Cardano Summit 2025 by the Numbers

When in 2022 the Cardano Foundation first took on the responsibility of organizing the Cardano Summit we were all fresh out of the pandemic, having gone for far too long without seeing each other in person.

Even now, facing the wild rhythms of current life, the opportunity to slow down just a bit and meet in one place feels like a rarity.

So we made a commitment to create a Summit that gives the Cardano community, and indeed the whole blockchain space, a place to meet, discuss, and exchange ideas. In fact, we set it up so it could help to grow the ecosystem and welcome enterprises, institutions, even policymakers, putting blockchain and the wider world together in one room.

People coming together and interacting can really break down barriers and spark innovation. It’s almost magic happening live.

To ensure the Summit provided a forum for as many people as possible, one thing became immediately clear: the Summit should often travel to different countries to meet local Cardano communities and engage new audiences.

Since then, we’ve been to Switzerland, to the United Arab Emirates, to Argentina, Portugal, Vietnam, the United States, South Africa, Mexico, Canada, South Korea. We were in Indonesia, Brazil, Germany, also the United Kingdom, Japan, Ghana, India, and so, so many others.

As the next Summit approaches, it’s important we look back. Not just for a nostalgic recap, but to transparently reflect on what worked and what didn’t.

The road to 2025

For the Cardano Summit 2022, we put the Cardano community at the very forefront of the event. That meant having the voices of everyone help build the Summit itself.

One of the stages at the main hub in Lausanne was fully dedicated to ecosystem projects that the Cardano community directly voted for. At the same time, almost 50 community-led events took place throughout the world, with each host designing the regional event’s program.

That year we also launched the first ever Cardano Summit Awards – another opportunity for the community to have their voices heard, not to mention a chance to recognize and honor the maturity of those building Cardano each day.

To top it all off, every vote got verified on-chain. This entailed developing a brand new voting solution: the Cardano Ballot. It created a vehicle for the community to express and record their will, while simultaneously showing the added value of blockchain for voting solutions.

The Summit 2022 captured the spirit of a global, decentralized ecosystem while showing what a coordinated flagship event could achieve.

The following year, we took the main stage to Dubai.

Having the Cardano Summit 2023 welcomed at such a global business hub sent an unequivocal message: Cardano belongs in international conversations. Regulators, enterprises, and policymakers engaged directly with the ecosystem.

What began as a celebration of community strength matured into an international forum where adoption, enterprise engagement, and regulatory dialogue could unfold in real time.

A return to Dubai the next year offered the chance to consolidate business connections. In fact, the whole Summit 2024 developed a more concise, better focal environment for deeper business discussions and institutional participation.

And so we arrived in 2025, having a Summit format that can grow in scale and stature without losing its commitment to celebrate the Cardano community.

A collaborative Summit 2025 to build the future

With Cardano fully in its governance phase, this became the first treasury-funded Cardano Summit voted by the community. We also combined a flagship main hub with five regional events led by regional community hosts:

• One main flagship event in Germany (Cardano Foundation led);
• One regional event in the United States (Rare Evo led);
• Two regional events in Brazil and Argentina (ADA Solar led);
• One regional event in India (EMURGO led);
• One regional event in Kenya (Wada led).

Together, we designed the events with adoption in mind. By convening ecosystem projects with enterprises, institutions, and even regulators, we aimed to set up the table to dive into concrete cases where blockchain brings a clear advantage, creating an opportunity to discuss trust requirements and integration pathways.

It’s again the magic of giving people a place to just hear and talk with one another.

With a similar rationale in mind, the events also included a developer-focused component – mostly in the form of education programs, mentoring and hackathons – to help new developers build on Cardano. Naturally, this has the ultimate goal of new projects and entrepreneurs looking to build their next bold solution on our ecosystem.

We also determined, and shared, measurable goals for each event.

Cardano Summit 2025 Berlin report

By all accounts, last year’s Summit became a wide, global success. I was happy to see the teams not only meet, but indeed exceed most of their key performance indicators (KPIs).

For the main hub in Berlin, we aimed for 800 attendees, 80 developer sign ups, 10 hackathon projects submitted, 10 masterclasses, and 60 media outlets providing visibility to the Summit.

By the time we wrapped things up, we had had:

• 1000+ people from 70+ nationalities are joining us in person,
• 26,000+ watching online,
• 60+ masterclasses,
• 145 speakers participating over the three days,
• 130+ developers sign-ups,
• 14 submitted hackathon projects,
• 70 media outlets reporting on the event and projects present.

[Embed community feedback post]

Close to 40 sponsors went to the Berlin event, of which almost 70% highlighted the effectiveness of the Summit’s networking opportunities to achieve their enterprise goals, with more than 30% even finding them exceedingly effective. This is a particularly important metric, as it points to business outcomes and potential new enterprise adopters (as reflected in the post-event survey results).

Layer Up – the hybrid online and in-person hackathon that culminated on Day Zero of the Summit – saw 134 developers from 92 teams competing for a US$30,000 prize pool distributed across two tracks. In the end, 14 projects were submitted, 10 for the Cardano Foundation’s free track and 4 for Masumi’s AI-focused track.

In terms of media coverage, the Berlin event earned over a thousand pieces with a combined estimated reach of more than 2 billion readers. These include publications not just by the Summit’s 51 media partners, but also by 20 other outlets delivering additional global media coverage resulting in a total of 71 media in total.

When we also factor in the social and digital engagement on our channels and online media, it brings the Berlin event total reach to almost 2.5 billion people.

As a final point, I want to mention that, while the budget for the Summit’s main hub event has gone through a significant year-on-year reduction since 2022, the revenue has seen a consistent increase. Naturally, introducing paid ticketing played a key role in this. It also both follows industry practices and helps guarantee the Summit’s future path to revenue.

Regional events report

1. The Dev & Governance Day at Rare Evo in Las Vegas

The Cardano Summit 2025 regional events started in August with the Dev & Governance Day at Rare Evo in Las Vegas. Many of the sessions delved into technical discussions; others considered several details for robust governance.

The main KPIs for the Summit’s Las Vegas regional event were 500 attendees, 250 developer sign ups, 5 masterclasses, 15 media outlets.

Again, the organization both met and exceeded the KPIs.

• More than 500 people attended, of which over a half were developers.
• The event itself included almost 20 expert-led workshops
• and appeared featured in over 30 media outlets.

2. Latam Tech Summits in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires

Next came Rio de Janeiro in October, shortly followed by Buenos Aires in November.

From Petrobras to SERPRO, UNDP, or Binance, both Latin America (LATAM) events included top tier global institutions. They put major players in direct contact with builders and community projects, all engaging with blockchain’s practical capabilities.

The LATAM events’ chief KPIs were 500 attendees, 200 developer sign ups, 40 hackathon projects submitted, 5 masterclasses, and 15 media outlets.

The ADA Solar team vastly surpassed most of their goals.

• The events hosted over 700 attendees, and offered almost 40 expert workshops.
• The hackathon received more than 280 project submissions coming from 200 participants.
• Coverage appeared across 20 different media outlets.

As the Cardano Summit traveled the continents, EMURGO and Wada opted for somewhat unique approaches.

3. Cardano Hackathon in Bangalore

EMURGO partnered with India Blockchain Week to deliver a two-week hackathon culminating in a major two-day event anchored to the official program of India’s Web3 flagship event.

They started with KPIs that included 300 attendees, 210 developer sign ups, 40 hackathon projects submitted, 5 masterclasses, and 15 media outlets.

By the time the hackathon concluded, the Summit Bangalore had become a full success.

• The event received close to 675 participants.
• Over 5,500 registered for the hackathon, with almost 450 hackers submitting more than 130 projects across three tracks.
• Six masterclasses took place.
• Media coverage came from more than 30 outlets.

4. Cardano Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi

While the Nairobi regional event took place last week, thus fully – and somewhat paradoxically – concluding the Cardano Summit 2025 in mid February 2026, their continent-travelling hackathon already began last year.

Numerous developers joined the hacking challenges in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Zambia. They will all soon go to Nairobi for the grand finale.

The program itself fostered more than participation. It helped teams strengthen their capabilities with skills that enterprises often look for when assessing ecosystem readiness or just plainly recruiting people.

Wada’s KPIs for the Cardano Africa Tech Summit mentioned 500 attendees, 250 developer sign ups, 40 hackathon projects submitted, eight masterclasses, and 15 media outlets.

While final numbers still require confirmation, we’re delighted to see them likely making, and even maybe exceeding most KPIs. As of 25 February 2026, preliminary numbers point to:

• more than 920 attendees, plus eight masterclasses delivered;
• a little over 1210 developers distributed across more than 110 teams participated in the hackathon, with more than 105 projects submitted;
• media coverage in almost 15 outlets.

Blockchain for enterprise and institutions

The Cardano Summit 2025 reinforced the event’s role as a convening point for enterprise adoption and institutional dialogue.

A good part of the programme revolved around the requirements that so often determine whether emerging technology fails or succeeds at being deployed at scale.

It’s a wide range, for sure, from verifiable identity and permissions to auditability, liability, regulatory readiness, or, of course, data integrity. And with AI increasing the volume and automation of digital decision-making, it all becomes especially pressing.

To help frame these discussions, we commissioned a report on digital trust infrastructure to the Blockchain Research Institute. Launched during the Summit, it sets out a practical reference model for how digital ecosystems can verify identities, permissions, and data in privacy-preserving ways across multiple parties. And why these capabilities matter as AI accelerates digital interactions.

For large organizations, this translates into a straightforward adoption test: Can blockchain solutions be governed, assured, and integrated into existing environments?

For the answer to be yes, we need clear accountability for actions and outcomes. We also require interoperability with legacy systems, controls that satisfy the risk and compliance teams, and credible deployment pathways that can withstand procurement and regulatory scrutiny.

The Summit put these conversations on the table. And in turn they informed the profile of the speakers and attendees who joined us.

In Berlin, alongside Cardano builders and technical leaders, we hosted 20 global enterprises and institutions. We had Johnson & Johnson, Volvo, and Novo Nordisk present, and we welcomed executives from Orange, Mastercard, the Hamburger Volksbank, UNDP, and the European Commission, among many, many others.

From the Boston Consulting Group to Draper Associates, CV Labs, or Gartner, strategic consultants, analysts, and venture investors also participated in the Summit.

The rooms were full of interactions, of possibilities and business collaborations being discussed. The buzz around the booths and the demo zone never ended.

Enterprise buy-in also depends on this: on meeting the right partners at the right time. These connections lead to confidence. And confidence moves businesses more often than not – confidence in the tech, in credible implementation support, clear standards, in the ability to demonstrate trust over time. But also, crucially, confidence in the people behind the tech.

It makes me exceedingly happy that the Cardano Summit has become a facilitator for builders and ecosystem leaders to meet with potential adopters.

Hackathons and the developer onboarding

Of all the Cardano Summit 2025 KPIs, one remains ongoing – a targeted 15 to 20% year on year growth in onboarded developers.

Metrics to track ecosystem retention are, of course, inherently complex. Followers on social media channels increase and fluctuate for many reasons, including platforms purging bots; plenty of builders prefer to remain silent rather than engage in online discussions; and developers often keep more than one active profile on GitHub.

Hackathons are also more of an awareness step than a retention method in the developer onboarding journey. This, however, doesn’t mean we approach hackathons as an inconsequential one-off.

When conceiving the Layer Up hackathon, the Foundation’s team created a hackathon playbook to help with future initiatives, especially those targeting both Cardano developers and newcomers. We put it together by considering the Cardano ecosystem’s specificities while simultaneously consulting with specialists, looking to other hackathons’ best practices, and analysing what our direct competitors do. ADA Solar’s past experience also provided quite valuable insights.

The playbook can now be shared for other Cardano initiatives. Indeed, EMURGO already based their hackathon on the model described there.

Following on ADA Solar’s usual practice, most Summit 2025 hackathons included learning sessions. As far as we can ascertain, this made for a successful tactic to increase participation. The constant dedicated online support that the Foundation kick-started for Layer Up, while not widely used, also seemed to have a significant impact for those seeking it.

At the same time, Layer Up’s hybrid online/in-person model certainly increased registrations, but many online participants ended up not submitting their projects. Even though this drop-out rate tracks with usual hackathon metrics, we’d like to look into possible ways of decreasing it.

On the other hand, the in-person hacking hub in Berlin sparked so many ideas, additional projects actually sprang up right there and then on the very last day of the hackathon. The winning project even ended up being one of them.

The technical, business, and ecosystem follow-up support to winners, however, didn’t receive sufficient traction. Although we devised it as a means to help projects take the next step in making their ideas a reality, most winners did not show up for the sessions, pointing to a lack of interest in this type of offering. It likewise suggests such measures won’t increase developer retention.

Nonetheless, we were all very pleased to see the silver medalist in the Cardano Foundation track quickly turn his solution into a functional governance tool. In fact, the project has already gone through further refinement.

The road ahead

Every single edition of the Cardano Summit has been much more than a yearly gathering. It has represented a new stage in Cardano’s, as well as blockchain’s evolution.

We have evolved it into a premier business event, one that provides a strategic meeting point for ecosystem builders and enterprise decision-makers.

Dedicating the first day to technical foundations and the second to business adoption as well as external partners creates the perfect environment to get people talking and ideas rolling. It provides a ground zero for new collaborations.

The Summit is now that in-person space where community members, enterprises, builders, and regulators stand together, discussing and collaborating to create the future of digital trust.

None of it, however, happens without the dedication of the thousands around the world who contribute to Cardano every day. The Cardano Summit belongs to all of us.

So, for 2026, we’ll again put the Summit to your vote.

[Embed global Summit 2025 wrap-up video when complete]

Although we’ve already secured a venue in Singapore, we want to hear from you.

The Cardano Summit 2026 info action will launch soon. We plan on sharing all details then, and encourage each and every single one of you to reach out and put your questions forward.