Detalhes da Discussão
Blockfrost Platform community budget proposal
blockfrost.iog
Descrição
Introduction
Blockfrost is a powerful API platform that gives anyone access to the Cardano Blockchain and functionality without the need to run your own Node.
Our API is designed with developers in mind, and offers tools that remove the complexity of direct node interactions, so anyone can start building on Cardano and launch projects on an afforable, stable and user-friendly framework.
Blockfrost was originally developed by Five Binaries and is now maintained under the IOG Umbrella.
Decentralizing Blockfrost
The demand for a reliable infrastructure and tools that support development is what lead to the creating of Blockfrost. If you have interacted witht he Cardano Blockchain, there is a good chance you were interacting with Blockfrost in the background.
But this level of adoption has come with some trade-offs. At it's peak, Blockfrost was handling over 50% of all on-chain transactions on Cardano. We recognize this concentration is in contrast to the decentralized nature of the blockchain, and have actively been working to decentralize Blockfrost for the benefit of the Cardano community.
Together with Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) and node operators, we have started the initial phase of what we call the Icebreakers era, an incentivized program designed to decentralize Cardano data access and reward the incredible node operator community.
The Icebreakers
The Icebreakers is decentralized network of endpoints that allow developers to access Cardano data through a set of reliable node operators, instead of relying on a single centralized source.
By joining the Icebreaker program, SPOs and other Cardano node operators can monetize their existing infrastructure by processing API requests as part of the Blockfrost network.
Deliverables
To ensure transparency and to prevent vendor lock-in, we are open-sourcing all components of the deliverables. This includes the infrastructure, libraries and documentation.
Our primary focus on two key projects: The Blockfrost Platform and the Blockfrost Gateway. Both are designed to expand the capabilities of the Icebreaker network.
Blockfrost Platform
The Blockfrost platform is a next-generation backend designed to run on existing SPO relays, utilizing existing resources and rewarding operators with a share of Blockfrost's current revenue by serving our existing customers.
Blockfrost Gateway
The Blockfrost gateway is the entry point for individual SPOs running the Blockfrost platform. Through the gateway, SPOs can receive requests from Blockfrost users. In return for processing these requests, they earn a share of the revenue.
With the Blockfrost Gateway, anyone can run their own Blockfrost instance with their own platform. We plan to use Hydra to open micro-payment channels between parties, enabling them to exchange ADA or other tokens for their services.
We are also developing the Solitary mode, which is designed for teams that require full ownership of their enviroment. Developers and enterprise customers can deploy a customized and independent Blockfrost instance with complete control of the infrastructure, uptime and security.
KPIs
Our proposal follows the milestones outlined in the roadmap below. In addition, we commit to the following KPIs:
- At least 100 active Icebreakers by end of year, 2025
- 100% of transactions submitted through Blockfrost will be handled by the Icebreakers by end of year, 2025
- Quarterly updates provided on the SPO call
- Monthly community development call
Roadmap & Timelines
The Blockfrost Roadmap (roadmap view) is publically available on our Github and has been structured into distinct eras.
You can also watch the walkthrough video on our roadmap.
All milestones are clearly documented and tracked on our Github roadmap to promote accountability and transparancy.
Icebreakers era
- Icebreakers: Blockfrost platform initial release
- Icebreakers: Transaction submission endpoint
- Icebreakers: Platform gateway
- Icebreakers: Onboarding
- Icebreakers: Live ledger endpoints
- Icebreakers: Infrastructure deployment
- Icebreakers: Data nodes support
- Icebreakers: Conformance testing
- Icebreakers: Caching and invalidation
Hopper era
- Hopper: Research into payments channels between the platform and the consumer
- Hopper: Hydra payment channels between platform and gateway
- Hopper: Hydra payment channel between gateway and consumer
Position with the Cardano Vision and Roadmap for 2025
In March, the majority of DReps voted to adopt the strategic document Cardano Vision and Roadmap for 2025.
Our proposal directly addresses the document's item:
"Decentralize data API services to reduce reliance on centralized providers and empower SPOs."
We are decentralizing the Blockfrost API and increasing the SPO incentives, at the same time.
Proposed budget
The majority of our budget is allocated to developer salaries. We are requesting an annual budget of $120,000 to support one full-time employee (FTE).
Our total funding request from the treasury is $650,000, which is equivalent to approximately 1,300,000 ADA based on the current rate of 0.50 USD per ADA.
Team
The team that is working on the deliverble is as follows:
- Marek: Primary project lead (part-time)
- Beatrice: Community engagement lead and onboarding (part-time)
- Vladimir: Gateway lead
- Michal: Platform lead
- Sefa: Caching lead
- Bart: Conformance testing lead
This amounts to total of 5 FTEs.
Audit
Following the completion of the Icebreaker and Hopper eras, we plan to conduct a security audit of the developed code by a trusted third party. We estimate the cost of this audit to be $50,000.
Community Engagement
As part of the budget process, we plan to host several recorded community calls for DReps and other community members to discuss this proposal.
Records of these calls will be posted in the Github rendered version of this proposal.
If you have questions that is not addressed in our FAQ or covered in this document, feel free to reach out to the team through our support channels:
- Discord: IOG's technical Discord
- E-mail: support@blockfrost.io
- Twitter/X: @Blockfrost_io
FAQ
- Can I also contribute to these efforts?
- Definitely! All the deliverables are open-source and we welcome everyone who want to contribute to open an issue on our Github.
- Didn't IOG already post their budget? Why you are not including there?
- IOE (Input Output Engineering) is a different entity than Blockfrost, therefore we are proposing our own budget.
- Is there any dependency or overlap between this proposal and past Catalyst proposals?
- There is no dependency or overlap of this proposal with any other Blockfrost proposal. However, there are dependencies that we're using that has been funded by project Catalyst in the future. Pallas is a Rust library that I know have received funding before. We are also going to use Cardano Data nodes such as Dolos that I also know have received funding before too. We are building on shoulders of giants and none of this would be possible without these mature tools.
- Following completion of this proposal, will there be any additional requests to Treasury or Catalyst submissions related to the maintenance of this proposal deliverables, or will this service be self-sustaining once work on this proposal is complete?
- At this moment, we do not know. As with all software in use, the Blockfrost Platform will also require resources for maintenance. That said, we're in the early stages and are exploring potential other sources of funding. As we are slowly handing over revenue to SPOs, we were thinking perhaps a DAO model, where a portion of the fees goes to the "Blockfrost treasury," could fund this in the future. Full disclosure, we have also discussed a potential token launch that might be used to secure this DAO. However, this is still early and needs discussion with the community too.
- Can you show in some way that 1.3 million ada is a reasonable cost? For example, can you get recommendations from other community developers that this is roughly what it should be, or provide an estimate of the amount of work required?
- This is an excellent question, and I like the idea of gathering insights from other builderrs in the community. I'm not certain if this is the optimal approach, but we have posted a call for opinions on our Twitter, and I hope we will receive valuable feedback on this topic. The discussion is happening at this thread.
- Will anyone be able to run an Icebreaker, or does this needs approval from Blockfrost? Will there be a limit on the number of Icebreakers?
- At the moment, this is limited by a NFT license (that we provide for free, we just want to have contact information of which SPO is running which node, all one need is just to fill up a form to get one), given we're just in beta testing phase. When the beta testing is over, anyone will be able to join the clusters - not only SPOs but also full wallet users. Additionally, I think an important note is that anyone would be able to run their entire Blockfrost gateway cluster and "their own" Icebreakers. I envision that groups of SPOs might get together and start their own clusters with their own pricing, SLAs, endpoints etc and start to compete. We are also researching how we could have a decentralized P2P marketplace for Icebreakers to offer their services (imagine just setting the price per request on your Icebreaker, starting it and it will just connect to a cluster without you having to choose one) - but this is out of scope for this year as much more research needs to be done.
- How will the revenue sharing model for Icebreakers be structured? Specifically, could you elaborate on how the share of Blockfrost revenue will be calculated and distributed to participating node operators?
- The pricing will be per request. When you look at our website, the price customer pays for 1M requests is around ~4 ADA. At the moment, we are rewarding Icebreakers with a minimum of 20 USD in ADA monthly, as the traffic to them is still small (under 20 USD), but as soon that traffic increases, they will be paid what they have served. In the future, when the full traffic is going to be handled fully in decentralized way, we will introduce a tax parameter, that will take a cut of all revenue and allocate it to the Blockfrost gateway to fund the infrastructure and administrative fees for running it. I imagine people will compete in a way that will start new Gateways with lower taxes to attract the Icebreakers. We are also investigating a possible DAO for this, but this is still in research and out of scope for this 2025 proposal.
We have collected questions from the community and we are adding it to the budget community Github PR.
The rendered version of this proposal can be found at this link.
Declaração do Problema
Please see section Introduction of the proposal.
Benefício da Proposta
Please see section Decentralizing Blockfrost of the proposal.
Principais Entregas da Proposta
See section Deliverables of the proposal.
Detalhamento de Custos
Please see section Proposed budget of the proposal.
Recursos & Duração
See section Proposed budget of the proposal.
Experiência
We are the founding team of Blockfrost.io.
Manutenção & Suporte
See section Roadmap & Timelines of the proposal.
Endosso Suplementar
Please see section Community Engagement of the proposal.
Alinhamento com o Roadmap
Sua proposta se alinha com algum dos Comitês da Intersect?
None
Esta proposta está alinhada com o Roadmap do Produto e os Objetivos do Roadmap?
SPO Incentive Improvements
Administração e Auditoria
Você gostaria que a Intersect fosse seu Administrador designado, incluindo atuar como auditor, conforme a Constituição Cardano?
Sim
Informações de Propriedade
Enviado em Nome de
CompanyPerfis Sociais
marek.mahut@iohk.ioPrincipais Dependências
See section Deliverables of the proposal.
Comentários (23)
It aligns directly with the DRep approved roadmap.
Feedback Summary on Proposal: Blockfrost Platform Community Budget Proposal
- What stands out? Blockfrost is already a critical infrastructure component in the Cardano ecosystem, powering a vast number of transactions, APIs, and user applications.
This proposal acknowledges and directly addresses the centralization concern of its past usage, outlining a clear path to decentralize API services via the Icebreakers program.
It leverages existing infrastructure and community players (SPOs), offering a meaningful revenue-sharing mechanism that aligns with Cardano's goals of inclusive ecosystem growth.
- What’s a tradeoff to consider? While Blockfrost is an IOG-managed product, the proposal makes a clear effort to reduce IOG's central influence through open-sourcing, SPO incentives, and the decentralization roadmap.
The cost (₳1.3M) is relatively high, but considering the platform’s broad impact, mission-critical role, and security audit plan, this seems justified and strategically sound.
- What’s one question you’d want to ask the proposer? How will smaller or emerging SPOs be supported to participate in the Icebreaker network without being crowded out by larger players with more resources?
- Highlight areas that are missing or require clarification There could be more transparency in how Icebreaker node selection or inclusion will be managed. Will there be public onboarding calls, criteria, or community-voted entry mechanisms?
While KPIs and milestones are present, it would be helpful to see explicit timelines or user-based metrics (e.g., number of unique developers served or API uptime metrics) tied to these milestones.
- What value will it provide to your community? This proposal strengthens the technical backbone of the Cardano ecosystem by ensuring developers can rely on decentralized and stable API endpoints.
SPOs benefit directly from economic participation, which strengthens the decentralization of the network infrastructure.
The open-source nature of the deliverables ensures long-term sustainability, community participation, and auditability.
The Socious team believes that this proposal contributes to the roadmap. Blockfrost is an important infrastructure used by most of Cardano projects.
From a workshop, the North American Community Hub summarized feedback on Blockfrost’s proposal.
The group reached a NO consensus against approving Proposal 685 for Core budget funding.
The primary objections centered on Blockfrost’s existing revenue, prior Catalyst funding, and its unclear separation from IOG’s core budget and potential overlap with Catalyst projects.
Participants questioned why a profitable company with a market monopoly needs treasury funds to decentralize, and why this isn’t included in IOG’s main proposal, given IOG’s acquisition of Blockfrost.
While the group valued Blockfrost’s role in the ecosystem, their expertise, and reasonable FTE rates, these were outweighed by concerns about necessity, transparency, and Core alignment.
I support this proposal because it aligns with the broader goals outlined in the roadmap such as infrastructure development. This increases community involvement as it takes into account SPOs. A clarification though, how will the rewarding of SPOs work out?
This proposal comes from a reputable vendor, but we have concerns about IOG remaining the sole option for building on the ecosystem in the long term. We would also like to better understand Blockfrost’s business model. It’s important for companies to achieve self-sustainability over time, especially since this is not the first funding request from the team. Ultimately, a significant amount of money is being allocated to a private company, which raises questions about socializing the risk while privatizing the profits. Additionally, it would be helpful to see statistics or metrics to better assess the ROI of past projects. Brazil / São Paulo on-line workshop Vote: yes
The proposal has been updated with the latest FAQ.
https://mmahut-2025budget.blockfrost-platform.pages.dev/budget
Thank you for this proposal. I fully support the decentralization of Blockfrost infrastructure through the Icebreaker program. As Blockfrost handles a significant portion of Cardano’s API traffic, reducing reliance on a centralized provider while empowering SPOs aligns perfectly with Cardano’s long-term vision.
I also appreciate the inclusion of Hydra for micropayment channels and the opportunity for SPOs to diversify their revenue streams. From my review of the technical requirements and setup documentation, the operational burden for existing SPOs seems reasonable, making this a practical and impactful step toward ecosystem decentralization.
No major concerns at this stage. Looking forward to seeing the progress of the Icebreaker and Hopper eras.
Summary Feedback – Blockfrost Platform ProposalAuthor: Agora dRep by Rodrigo Pacini
The Blockfrost Platform proposal aligns closely with the Cardano 2025 roadmap, specifically the goal of decentralizing API services and empowering SPOs. Through the Icebreakers initiative, it enables SPOs to operate decentralized endpoints, improving resilience, fault tolerance, and sustainability.
Blockfrost is already a vital tool for developers in the Cardano ecosystem. This proposal enhances it by shifting away from central servers and enabling monetization paths for SPOs. It also plans integration with Hydra to support micropayments—connecting to Cardano’s Layer 2 roadmap.
While originally developed independently, Blockfrost is now maintained by a team affiliated with IOG. This makes the proposal an extension of IOG’s infrastructure role. The budget covers 4.5 FTEs for one year, with a reasonable average hourly rate (~$69.44), though the absence of task-specific time estimates limits transparency.
The proposal would benefit from clearer KPIs—suggested metrics include API request volume, SPO participation, response times, and developer satisfaction scores. These would ensure accountability over time.
Despite minor gaps in execution detail, the proposal holds strategic importance for decentralizing Cardano’s infrastructure.
Vote: YES – strongly recommended, contingent on deliverable clarity and metric tracking. The full version of this report will also be shared with the proposal author for transparency and further reference.
Great proposal, thank you. One question I’m curious about is how will the revenue sharing model for Icebreakers be structured? Specifically, could you elaborate on how the share of Blockfrost revenue will be calculated and distributed to participating node operators?
This proposal proffered a sustainable solution to the centralization of cardano APIs and well aligned with the 2025 Cardano 2025 Vision to decentralize its infrastructure... I expect this proposal get approved.
Important question: will anyone be able to run an Icebreaker, or does this needs approval from Blockfrost? Will there be a limit on the number of Icebreakers? The answers to this question will determine my vote.
I strongly support the Blockfrost Platform budget proposal for 2025. This proposal perfectly aligns with Cardano's 2025 vision and directly contributes to improving SPO incentives. It addresses the urgent need to mitigate centralization risks in API services, with an appropriate budget scale. The proposal demonstrates long-term sustainability and an open-source approach, featuring clear KPIs and efficient utilization of existing ecosystem resources.
This proposal should be in everyone's top 3 🐸 Will be very disappointed if its not approved Long live BlockFrost
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Is there any dependency or overlap between this proposal and past Catalyst proposals?
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Following completion of this proposal, will there be any additional requests to Treasury or Catalyst submissions related to the maintenance of this proposal deliverables, or will this service be self-sustaining once work on this proposal is complete?
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Can you show in some way that 1.3 million ada is a reasonable cost? For example, can you get recommendations from other community developers that this is roughly what it should be, or provide an estimate of the amount of work required?
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