Cardano Foundation Quarterly: Q4 2025

Following the publication of the Cardano Foundation roadmap for global adoption, Q4 focused on beginning its enactment across the ecosystem. Activity during the quarter reflected deliberate progress toward positioning Cardano as a public digital infrastructure, with continued emphasis on coordination, reliability, and long-term value creation.

Work throughout the quarter centered on three strategic pillars: adoption, technology, and governance. From gathering the global community at Cardano Summit to advancing network resilience and decentralized decision-making, these efforts illustrate how the Foundation is translating strategic direction into sustained, practical action.

Bringing together the global Cardano ecosystem

Cardano Summit 2025 served as a central convening point for the ecosystem, bringing builders, enterprises, and community leaders together to strengthen collaboration and accelerate real-world engagement. As the flagship global gathering, the Summit provided a platform to showcase progress across adoption, governance, tooling, and research, while reinforcing Cardano’s role as a public digital infrastructure supported by a globally distributed community.

The Summit welcomed more than 1,000 in-person participants from nearly 70 nationalities, alongside 25,000 online viewers, reflecting the breadth and diversity of the Cardano ecosystem. Across three days in Berlin, more than 140 speakers contributed to discussions spanning governance, tooling, adoption, and research. The event also generated more than 1,000 pieces of earned media coverage, with an estimated reach of 2.04 billion, extending Cardano’s visibility well beyond the immediate community.

Recognizing builders and early-stage innovation

Ecosystem contributions were recognized through the Cardano Summit Awards, which highlighted individuals, teams, and projects advancing adoption and innovation across infrastructure, developer tooling, governance, decentralized finance, and education. By spotlighting excellence across a wide range of categories, the awards reinforced the depth and maturity of activity emerging from the Cardano ecosystem.

Builder engagement remained a core focus throughout the Summit. The Battle of the Builders pitch competition showcased early-stage startups building on Cardano, with BikeID, Iagon, and UTXOs recognized for solutions spanning digital identity, decentralized storage and compute, and developer workflow tooling. Participating teams gained access to a prize pool valued at up to USD 650,000, combining cash awards, accelerator pathways, and ecosystem partner support designed to help projects progress beyond the Summit stage.

Hands-on development was further supported through the Layer Up hackathon, which brought together 134 developers across 92 teams to build real-world blockchain applications on Cardano. Running for a full week and culminating on Day Zero of the Summit, the hackathon blended in-person collaboration with global remote participation and hands-on mentorship from teams at Bloxbean, Masumi, Mesh, and the Cardano Foundation.

Submissions spanned healthcare, governance tooling, environmental intelligence, and AI-enabled use cases, with winning teams receiving follow-on technical, business, and growth support. The program also laid the groundwork for additional community-driven regional hackathons and events across Latin America, Asia, and Africa, extending regional builder and community engagement beyond the Summit itself.

Beyond Berlin, adoption efforts were reinforced through a broader program of global and regional events delivered in collaboration with the community. Gatherings in Las Vegas, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Bangalore brought together builders, enterprises, and ecosystem leaders for technical workshops—with Nairobi scheduled for February 2026. These regional events have proven invaluable for knowledge sharing and discussion on real-world Cardano adoption, underscoring the strength of Cardano’s globally distributed community.

Deepening enterprise and institutional engagement

Enterprise and institutional engagement continued through participation in global forums, including Blockchain Life in Dubai and the Blockchain Impact Forum in Copenhagen. As a Community Partner for the latter, the Foundation collaborated with the Blockchain for Good Alliance and UNDP AltFinLab to reinforce the role of blockchain in delivering measurable social and environmental outcomes. These engagements positioned Cardano within broader conversations on responsible digital infrastructure, sustainability, and public-sector innovation.

Our ongoing partnership with Petrobras further demonstrated enterprise adoption in practice. Petrobras’ first Web3 Day highlighted joint initiatives spanning education, proof of attendance, and sustainability-focused use cases, reflecting shared efforts to advance blockchain adoption across academia, industry, and government. The Cardano ecosystem also maintained a strong presence at TOKEN2049, where builders, partners, and community members convened to showcase ecosystem progress and engage directly with global stakeholders.

Enabling adoption through education and acceleration

Education remained central to enabling long-term adoption. The Cardano Academy expanded its reach through enterprise-focused programs, including AI and Blockchain for Business Leaders: Cardano Edition on Coursera. At the same time, the Cardano Fundamentals course on Binance Academy surpassed 32,000 completions within four weeks of launch, reflecting strong demand for accessible, high-quality blockchain education. The launch of the Spanish-language Cardano Blockchain Certified Associate (CBCA) program further broadened access to structured training for Spanish-speaking learners worldwide.

These efforts were complemented by continued investment in startup enablement. Applications are now open for the Spring 2026 Cardano Accelerator Program (CAP), which supports early-stage projects building decentralized finance (DeFi) and real-world asset (RWA) solutions on or bridging to Cardano, alongside calls for mentors and service providers to strengthen startup support. The new What Is Open Source mini-course, released through Cardano Academy, further lowered barriers to participation and encouraged informed contribution across the ecosystem.

Demonstrating adoption through real-world use cases

Adoption was also evidenced through practical implementations documented in new case studies across multiple sectors. These included supply chain provenance through the rebuilt Bolnisi wine-batch tracker; verifiable credentials issued via the UNDP Tadamon Accelerator using Veridian; regulated real-world asset tokenization with Toto Finance; and end-to-end commodity traceability delivered by Palmyra Pro. Together, these examples demonstrate how Cardano is being applied to deliver transparency, accountability, and trust across diverse operational environments.

To amplify these implementations, new video and editorial content highlighted Cardano’s role in enterprise innovation, sustainability, and regulatory alignment. This included coverage of Digital Product Passports as an emerging EU mandate, alongside broader narratives illustrating how Cardano supports verifiable data, trusted automation, and impact-driven blockchain applications at scale.

Demonstrating network resilience under real-world conditions

Cardano’s technical resilience was demonstrated during a rare incident in November, when the network experienced a temporary chain partition due to inconsistent handling of a malformed transaction across node versions. Block production continued throughout the incident, and coordinated action by stake pool operators, the Cardano Foundation, Input Output, Intersect, and EMURGO enabled the network to self-repair within approximately 14 hours.

Ouroboros consensus functioned exactly as designed, converging on the canonical chain without halting the network. The incident underscored both the robustness of Cardano’s proof-of-stake architecture and the operational maturity of a decentralized ecosystem capable of responding quickly and effectively under live conditions.

Strengthening core tooling and developer accessibility

Ongoing improvements to core tooling continued to enhance developer and user experience. The release of version 4.0.1 of the cardano-addresses package added support for generating and using mnemonics in multiple languages, improving accessibility for global communities and lowering friction for onboarding across diverse regions.

Developer experience was further informed by the publication of the State of the Cardano Developer Ecosystem Survey: 2025 Edition. Responses from experienced developers highlighted strong uptake of Aiken, growing interest in identity-focused applications, and continued demand for clearer documentation. These insights continue to directly inform technical prioritization and ecosystem support efforts.

Expanding on-chain capabilities and interoperability

Progress continued toward strengthening Cardano’s on-chain capabilities and interoperability with other ecosystems. A collaboration with Brale introduced regulated, custom stablecoin-issuance directly on Cardano, expanding compliant infrastructure for builders, enterprises, and institutions operating in regulated environments.

Cardano-native liquidity also extended beyond the core network with the launch of cbADA borrow markets on Base. This development supports cross-ecosystem interoperability and expands access to Cardano-linked assets across broader DeFi environments.

Supporting decentralization and staking infrastructure

Decentralization remained a core technical priority through continued support for stake pool operators and staking infrastructure. The Spotlight on Stake Pools series highlighted JUNO, a long-standing operator recognized for its contributions to network reliability and open-source tooling, reinforcing the role of technically driven operators in sustaining Cardano’s resilience.

Community participation in staking was further reinforced by initiatives such as Bitrue’s Cardano Community Delegation Program, which enables ada holders to influence delegation decisions. Collaboration with Everstake and Trezor supported the launch of another secure, user-friendly staking option, strengthening best practices for participation across hardware and custodial environments.

Accelerating practical developer adoption

To expand practical reference material and encourage hands-on contribution, a seasonal developer challenge invites the community to implement real-world blockchain use cases across on-chain and off-chain environments. The initiative emphasized open-source collaboration, diverse tooling, and reproducible implementations, supporting faster onboarding and broader experimentation across the developer ecosystem.

Together, these efforts reinforced Cardano’s technical foundations, balancing resilience, accessibility, and interoperability while continuing to evolve the platform’s capabilities to meet real-world demands.

Advancing fully decentralized governance

Governance activity reflected a milestone year for Cardano, as the ecosystem completed its transition to fully decentralized, on-chain governance as envisioned in CIP-1694. Throughout this period, the Cardano Foundation focused on responsible participation and stewardship, acting as a DRep, supporting community-led decision-making, and contributing to the operational maturity of Cardano’s governance model.

This work built on active coordination across the ecosystem, including collaboration with Intersect as an Enterprise Member and participation in multiple committees spanning constitutional matters, budgeting, product strategy, technical oversight, open-source governance, and marketing and growth. Together, these efforts strengthened transparency, accountability, and long-term governance capacity.

Exercising DRep responsibility and voting transparency

As a DRep, the Cardano Foundation maintained an active on-chain voting record and published detailed rationales to support informed community decision-making. Votes during this period reflected a consistent focus on accountability, sustainability, and alignment with Cardano’s constitutional principles.

Strong support was expressed for governance actions that strengthened shared infrastructure and ecosystem trust, including approval of the Foundation’s initiative to secure the .ada and .cardano generic top-level domains. The initiative passed with 74.5% community support and will now proceed to the ICANN application process.

The Foundation also cast votes that required closer evaluation of long-term alignment. This included a governance action related to Constitutional Committee compensation across Epochs 581–653, in which the Foundation did not support the proposal in its submitted form, citing the need for a more precise calculation methodology, defined accountability frameworks, and better-aligned incentives.

Additional votes addressed treasury stewardship and operational continuity, including support for reimbursing a proposer affected by a protocol-related loss and approval of a 5,000,000 ada loan-based treasury withdrawal designed to expand Cardano’s global listings through a more accountable funding model.

Supporting constitutional continuity and governance evolution

Maintaining continuity during Cardano’s governance transition remained a priority. The Foundation supported actions to add a Constitutional Committee member to ensure quorum and operational stability through the next election cycle in September 2026. We also voted to extend the Net Change Limit (NCL) as a bridge measure to prevent disruptions to treasury operations while longer-term economic frameworks are refined.

The Foundation further voted Yes on the New Constitution governance action, supporting Constitution v2.3 as an improvement informed by on-chain community feedback, strengthening clarity, accountability, and governance processes. In parallel, the Foundation cast its vote in the Constitutional Committee Snap Election in support of Christina Gianelloni, citing her experience in open-source governance and operational stewardship.

Strengthening budget discipline and long-term planning

Governance activity also focused on improving how the Cardano ecosystem plans, evaluates, and executes funding. A new budget process framework, co-designed with Intersect’s Budget Committee, proposed a more transparent, staged, and collaborative approach to Cardano’s 2026 budget cycle. The framework introduces clearer templates, structured review phases, and consolidated on-chain approvals to reduce duplication, improve comparability, and support higher-quality DRep decision making.

Complementing this process work, a Critical Integrations Budget Info Action was submitted on-chain following coordination among several core Cardano entities. The proposal is intended to support key integrations and infrastructure partners ahead of Cardano’s next phase of growth, with a live AMA providing further opportunity for community engagement and clarification.

The Foundation also supported the Stablecoin DeFi Liquidity Budget Info Action, underscoring the importance of liquidity for ecosystem health while reinforcing expectations around governance rigor, operational readiness, and security for any future treasury withdrawals.

Engaging in open governance dialogue and Catalyst participation

Open dialogue around governance design continued through community discussions, including exploration of the proposed Cardano Multi-Asset Treasury. These conversations, involving contributors from across the ecosystem, reflected ongoing efforts to refine Cardano’s economic and governance mechanisms in a transparent and collaborative manner.

Within Project Catalyst, the Foundation published its full review outcomes for Fund 14 ahead of voting, detailing evaluation criteria, recommendations, and the results of a representative pilot designed to incorporate specialized technical expertise. For Fund 15, the Foundation abstained from voting due to timing constraints that limited its ability to deliver the level of due diligence expected under its high-assurance participation standards, while reaffirming support for the Catalyst process and its role in ecosystem innovation.

Looking ahead to 2026

As Cardano enters 2026, the focus shifts from transition to execution at scale. The groundwork laid across adoption, technology, and governance reflects a maturing ecosystem that is increasingly equipped to support real-world use, decentralized decision making, and long-term resilience.

The Cardano Foundation will continue working alongside the community, ecosystem partners, and institutions to advance Cardano as a public digital infrastructure. With governance mechanisms in place, technical foundations strengthened, and adoption expanding across sectors and regions, the coming year presents an opportunity to build on this momentum with clarity, accountability, and sustained collaboration.