Comments from 2025 Cardano Budget Proposals Review Workshop: Cameroon Hub

What stands out? A prototype is currently being developed with the proposer’s own funds. The proposal represents a potential alternative to Hydra for low-transaction communities.

What’s a tradeoff to consider? Flexibility: The project’s deliverables can be expanded to improve product quality. Are they willing to make their technology open source?

What’s one question you’d want to ask the proposer? Governance: How will decisions be made within the project?

Highlight areas that are missing or require clarification How will the security of the rollup be audited? Is the project sustainable?

What value will it provide to your community? It reduces the cost and time of transactions, which is a major advantage for communities with low fiat value.

Feedback Summary on Proposal: zkFold ZK Rollup

1. What stands out? This is a highly strategic and technically critical proposal focused on delivering Layer 2 scalability to Cardano via ZK rollups — one of the most promising L2 technologies in the blockchain space.

The zkFold team is already building the prototype with self-funding and plans to launch a testnet, showcasing commitment and capability.

Their plan to compress hundreds of smart contract transactions into a single L1 interaction will directly relieve network congestion and reduce transaction fees.

2. What’s a tradeoff to consider? ZK rollup implementation is complex and cutting-edge, so execution risk exists — but the team’s strong technical background in Haskell, Rust, and cryptography mitigates that.

The cost (~$860K) is substantial, but reasonable given the scope of work (wallet integration, server optimization, DApp tooling, etc.) and its potential ecosystem-wide benefits.

3. What’s one question you’d want to ask the proposer? Will zkFold commit to open-sourcing core components of the rollup infrastructure, and how will they ensure long-term neutrality and composability within the Cardano ecosystem?
4. Highlight areas that are missing or require clarification There could be more detail on community engagement plans, particularly around DApp onboarding, dev tooling feedback loops, and open workshops.

A clearer public roadmap or GitHub activity link would reinforce transparency for community members tracking milestones.

5. What value will it provide to your community? Enables dramatic scaling of transaction throughput without compromising security — directly improving Cardano’s usability for dApps, DeFi, and future growth.

Enhances developer UX by providing integration toolkits and APIs for wallet and DApp interoperability.

Reduces cost barriers, making microtransactions and high-frequency use cases viable again — opening up new adoption avenues.

ZK, given it's a new relatively experimental field, will include a certain amount of trying different things and prjecst will not always work out. However, Cardano does need a ZK strategy in general to stay competitive

Given this, I do think the zkFold has made an honest attempt to build something that benefits Cardano and the approach they are taken differs in approach to other projects (Starstream, Midnight, etc.). Therefore, I do think it makes sense to support this proposal both for the potential benefit and derisking other efforts

I support this proposal as an important step toward bringing ZK technology into Cardano. However, I would like to confirm one key point.

In your comments, you mentioned that the sequencers (aggregation servers) will be open-sourced and designed to be clean and decentralized. Could you elaborate on how you plan to achieve this decentralization?

If you have any vision regarding the decision-making process or how you will diversify the rollup operators, I would appreciate hearing it.

Too many different smaller proposals from this company, so I'm voting NO sorry...

I support this proposal and intend to vote in favor of the zkFold ZK Rollup as I consider it an essential complementary element to Cardano's technology stack.

The innovative combination of the EUTxO model and ZK technology comes with unique technical challenges specific to Cardano, but I assess its strategic value to be extremely high. In particular, adding zkFold (general-purpose rollup) alongside Hydra (immediacy) and Mithril (synchronization) is crucial as it brings Cardano's L2 solution stack closer to completion.

Given that other blockchains are rapidly adopting ZK technology, it is essential for Cardano to establish its presence in this field to maintain competitiveness. Additionally, establishing a ZK technology foundation serves as groundwork for future applications in privacy and security-focused domains such as CBDC integration and SSI (Self-Sovereign Identity).

However, the following points require clarification:

1. Budget discrepancy (500,000 USD requested vs 860,000 USD itemized)
2. Relationship with and outcomes from previous Catalyst funding (approximately 3.1 million ADA)
3. Governance design for rollup operators (Sequencers, etc.)

Despite these issues, considering the strategic importance of Cardano's transition to the "ZK era," I believe this project should be supported, provided there is appropriate monitoring and milestone management.

You have been funded throug catalyst several times in regards to ZK. 3.1 million ada for diffrent things with a convertion rate of 0,3 per ada. That is 1 mill dollar + https://www.lidonation.com/en/project-catalyst/users/570/ Can you show me the github rep that gives Cardano community value for this money? Dont get me wrong. I strongly beleve we need Zk ecosystem on Cardano. It's just that we spendt 1 mill dollar so far and i cant recall see this in production.

1. Is the scope achievable within the proposed budget clearly defined (e.g., up to testnet launch)? Since mainnet deployment, audits, and post-launch maintenance are not included, is there a plan to secure further funding for those phases?

2. Is the $500,000 budget aligned with the deliverables, such as the MVP, APIs, and DApp integration tools?

3. Is there a clear roadmap or vision for post-testnet activities, including user adoption, dApp integration, and transaction scaling?

4. Are there any overlaps in TSC budgets etc.?

5. Is it possible to get endorsements from multiple members of the Cardano community who are knowledgeable about ZK (e.g. Midnight team, Sebastian, ENCOIN team, etc.)?

All in

As Sebastian mentioned, ZK rollup should have been included in the roadmap, so I would like to support it as much as possible, but I have some questions.

1. Can you add any additional explanation about dependencies and differences between this and previous Catalyst proposals, Midnight, Starstream, etc.? In particular, can you explain the dependencies to previous Catalyst proposals?

https://projectcatalyst.io/proposers/vlasin?status=Completed&status=Active&status=Onboarding&status=Cancelled#proposals

2. How far can the community expect ZK Rollup to be developed with this proposal? Were there any design choices that involved trade-offs?

3. Does it describe the chosen frameworks, languages, modules, or relevant Cardano tech ?

4. Are the major risks (smart contract exploits, compliance issues, etc.) identified along with mitigation actions?

5. Does it describe how the project will adapt to future Cardano network changes (like upcoming hard forks or CIP updates)?

Costing is innacurate, if ADA to USD rate is 0.74 then USD amount is $498,758