Cardano Foundation Monthly Update: January 2026

January marked the start of execution for 2026, with the Cardano Foundation delivering concrete progress across adoption, technology, and governance. During the month, we continued to participate in on-chain governance as a DRep while solutions like OriginateNavio showed the real advantages of blockchain for enterprise use cases, and Reeve was used to complete a first global on-chain audit.

Technical work also delivered new developer resources and measurable increases in hands-on contribution. Taken together, these outcomes show how shared priorities translated into measurable action to kick off the new year.

Supporting adoption with institutions and enterprises

The year began with our participation in global discussions on trust, resilience, and the future of digital infrastructure.

Several from the Foundation participated in high-level discussions at the CfC in St Moritz and at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, where conversations focused on how digital systems can remain trustworthy, resilient, and operational as economic, political, and technological pressures continue to evolve. These themes continued through a fireside chat at the Alpine Tech Forum and a panel hosted by the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), highlighting the importance of neutral infrastructure and long-term thinking for systems that support markets and societies over time.

Meanwhile, we remained focused on giving entrepreneurs the conditions to turn Cardano-based ideas into real products. As part of the Venture Hub, the Cardano Accelerator Program (CAP) opened calls for experienced mentors across decentralized finance (DeFi), real-world assets (RWAs), and growth. By pairing early-stage teams with this hands-on expertise, the program helps promising ideas move beyond prototypes and toward scalable applications.

A major milestone was achieved through collaboration with Grant Thornton Switzerland, resulting in a global first: a financial audit that is cryptographically secured and attested directly on-chain using a verifiable Legal Entity Identifier (vLEI).

Powered by the Foundation’s Reeve framework, the audit demonstrates how blockchain can support clearer, tamper-resistant financial reporting, allowing data to be verified independently rather than accepted on trust.

To make this easier to understand and apply, the Foundation published the Beyond Compliance eBook, which shares practical lessons from building and testing Reeve internally. The publication outlines how anchoring financial data on-chain can strengthen trust, reduce manual checks, and enable more resilient reporting models, giving enterprises a practical reference rather than a theoretical one.

These ideas were also explored in a new episode of Let’s Talk Cardano, where Cleopatra Martins, the Foundation’s Finance Product Lead, explained how Reeve prevents reports from being quietly altered and why auditability is becoming a basic expectation for modern financial systems.

This shift toward verifiable, on-chain finance was also explored in an interview with Cardano Foundation CFO Stephen Wood, which examined how institutional treasury discipline can operate in a blockchain-native environment. The discussion outlined how real-time transparency, shared stewardship, and disciplined risk management help manage volatility while building confidence in public digital infrastructure.

Practical use cases are also highlighted in our just launched newsletter Simply Blockchain. The various issues will examine what blockchain does and where it is actually useful for the everyday.

The launch of OriginateNavio, a Cardano-based solution that addresses counterfeit risk and improves supply chain transparency, further supports emerging use cases. By capturing data at source and anchoring it on-chain, OriginateNavio shows how blockchain can support clear, verifiable proof of product origin and quality in industries where trust and traceability matter.

Alongside this focus on real-world use cases and broader ecosystem presence, the Foundation confirmed its participation with a Cardano booth as an official sponsor of Paris Blockchain Week 2026. The sponsorship supports continued dialogue with global industry leaders and places Cardano within wider conversations shaping the future of digital assets and digital infrastructure.

Strengthening technology foundations and developer accessibility

January focused on making Cardano’s technology easier to use and build on.

Amaru, Cardano’s alternative Rust node client, looks precisely to boost the conditions for developers on Cardano. Our teams have recently experimented with running Amaru on a mobile device.

While still at an early stage, we welcome feedback and further testing. This will help us scout for potential improvements, not to mention parse the interest for such an option and decide whether or not to pursue it further.

Simultaneously, the Foundation’s technical teams worked to provide Reeve with attestation scripts implemented according to CIP-170, therefore creating a standard method for attaching verifiable, secure metadata to transactions. They likewise implemented the vLEI verification indexer, and finalized the new Reporting module, which allows for configurable report templates.

The teams also prepared to launch Rosetta 2.0.0, laying the groundwork for a major infrastructure upgrade. This release introduces Mithril improvements and upgrades Yaci Store to version 2.0.0, significantly reducing sync times. Together, these changes strengthen performance, reliability, and long-term maintainability across the stack.

In fact, Yaci Store’s open-sourced indexer released a significantly stronger version that helps developers to build more resilient DApps. Major new features include:

• admin user interface (UI) with a web-based dashboard,
• visibility for tracking rewards and governance data, among others,
• improved performance and access,
• and multi-language plugin support (MVEL, JavaScript, and Python).

January also consolidated the work to onboard Dune Analytics. Cardano’s profile is already available in the platform, and further development continues to set up data exports to feed Dune. At the same time, the Foundation’s teams remain in collaboration with Pyth Network to enable their oracles for Cardano DApps.

Meanwhile, our latest technical challenge closed in mid-January. It encouraged contributors to ship practical, reusable blockchain applications, with an emphasis on open collaboration and practical use cases. By rewarding work that others can reuse, the challenge created a long-term reference hub that will help developers get started faster.

By the end, we had received an encouraging 24 pull requests (PRs), up from the three achieved in the last challenge. Hearty congratulations to Daniel Fisseha and Reshma Mohan, the first and second place winners of the Holiday Season Challenge!

With eight and seven PRs respectively, they delivered end-to-end Cardano implementations, from smart contracts to full-stack integrations, using Aiken, MeshJS, CCL and Lucid Evolution. A thank you as well to all other participants. We had incredible energy and craftsmanship all around.

The month’s Developer Office Hours again provided hands-on support, as well as presentations on multiple technical aspects. For instance, we covered the latest implementations on Reeve, why KERI-backed attestations matter for Cardano, smart contract verification, and layer 2 solutions. We similarly examined the Cardano Template and Ecosystem Monitoring repository as well as some of its potential use cases.

Such initiatives contribute to a practical approach to technology development. They also create opportunities for examining the tools and resources people need to confidently build real-world applications.

Developer engagement also extended beyond internal programs. At the Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting (FOSDEM), the Foundation took part in discussions around Reeve and connected with developers from across other blockchain ecosystems.

Finally, to lower the barriers of entry even at a linguistic level, the Foundation released a new Cardano and blockchain glossary. It provides a simple A–Z reference to improve shared understanding for developers, enterprises, and newcomers alike.

Advancing decentralized governance through active engagement

January highlighted how Cardano’s decentralized governance is moving from design into day-to-day use, with the Foundation actively participating as a DRep. The month marked one year since Cardano transitioned to on-chain governance, a shift that placed responsibility for protocol changes, treasury decisions, and network upgrades directly in the hands of the community.

Several governance actions during the month focused on alignment and stability. The Foundation supported the Cardano 2030 Vision, Mission, Strategy Framework and KPIs as a shared reference point for long-term goals and future treasury decisions. We also voted yes on Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Constitution v2.4, which incorporates community feedback to improve clarity, accountability, and how governance processes operate in practice.

In addition, the Foundation supported the appointment of Christina Gianelloni to the Constitutional Committee (CC), helping ensure quorum and operational stability as the ecosystem prepares for the next election cycle. The decision reflected the importance of experience and consistency amid ongoing governance activity.

Governance actions also supported technical progress. The Foundation voted in favor of the Hydra Trading Infrastructure Budget proposal, backing work to deliver production-ready layer 2 trading infrastructure. Supporting this proposal aligns governance funding with the validation of Cardano’s DeFi scaling capabilities.

January likewise marked the first milestone in the Foundation’s governance roadmap.

Building on earlier delegations, an additional 220 million ada was delegated to 11 DReps focused on adoption and operations, bringing the total community delegation to 360 million ada. This step reduces the concentration of voting power and increases the range of perspectives shaping on-chain decisions.

At the same time, the Foundation updated its self-delegation approach to ensure all remaining assets actively participate in governance, removing passive holdings while still lowering overall voting influence.

Funding and long-term investment were also part of governance activity. The Foundation supported an Info Action proposal to create a USD 80 million Draper Dragon fund to scale Cardano adoption over several years, with returns flowing back to the Cardano treasury. Community discussion was encouraged through forum engagement and an open AMA, reinforcing expectations around transparency and accountability.

Together, these activities reflect a governance approach built on trust, independent judgment, and shared responsibility as the ecosystem moves into sustained, decentralized execution.

As the months roll on, the Cardano Foundation will stay focused on blockchain technology, adoption, and governance. We’ll have much more to share soon. Until then, follow us on LinkedIn and X for frequent updates, and don’t forget to subscribe to Simply Blockchain.