Hoskinson: Cardano may lose researchers if 33M ADA vote fails

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson warned that scientists could leave the project and IO Research could close if a 33 million ADA treasury proposal to fund IO Research does not win approval from the network’s delegated representatives. Many of Input Output’s other funding requests are also trailing the required support as voting deadlines approach.

Input Output, the development firm behind Cardano, requested 46.8 million ADA to fund operations for the 2026 development cycle. That total is divided into specialized proposals, each of which must reach a 67% approval threshold from delegated representatives to unlock funds. Voting on several proposals closes on May 24, while the research vote is scheduled to close on June 8.

The largest single request is the Cardano Maintenance Initiative, which seeks more than 62.1 million ADA to cover core maintenance from the third quarter of 2026 through the first quarter of 2027, including bug fixes, disaster recovery, mainnet monitoring and incident response. That proposal has about 46.6% support, with roughly 9.25 billion ADA recorded as abstaining and about 45.6% of voting power still uncast.

Other infrastructure proposals show weaker support. A 10.4 million ADA proposal for Layer 2 scalability work, including a data availability solution and the launch of Midgard, sits at roughly 16.1% approval. A 2.95 million ADA proposal to build “Pogun,” a Bitcoin liquidity and credit engine, has about 19.0% support and shows 24.2% active rejection.

Requests aimed at developer tools and smart contract capability are also falling short. A 13 million ADA proposal to expand automated formal verification across smart contract languages holds roughly 57.8% support. An 11.8 million ADA proposal to extend the Plutus smart contract language is near 32% approval. A 3.6 million ADA plan to increase developer growth is under 30% support. Project Cayley, a 7.92 million ADA effort to decentralize blockchain indexing, is at about 13.8% approval and faces nearly 30% active rejection. A 13.1 million ADA proposal to introduce Babel Fees, allowing fees to be paid in native assets rather than ADA, has nearly 60% support but has not reached the 67% threshold.

The research proposal, titled “Cardano Vision 2026: Human Centered, Scalable, Post Quantum Secure – IO Research,” requests nearly 33 million ADA, about $8 million, to preserve the project’s academic research approach and to help translate research into practical outputs for the ecosystem. As of publication, that vote had secured about 13% support and remains open until June 8.

Hoskinson said he was “deeply saddened” by votes against the research proposal from some delegated representatives and warned that dismantling the research apparatus would prompt researchers to move to other projects. He added, “Cardano is the science coin. You don’t throw it away,” and noted the lab represents more than a decade of work and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment.

A delegated representative identified as YUTA criticized the research proposal as a mix of wasteful spending and useful work, citing quantum resistance research and a group called Leios. Input Output reduced its budget request by nearly half compared with the previous year, stating the cut was intended to move Cardano toward greater self-sufficiency. High levels of abstention and uncast voting power have left significant parts of the requested funding undecided.

Input Output has warned that if the proposals fail to reach the 67% threshold, some upgrades could be delayed and core maintenance operations may need to scale back. The final vote tallies will determine which workstreams receive treasury funds and which do not.