The Upwards Volatility Only Cryptocurrency, Wrapped Stablecoins, and Active Proposals Review and ReReview I see privacy chain or L1's with really good privacy features or apps trade in an interesting way. It never has a lower low and when there is volatility, it is up only. We need to get Cardano to the same level. There are currently no really good native L1 solutions for privacy. Privacy reduces sell pressure. We should maximize Cardano's privacy features on the L1 before other privacy types.

Stablecoins Native stablecoins like USDM/USDA are better for Cardano and I welcome more people to create native stablecoins. Wrapped stablecoins should be avoided.

Active Proposals Amaru - Stays same. No. Already exists.

Budget Process Framework - Still think 1000 ADA is a lot of money but fine if you all want it.

Dingo - Did look more into it. It is really tough decision. There certainly have been some great developments and could be some use cases or notable improvements, and great team has delivered on other projects which I thought were useful. Its a really really hard decision. If you voted yes, I understand and respect it. I will stick to No because I don't see the business value.

Defi Liquidity Budget - No. Vague.

Draper Dragon - Yes, sounds good.

USDCx Re-Review - Really disappointed they couldn't say things properly. USDM/USDA remain the main stablecoins for the ecosystem. USDCx creates a dependency on Ethereum for stablecoins in Cardano ecosystem. I wish they could have this properly. Thats what I mean when I say DReps got to keep their guard up. You fooled me. Bravo. USDM was working on a solution to bring USDC and USDT as Cardano native tokens to Cardano. Hope thats still going. Oh well. Its a start. Hopefully Circle builds a Cardano native solution. DReps keep your guard up.

Github Gone WILD - She Committed What!?? DRep approval now required for node upgrades and hardforks || USDCx LiQuiDIty, DeFi || SPAR Supermarkets and Ouroboros Peras || Drep Delegation || Gov actions and DRep compensation solution Buckle Up. Lots To Talk About This Week.

Github Gone WILD - DRep approval now required for node upgrades and hardforks Some of these "upgrades" they are pushing are WILD and DReps don't have a say in them. Cardano Multi Asset Treasury - This is sell pressure on Cardano. Are DReps okay with a lower ADA price? Mandatory Delegation for staking redeem - Did DReps agree to this "upgrade"? The wallets are some of the largest DReps now because of this.

I think hardforks need to also require DRep approval. Its a not okay anymore for them to go crazy on Github and then sneak it through the SPO. Following Github is a pain, most of the pull requests won't make it, and can really impact DReps and ADA price. We need to see the final upgrades coming through and have DRep approval on hard forks.

USDCx LiQuiDIty and DeFi Great work to everybody involved in USDCx. This integration brought atleast $500 Million of liquidity to Cardano. Maybe billions even. If anyone feels theres not enough LiQuiDIty in Cardano, then take your ADA and SELL it on a CEX for USDCx which you can then bring on chain from the bridge link below. Stop asking the treasury to lose money to professional traders and market makers in the market. Just use your own money to make or lose money. Stop asking the treasury. Most of these LiQuiDIty things involving selling ADA. Thats sell pressure on ADA. Things like market making or DEX LP mean the ADA is getting sold. I don't like sell pressure on ADA. I also don't like these liquidity treasury proposals. So you want to take an ADA withdrawal, to deposit on a DEX, somebody else can come in and buy a bunch of ADA and the treasury is left with a bunch of USDCx at a loss after ADA price pumps(treasury sells their ADA to them for USDCx but its done through DEX LP to confuse you). The whole goal here is to wreck the treasury for their personal profit without actually growing Cardano. But they can't say that so they make it super confusing. They are going to keep complaining about how theres no liquidity on the DEX but they wont LP(sell) their own ADA on the DEX... And neither should the treasury. Good :D, NO SELL PRESSURE=HIGHER ADA PRICE = MORE FUNDING.

If you really want to build, then make a proposal for hydra options trading or more tokenized assets on chain like silver or tokenized stocks MCDx, AAPLx.

Delta DeFi - Hydra DEX. This can wait but we probably will need it eventually. We have many L1 DEX, blocks are like 10% full, we got L1 Leios coming soon so even more empty blocks. Hydra DEX Delta DeFi can probably wait.

Stablecoin issue - This is solved with USDCx. You have 100s of millions of dollars of liquidity on the CEX. If liquidity is a problem for you, just go get the liquidity yourself in the link below. Again, great work everybody to those involved.

usdcx.iog.io/bridge - Suggestion. Please remove the background animation. Its exclusive. Older people have a real problem with constantly moving animations and it make it harder for them to use the bridge.

SPAR Supermarkets and Ouroboros Peras - We are moving to Switzerland, all of us.

Peras now becomes much more important. People are waiting in line. Need Peras to speed this up a lot. Maybe somebody can go to SPAR supermarkets and test how long it takes.

DRep Delegation - We should separate staking and DRep delegation. Don't need to delegate to redeem staking money. Opt in to governance delegation with txn fee if you are interested.

This kind of tricky because the wallets have a lot of power here. Are they going to show us the abstain option, random DReps, or the wallet's favorite DReps? Not much we can do here except yell at them or recommend another wallet. Its up to the wallet. Its best to keep staking and delegating separate.

Active Governance actions and DRep compensation solution Amaru - People can't be bothered to do a simple search for if this already exists. Amaru team is going to go on Github, see how IOG did it, and just rip the same thing. I guess we could out print out the code for 2nd Rust node and frame it on the wall or something.

Dingo - No use case for Go Node. Most are going to run the Rust node. Seems like a hobby project and hobbyists running the Go node. You can write it if you want but I see no reason to pay for it.

Budget process framework and DRep compensation solution - Drep compensation - Treasury donation good idea. Instead of treasury donation, it gets paid to the DReps. Treasury donation or application fee, whatever you want to call it. Currently, if you lock 100K ADA to make a proposal for a month, you paid out around ~250 ADA in staking rewards to the network. Instead, you use your staking rewards to pay for the application fee of 250 ADA. ITS THE SAME THING AND SAME COST. Except now the DReps are paid and its more inclusive. Short term you can just randomly pick a DRep and send them 250 ADA per application. Long term it would be better if they got paid based on their voting power but you might need something like staking adress.

For the gov action - 1000 ADA is a lot of money. I would like to see it lower. Prefer 300.

Is Cardano the best? Let me know in the comments below

Amaru- NO and what to build instead Amaru - We already paid IOG to build a Rust node. We don't need 2 Rust nodes. Is IOG still working on it? Can they say something if they are still doing it? Please consider changing your vote back to no. What we should pay for and what to build? Hydra options trading. Options trading doesn't exist at all in Cardano ecosystem. Builders please make a proposal for something in this direction. We don't need 2 Rust nodes. Do you agree or disagree? Let me know in the comments below.

Apex Fusion and Eternl Wallet - What is going on here? And why are we paying for this? Apex Fusion has made a very controversial CIP. Which leads to some questions. Who exactly is Apex Fusion? Right now, it looks like they fork Cardano and are a whitelabel Cardano reseller. Its not "oh its just a Cardano reseller", they are getting txn fees and there is no value accrual to Cardano holders. This is a problem Eternl Wallet. A closed source wallet. They are getting funds from Cardano holders from the big Intersect budget passed in 2025. Eternl wallet has an Apex Fusion integration letting people easily switch to their network. This is another problem. Why are we paying for this?

As for the acual CIP itself. Lot of discussion and some interesting points were brought up. Who else asked for Tachys? Besides Apex Fusion considering they are very sketchy with no transaction fees. To me, it looks like Apex Fusion needs some changes that benefit them and they put product development and maintenance cost on Cardano. There is no clear benefit to Cardano from this.

Also, DReps don't get a vote on CIP upgrades which is now an issue after watching technical people get hustled by a technical sales rep or tech influencer. Pure lip service, 0 txn fees. Actually negative txn fees considering they are taking Cardano activity. I mean something like this doesn't even reach DReps. It just the Cardano Foundation CIP review, gets implemented, becomes a hardfork, and then SPO's say yes. I think DReps need to also be involved and get a say in the technical upgrades.

Am I right? Let me know below.

Cardano Builder DAO CBDAO review - First and MOST IMPORTANTLY They are not a DAO or "builder" or whatever they calll themselves. They are another fund administrator like Intersect or Catalyst. Judge them as such. I don't know if they were confused on their own role or they were trying to confuse us by changing the words around. Neither sound very good

Some good and bad things they did. Good - Much better UI than Gov.Tools on the voting proposals. Its reddit style. Intersect could learn something from clarity.vote proposal format which you can see from cbdao.taptools.io.

Bad - Theres a lot of bad. Fund administrator Voting Process - Its not inclusive to ADA holders. To be able to vote, CBDAO has to consider you as a "builder" - they grant you a vote. This arbitrary designation of "builder" is just as bad as government licensing. In USA, you need a license to cut hair WILD. Scissors are the new nukes. If all the voters are "builders" who wins the proposal and gets funding - a "builder" or an "influencer"?

CB DAO members and supporters being rude - "You don't know anything about running an enterprise" lol. I would like to remind the Cardano community Iagon started in Ethereum but left because they couldn't get money. Once the money runs out in Cardano, they will migrate elsewhere. Additional funding for Iagon needs to be heavily scrutinized. We are essentially giving them free money to grow their business.

KPI - Metrics are being abused here. How were additional on-chain txn due to your funding decision? How does additional funding grow txns? Not existing txn that you were going to do anyway from previous funding or were due to market forces.

Ultimately, it really comes down to can they beat the Cardano masses in Catalyst. Catalyst is trying to become some masses voting platform either with ID or quadratic cubic voting on txn fees. Yes if masses are voting, decision making quality will be poor lol but thats the risk we take.

But can CBDAO's handpicked selection of "builder" voters do better than Intersect's or Catalyst's funding admin voter selection?

Let me know your thoughts below!

Heres my top 10 Catalyst Fund 15 proposals and why. Also a Catalyst improvement suggestion.

For Catalyst - Maybe they should do the quadratic cubic voting thing on txn count or txn fees for some time period instead of ADA amount. This can still be sybilled multi wallet but atleast they have to pay a lot of money. Attacker would probably do cost-benefit calculation if his excess txn fees would actually lead to winning proposals and be worth it.

1. SeaPort on Cardano: Processing Indian Port's 12M settlements https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/15/cardano-partners-tier-1-enterprise-integrations/seaport-on-cardano-processing-indian-ports-12m-settlements Team has executed successfully in past and is generating txn fees.

2. BIKEID-CHARLI3-SUPERIOR BikeID and Supply Chain data https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/15/cardano-partners-tier-1-enterprise-integrations/bikeid-charli3-superior-bikeid-and-supply-chain-data Conceptually similar to other projects that were successful and generating txn fees. There was another proposal last year by NMKR to put cars on Cardano and we missed it so lets not miss this.

3. Ethereum → Cardano Stablecoin Bridge: USDC & USDT → USDM https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/15/cardano-use-cases-prototype-and-launch/ethereum-cardano-stablecoin-bridge-usdc-and-usdt-usdm Converts USDT to Cardano Native Token. Bridges to bigger markets are good.

4.Cardano Global Orderbook https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/15/cardano-use-cases-prototype-and-launch/cardano-global-orderbook Better DeFi = More volume = more txn = more txn fees

5. Bodega Market V4 - Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/15/cardano-use-cases-prototype-and-launch/bodega-market-v4-central-limit-order-book-clob They've done lots of txns and this will help them do more txn by making more competitive markets. Becomes competitive with Kalshi and Polymarket.

6. SteelSwap: Global Batcher https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/15/cardano-use-cases-prototype-and-launch/steelswap-global-batcher More efficient DeFi. More txn fees.

7. HydroX: A Stablecoin-Based Perpetual DEX on Cardano. https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/15/cardano-use-cases-prototype-and-launch/hydrox-a-stablecoin-based-perpetual-dex-on-cardano No alternative to Strike exists. Also code is open source unlike Strike.

8. Real-Estate Identity & Tokenization DApp on Midnight https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/15/midnight-compact-dapps/real-estate-identity-and-tokenization-dapp-on-midnight This is a real problem. People talk, Landlords are people. Landlord only needs to know you have enough to pay him and not all your financial information. For example, see IRS employee released Trump's tax records.

9. MLabs FeesaSwap: Wallet & dApp Ready ADA-less Tx Fees https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/15/cardano-use-cases-prototype-and-launch/mlabs-feesaswap-wallet-and-dapp-ready-ada-less-tx-fees Don't need to have ADA in your wallet to transact. Could be very useful to some people. Also already up. https://www.feesaswap.io/

10. Cardano’s $10T Institutional RWA Tokenization Infrastructure https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/15/cardano-partners-tier-1-enterprise-integrations/cardanos-dollar10t-institutional-rwa-tokenization-infrastructure First to use CIP-113 programmable tokens for compliant equity tokenization(stocks) on Cardano.

I will not be able to vote because I am not downloading the app so please vote on my behalf.

What are some of your favorite Catalyst proposals?

NCL is largely irrelevant. Focus needs to be making good investments. Saying yes and no - probably a lot more No than Yes. If every deal is good(in theory), then it makes sense to go over the limit. Return on invesment. Things new capabilities, time saved, more efficiency, more txn fees matter a lot more. Delegate to me at Rich King

Before debating the amount, the NCL period itself should be unified. Overlapping NCLs reduce governance clarity and predictability.

I would advise DReps to listen to the Intersect CBC twitter space:

https://x.com/IntersectCBC/status/2008917167471829196?s=20

Pretty good discussion there. Essentially, different points of view - but I do agree that the NCL is a bit of performative theater that the constitution mandates. It does introduce a bit of additional red tape into our entire governance model.

I may have my opinions on it and treasury management and withdrawals, but now one year into governance - I no longer have a fighting dog in the NCL fight itself. As DReps will override any limit - when and if they decide they want to override it. It's a signalling theater.

The real discussions will be about making solid, smart, valuable allocations from the Treasury in the months ahead and rejecting those that are not good enough. There might be few good Treasury allocation opportunities, or more than we expect. We can't see it from where we are standing.

My personal preference would have been an NCL that represents approximately 99% of the Net Income available from the inflows during the preceding period of the same length. Not the 120% that this NCL action proposes.

But, I will not block an NCL, as it is just a line in the sand in the middle of a very windy desert thta faces winds from many sides.

Still, pointing out that it is very very very unlikely that I will vote for 350 million ADA in disbursements. I was learning on the job in 2025. I will probably be looking at being more restrictive in 2026 than what I was in 2025 and certainly more restrictive in spending than the majority of DReps by voting power was in the previous year.

As a DRep I will not be guided by this NCL as a target even if it is approved. It is essentially meaningless in a few months, when the workd changes.

I will seek to approve only proposals that have a chance of bringing value to Cardano long-term and I will try to identify them to the best of my abilities.

So, my intent is to have an NCL that indicates slightly less than 100% of the Net Income available - if the intent is to signal 120% I will actively abstain.