Input Output, the private engineering firm that built and continues to develop the Cardano blockchain, is seeking about half of the funding it needed last year from the project’s community coffers.
The company on Tuesday submitted nine proposals for 2026 totaling $46.8 million, down from $97.5 million in 2025. Several of the proposals focus on scaling Cardano to improve its transaction processing capabilities and expanding into Bitcoin DeFi.
Like most major blockchains, Cardano maintains a shared pool funded by network fees, which community representatives vote to allocate to development efforts. Input Output has historically been the largest recipient, as it employs the majority of engineers building the underlying software.
Reducing requirements is the first concrete step in a plan to gradually eliminate this dependence. Input Output said the aim is now to reduce annual requests each year until the company is able to sustain itself on its own revenue, with community funding instead flowing to the wider small engineering group.
By the end of 2026, Input Output expects smaller, more specialized teams to take on much of the work it currently does in-house, including companies like VacuumLabs and Midgard Labs that focus on specific layers of Cardano software.
Scaling and Bitcoin DeFi
The nine proposals are divided into two themes. The larger fund funded a consensus upgrade called Leios, which Input Output claims will increase Cardano’s transaction processing capabilities by 10 to 65 times, targeting more than 1,000 transactions per second.
For context, this would move Cardano from a relatively slow chain to one that can compete with Solana and the fastest Ethereum layer 2 networks on throughput alone. Leios is scheduled for beta release in June, with full deployment by the end of the year.
The second flagship proposal funds a system called Pogun, which aims to bring Bitcoin-based decentralized finance to Cardano. In effect, it allows Bitcoin holders to borrow and earn on their holdings through Cardano without having to hand over custody to a centralized intermediary. Pogun’s lending component is scheduled to be publicly released in the second quarter.
Smaller proposals cover performance improvements to the Cardano smart contract engine, security testing infrastructure, developer tools and expanded API services.
Each proposal specifies specific delivery leads and ties funding to delivery milestones, rather than releasing funds up front. Imagine paying your contractor in stages as different parts of the house are completed, rather than handing over your entire budget when construction begins.
Voting will begin on Tuesday and run until May 24. Decisions are made by approximately 1,000 elected representatives (called DReps) who represent ADA holders much like proxy representatives in a public company. Charles Hoskinson, founder of Input Output, plans to release a video this week addressing the situation directly to these representatives.
The vote will test whether Cardano’s governance, which has expanded significantly over the past two years, treats input and output like any other grant applicant, or continues to largely honor its requests.
Last year’s $97.5 million proposal passed, but in the interim, the Cardano Foundation took over the project’s grant funding arm, while Intersect, the governance organization responsible for the vote, assumed management responsibilities for Cardano’s core software. Both shifts mean that input-output alternatives now exist in ways that did not exist when they were previously voted on.
At the same time, Input Output also mentioned the progress of the ecosystem in its published content. The new Cardano stablecoin USDCx reached 14.6 million coins in circulation within weeks of its launch. During the same period, total assets deposited in Cardano, a common metric for measuring network usage, increased from $137.5 million to $142.7 million.
Whether the full list goes through, is partially funded, or is completely reshaped by DReps, it will mark how much of a shift in the thinking of the Cardano community, as tools to fund development without input-output already exist.
