Charles Hoskinson, the founder of the Cardano network, has announced that the platform’s future roadmap will be shaped by community votes, treasury funding allocations, and nine current proposals under discussion. As the crypto ecosystem accelerates its shift towards decentralized governance, Hoskinson emphasized that Cardano’s management and implementation processes will be decisive in the project’s bid to regain its position among the top 10 largest crypto projects.
Community-driven governance and treasury budget
Input Output Global (IOG), which oversees most of Cardano’s technical development, has called on the community to approve a reduced treasury budget for 2026. The nine proposals submitted by IOG, valued at a total of $46.8 million, equivalent to 166 million ADA, are seeking support for next year’s operations and network upgrades. This figure marks a 52 percent decrease from the previous year, signifying a major step toward decentralized management.
Hoskinson highlighted that from now on, decisions will not be made unilaterally but rather guided by community-driven suggestions and voting mechanisms. He underscored that decentralization brings not only total success but also partial setbacks; projects that succeed will move forward, while those deemed unsuccessful will be discontinued.
The final say on which parts of the project roadmap will proceed now rests with the community. Voting won’t just decide fund allocation but will also determine which priorities move to the top of the agenda.
Voting process and proposal highlights
The official voting for Cardano is being conducted through Intersect, a membership-based governance organization. Delegated representatives (DReps) can vote using the Ekklesia platform. The voting process is set to run from April 22 to May 24, 2026, after which the decisions will be formally ratified.
At the heart of the nine proposals are key themes such as network scalability, Bitcoin integration, and strengthening infrastructure for developers and the Cardano economy. The Leios consensus upgrade aims to boost Cardano’s transaction throughput by 10 to 65 times, targeting support for over 1,000 transactions per second. The Leios testnet is expected to launch in June 2026, with full mainnet readiness projected by year-end.
Another major proposal, Pogun, seeks to introduce Bitcoin-based lending markets, yield products, and bridge solutions to Cardano. With the Babel Fees initiative, users will be able to pay transaction fees using native tokens directly. Additional proposals include new earning models designed to give developers more flexibility.
The rest of the package features layer-2 scaling solutions such as Hydra and Midgard, upgrades to the Plutus smart contract platform, new development tools like cardano-init, and expanded API and data services focused on advanced verification and enhanced security.
Key support and resistance levels for ADA
As governance reforms progress, activity around the ADA price continues to draw attention. Latest data indicates that after rebounding from the $0.23 mark, ADA has begun to set new lows. In the short term, clearing the $0.25–$0.26 range is viewed as crucial for buyers to demonstrate strength.
Following that, the $0.265–$0.27 zone has emerged as a new resistance area, likely to see increased selling pressure. Should ADA break beyond this range, the next major liquidity zone is expected to lie between $0.28 and $0.30. Conversely, another weak rebound could push the price to test support levels once again.
