that funding is released in stages. The voting process, which begins this week and runs through May 24, will be overseen by roughly 1,000 elected delegates representing ADA holders. The outcome will indicate whether Cardano's governance treats Input Output as any other grant applicant or continues to approve its requests based on its historical role in the project. Meanwhile, the Cardano ecosystem has shown signs of growth, with a new stablecoin, USDCx, reaching 14.6 million tokens in circulation and total assets deposited on the network increasing from $137.5 million to $142.7 million.