This proposal presents fundamental ideas to streamline the process of funding and for providing strategic direction. An implementation will require further refinements and amendments to the current process as well as the constitution.

In its current form, Cardano Governance and voting on Treasury Withdrawals have revealed significant dysfunctionalities. In particular, proposals from different, but altogether important areas have led to a perceived competition for scarce resources. This opened the door to hostility and detrimental conflict within the community and has invited toxicity. There now is ill will and strife that harm the Cardano ecosystem endangering its existence.

Therefore, I present the following theses and ideas for discussion. These fundamental ideas may freely be adopted for concrete implementation which is beyond scope at this place.

<b>Key Theses</b>

[a] The NCL must not be treated as “potential overall budget” with the alternative of simply saving everything instead.

[b] There has to be a dedicated budget for investing.

[c] A thematic budget structure must make clear that various important domains exist side by side. None of these domains can be deferred in favor of another.

[d] No isolated treasury withdrawals for individual projects must be put on a vote against one another.

[e] DReps have to vote on dedicated and balanced budgets, not on the funding of individual projects. This is also necessary to mitigate the burden of directly comparing individual proposals which is cognitively inefficient.

[f] A strategic entity has to be responsible for preparing and proposing a budget and the corresponding treasury withdrawal. This entity is appointed by a vote for a fixed term.

[g] An expert commission has to be responsible for the evaluation and selection of projects that best meet the budgetary requirements. This commission is appointed by a vote for a fixed term.

[h] Governance voting on a budget has to begin with a vote on the overall budget amount, including the budget structure and the allocation percentages for the individual domains.

[i] Governance voting on a budget is concluded with a vote on the overall treasury withdrawal that sets out the individual projects and their respective funding amounts under the budget structure.

<b>Budget Structure</b>

With respect to a budget structure, I propose the following breakdown:

<b>1. Core Protocol and Infrastructure</b> Funding for node implementations, consensus improvements, networking, scalability, interoperability, and maintenance of core Cardano infrastructure.

<b>2. Developer Tooling and Technical Resources</b> Support for SDKs, APIs, indexing services, TypeScript/Rust libraries, smart-contract tooling, and developer experience improvements.

<b>3. Research and Innovation</b> Academic research, formal methods, cryptography, scalability research, post-quantum security, and experimental technologies.

<b>4. Commercial Ecosystem Growth</b> Treasury funding for DeFi, liquidity programs, wallets, dApps, enterprise integrations, and ecosystem adoption initiatives.

<b>5. Administration and Operational Support</b> Funding for governance processes, treasury administration, audit systems, reporting, constitutional compliance, and budget coordination.

<b>6. Community, Education and Marketing</b> Events, conferences, outreach, education, ecosystem awareness, and community engagement.

<b>7. Other Strategic or Public-Good Initiatives</b> Broader ecosystem-impact projects aligned with Cardano’s long-term vision, sustainability, or societal adoption goals.

<b>8. Functional Reserve</b> Reserve budget for emergencies or urgent motions. Directly accessible under predefined conditions.