Project Catalyst has emerged as a cornerstone of decentralized innovation and funding within the Cardano ecosystem. As a pioneering governance mechanism, Catalyst has enabled over three million on-chain decisions and the allocation of over ₳290 million to more than 2,000 projects in 114 countries. However, with growth comes complexity. As community participation, funding demand, and governance sophistication increase, so too does the need to address critical structural and operational challenges. This proposal lays out a coordinated plan to provide reliable ecosystem funding and to future-proof Catalyst through a set of transformative upgrades that supports the Cardano 2025 Roadmap and community-validated priorities across three core workstreams:

1. Catalyst Interface Design and Development for Diversified Funding Streams

   • Objective: Reduce operating costs by up to 50% and increase both voting power and wallet participation by 30-50% minimum by improving accessibility across all devices and completing the unification of all the remaining components of the Catalyst user experience: combining ideation, proposal submission, community contributor roles (reviewing, moderating), voting, and project administration. For Catalyst, this means further design, development, and automation of user journeys and work flows for each type of Catalyst user experience.
   • Outcome: Unlock the full end-to-end Catalyst experience for community members using any device to reduce barriers to entry and boost adoption (especially in emerging markets with high rates of smartphone ownership vs desktop).
   • Output: This will deliver unified Catalyst interfaces covering complex Fund Operations and funding administration components. Leveraging existing UX design system for Catalyst App and Flutter for its cross-platform portability to move from desktop to device-agnostic optimization:
     • User-centric admin interfaces and dashboards. All proposals, reviewer data, evidence of milestone achievements, and impact reporting data is transparently and intuitively available so community members can track the development and progress of project proposals and teams they interact with.
     • User contribution and participation is tracked for reputation-score and incentives attributions
     • Diversified funding and decision-making beyond ADA with Cardano Native Tokens. Administration interfaces allow token issuers and co-funders to create additional funding opportunities such as match-funding and donations. CNT back-end development is already complete meaning Catalyst can index Cardano blockchain to take voting power attribution from any Cardano Native Token. Only interface design unleashes all this potential.
     • Streamlined milestone management: Proposal data seamlessly transfers into the statement of milestones via deep hooks to milestone module
     • Funding and contribution dashboards give users clear communications, receipts, and reputation surfaces
     • Automated assignments and forfeitures ensure reviewers are complying, timely, and accountable to service level agreements
     • Integrated impact data reporting and evaluation using standardized impact measurements
     • Design foundations for the integration of funding and resolution smart contracts
   • Features:
     • Discover, Subscribe, and Interact w/ Funders and Projects: allow users to find and participate in many programs
     • Advanced user preferences
     • Research: Assisted search, AI, regionality, language, insights
     • Legacy Integrations & Deployments: upgrade legacy tools and integrations to deep hook into concurrent programs
     • Mobile Wallet Connect Research: understand existing solutions and challenges to enable mobile wallet connections
     • Advanced Design Research: test and validate approaches to translating desktop UX to mobile and deep hooks
     • Cardano Native Token Support: index Cardano holdings and make them available to Catalyst tools and interfaces
     • Self-Service Campaign Portal: Provide scalable tools for campaign configuration, deployment, and management
     • Device agnostic development: address other platform-specific requirements to ensure seamless mobile platform integration.
     • Deployment Pipeline: enable seamless CI/CD app deployment, without reliance on other teams
     • Account Restoration: allow a user to easily restore an existing account to a new device

2. Production-Grade Decentralised Catalyst Infrastructure via Hermes

   • Objective: Advance the decentralisation, scalability, and auditability of Project Catalyst by delivering a rigorously stress tested implementation of Hermes to replace federated infrastructure with a fully distributed, peer-to-peer system. This includes enabling parallel voting events, secure Cardano-based vote casting, and public auditability of historic voting data that eliminates reliance on Web2 infrastructure services, empowering open innovation and ecosystem governance.
   • Outcome: maturing the state of the art of the Project Catalyst technology stack beyond the existing proof of concept and delivering production-ready Catalyst infrastructure using a fully distributed database and immutable ledger, configurable administration interfaces, eliminating reliance on a federated side-chain and small number of nodes while maintaining many artefacts are published to Cardano mainchain.
   • Output: Enhanced scalability and flexibility of Catalyst governance: multiple funding rounds using multiple tokens can run concurrently or overlap, dramatically increasing the system's utility and responsiveness. Stronger security and voter confidence through direct blockchain-based verification and vote casting, reducing trust assumptions. Full decentralisation of Catalyst infrastructure : no dependency on federated servers or Web2 storage, reducing censorship risks and increasing resilience. Greater transparency and auditability : historic voting data is verifiable, immutable, and accessible through distributed networks Developer empowerment : Builders can deploy secure, complex, and custom applications like governance mechanisms on Hermes with minimal barriers via IPFS and WebAssembly.
   • Features:
     • Upgrade WASM Engine to latest Wasm Component Model required for Hermes Application Logic.
     • Enhance WASM module Linker to support partial linking for modules which do not contain all events, or use all functions provided by the Hermes runtime.
     • Add events for WASM driven validation of data published over IPFS Pub/Sub or the DHT.
     • Make Hermes engine execute multiple WASM modules in parallel for performance and scalability testing
     • Implement a generalised solution to uniformly manage system resources.
     • Hermes package can read data directly from IPFS, not from a local copy downloaded from IPFS.
     • Enable execution of Hermes applications from an IPFS link, not only a locally present application.
     • Implement cryptography for 2024’s applied research into Quadratic Voting and Time-Weighted Stake models

3. F14-F16 Catalyst Funding Rounds, Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF), Fund Operations

   • Objective: Allocate ₳61M across three consecutive funding rounds (Fund 14, 15, and 16) during a 12 month period from when the funds are first disbursed.
   • Outcome: This substantial investment aims to yield tangible results of 500-700 new Cardano projects. Dates provided below are for illustrative purposes only.
   • Outputs:
     • Fund14 Target launch May , initial disbursements of funds in July/August 2025
     • Fund15 Target launch in August , initial disbursement of funds in Dec 2025/ Jan 2026
     • Fund16 Target launch in October , initial disbursement of funds in Feb-Mar 2026
     • 30-40% of allocated funds (₳24-₳30M) are projected to result in real-world adoption or industrial use-case partnerships.
     • ₳60m in funding will be strategically distributed across four key areas: early-stage R&D, later-stage product development, grassroots ecosystem initiatives, and open-source software development:
       • Cardano Concepts: supporting early stage use-case application development and demonstration from proof of concept (POC) to minimum viable product (MVP)
       • Cardano Partners & Products: supporting later stage market-ready products and use-case implementation for single applicants or in collaboration with industry leading partners to deliver real world pilot-trials
       • Cardano Open Developers: Focused on supporting Cardano’s open source developer ecosystem efforts. Intended for the scope of this category to be set in consultation with the Open Source Committee.
       • Cardano Open Ecosystem: Focused on non-technical proposals for grassroots Cardano regional growth and community-building projects. Intended for the scope of this category to be set in consultation with the Membership and Community Committee and relevant working group participants
     • ₳1m allocated for Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) program

Total Requested Budget for three workstreams: ₳69,459,000 (or $34,729,500)

Project Catalyst has become a cornerstone for decentralized innovation and ecosystem growth within Cardano. As participation increases and the demands of funding and governance become more complex, this proposal aims to address five key challenges necessary for Cardano’s continued growth, competitiveness, and decentralization:

1. Operational inefficiencies: Catalyst currently depends on substantial manual oversight and coordination across its funding cycles. Without targeted investment in tooling and automation, operational overhead will remain high. Streamlining systems now lays the groundwork for a leaner, more cost-effective operation once this development roadmap concludes in 2026.
2. Low voter engagement: While Catalyst sees higher voter engagement than most blockchain ecosystems, participation remains disproportionately low relative to the total ADA in circulation. This imbalance raises questions about how representative funding decisions truly are of the broader Cardano community.
3. Software limitations: Fragmented tools and inconsistent user workflows create friction across the entire Catalyst journey - from proposal to review to vote to ongoing project-funding administration and transparent outcomes. This complexity deters newcomers and reduces the system’s inclusivity and scalability.
4. Voting power concentration: A small number of high-stake wallets have the potential to dominate decision-making, leading to concerns around fairness and influence. Planned reforms like Quadratic Voting and DRep delegation are essential steps toward more equitable governance.
5. Catalyst’s early-stage focus: While Catalyst excels at incubating early-stage ideas and pilot programs, its role is sometimes mistaken for a long-term funding source. Clarifying Catalyst as a launchpad for experimentation and industry adoption, while encouraging mature projects not focused on partnerships to seek alternative treasury channels—will help align expectations and optimize resource allocation

This proposal addresses the need for reliable ecosystem funding to support hundreds of Cardano builders and startups, alongside upgrading the core structural and operational limitations facing Catalyst, laying the foundation for its long-term sustainability and decentralization. Through these three interlinked workstreams: Catalyst Interface Development, Hermes Decentralized Infrastructure, and the execution of three Funding Rounds the return on investment for this proposal is measured in tangible, ecosystem-wide outcomes, including:

1. For the Ecosystem: Significant reduction in operational costs, with potential savings of up to 50% in future Catalyst cycles from 2026 onward and broader and more meaningful community participation by strengthening Cardano’s decentralized innovation funding infrastructure with expanded governance functionality and funding flexibility, with support for multiple voting mechanics and the ability to participate using Cardano Native Tokens beyond ADA.
2. For Cardano Developers, Entrepreneurs, and Community Builders: Continued assurance of community-led funding, giving hundreds of community builders the confidence to plan and scale their projects, supported by a trusted, experienced, and committed Catalyst operations team. ₳61 million to be deployed across three funding rounds, including the launch of a Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) initiative, designed to reward high-impact contributions that have already been delivered - even if not initially funded through a Catalyst vote. The results are increased support for early stage R&D, open-source, regional, and community-led initiatives, guided by more equitable and representative voting mechanisms.
3. For End Users : Seamless, scalable, and accessible Catalyst infrastructure delivered through unified, device-agnostic interfaces lowering barriers to participation, particularly in mobile-first regions, enabled by enhanced user interfaces and experience and production-grade decentralized infrastructure powered by Hermes, replacing legacy federated systems with peer-to-peer architecture. The sum of these parts aligns directly with Cardano’s broader goals of decentralization, transparency, and system resilience. Plus the introduction of optionality between delegated and direct voting that improves governance legitimacy, with greater transparency, auditability, and resilience across funding and decision-making processes due to investment in interfaces and infrastructure.

There are four key milestones to be delivered, each of which includes a set of deliverables:

• Access to a fully unified, device-agnostic Catalyst platform supporting end-to-end fund operations, including proposal submission, reviewing, voting, delegation representation, milestone reporting, and reputation systems interfaces, capable of supporting and being extensible to accommodate multiple voting mechanics and availability of voting power and funding options in ADA and other Cardano Native Asset tokens.
• Access to the production-grade Hermes Engine as a decentralized infrastructure with IPFS/LibP2P support, enabling secure, auditable, parallel voting rounds and eliminating reliance on federated servers.
• Security & Operational Improvements: Implementation of Quadratic Voting requires certain guarantees that wallet splitting is not possible, over the 12 month contract a suitable solution will be implemented, while optimizations to Fund Operations and overall program administration will also be prioritized.
• Launch of three community-led funding rounds in 2025 (Fund14, Fund15, Fund16), disbursing ₳60 million to community-voted projects.
• Launch of a pilot RetroPGF initiative allocating ₳1 million to completed public goods contributions.
• Maintenance: Regular delivery of software releases, bug fixes, performance improvements, and knowledge transfer artifacts.

Definition of ""Done"" will be the successful completion and public delivery of these milestones, validated by community feedback, verifiable proof of achievements based on acceptance criteria and evidence submitted via the Catalyst milestone interface, technical audits, and the availability of all respective operational, technical, and governance documentation.

NOTE: Funding for this proposal is requested only in ADA. The submission form mandated choosing a 'preferred currency' from country / central bank currency options; therefore, any mention of USD is purely a result of this requirement and not a request for USD funding. A $0.50 ADA to USD price was used as a placeholder.

• A) Catalyst Interface Design and Development for Diversified Funding Stream: ₳2,479,000 dedicated to product design, engineering, and testing of technical outputs * B) Production-Grade Decentralised Catalyst Infrastructure via Hermes: ₳2,680,000 dedicated to product design, engineering, and testing of technical outputs * C) Three Funding Rounds, Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF), Fund Operations:
  • 3 Funds of ₳20,000,000 each to allocate funding to community approved projects voted by Cardano community
  • ₳1,000,000 for Retroactive public goods funding experiments launched in 2025
  • ₳3,300,000 for 3 funding rounds Fund Operations * Total Requested Budget ₳69,459,000

The estimated total number of resources required across these initiatives for a period of 12 months from the start of funding disbursement will be a team size of 35-45 FTE core and various supporting contributors across the following roles:

• General Manager and Delivery Leads
• Architecture & Engineering Leads
• Rust & Flutter Engineers
• Full-Stack Developers
• Product Managers
• UX Product Designers
• QA Engineers & Testers
• Site Reliability Engineers
• Fund Operations Team (Fund Admin, Community Managers, Communications, Incubation Support)

Subcontractors such as TXPipe, Globant, and others are intended to work closely with the Catalyst core team to ensure faster delivery times, knowledge sharing, technical education, and to foster a diverse understanding of the Catalyst innovation infrastructure among the Cardano technical community.

The Catalyst Team brings over four years of experience delivering the Catalyst program. Since 2021, the Catalyst Team has processed over 3 million governance decisions, allocated ₳290 million to 2091 projects from 114 countries in 6 continents, and operated 13 successful funding rounds with a well-established governance, compliance, technology, transparency and accountability framework. Catalyst’s Fund Operations team has facilitated more than 12,000 individual payments to grantees, totaling ₳180,274,235 in addition to tens of thousands more payments for incentivised community roles demonstrating its commitment to operational and financial compliance integrity. The Catalyst technical team has pioneered decentralized voting solutions, including privacy-preserving voting, quadratic voting, and the development of a prototype Hermes engine in Cardano. The team remains committed to engaging the community to enhance the program’s capabilities and to furthering Cardano’s ecosystem growth and development.

Post-implementation, and following development, the Catalyst platform will be maintained and governed by the appointed administrator (IOG) in partnership with community contributors and strategic technical providers. Governance will transition towards increased community inclusion and decentralization, in line with the evolution of the Cardano governance framework. To ensure the long-term integrity and sustainability of the Catalyst platform, the deliverables—including the unified interfaces, Hermes decentralized infrastructure, and associated tools—will be developed with a structured framework that governs their use and distribution. This approach safeguards the ecosystem’s investment while enabling broad access for community builders, developers, and end users to leverage these advancements in alignment with Cardano’s vision of decentralized innovation. Detailed terms of engagement for these outputs will be established post-funding, reflecting a commitment to both accessibility and responsible stewardship of the platform’s future. Platform updates, infrastructure maintenance, and fund operations will be funded via future treasury proposals, with declining operational costs expected after 2025 due to system efficiencies.

• Approval of the proposed budget by the Cardano community through the on-chain treasury governance process;
• Ongoing collaboration with the Intersect Product, Open Source, and Membership & Community Committees to ensure alignment with broader innovation priorities to inform the scope and shape of the proposed future Catalyst innovation funding rounds and subsequent innovation funding categories;
• Continuous feedback and participation from the Cardano community to refine and optimize user experience, voting mechanisms, and governance procedures;
• Continued technical contributions from strategic partners such as TXPipe, Globant, and others providing specialized support.