This page was compiled by Blockworks using publicly available information reviewed consistent with the TTF, possibly together with information supplied directly by the project where provided. Project-supplied information may correct, update, or supplement the public record, and may not be independently verifiable; Blockworks presents it as provided and does not verify or warrant its accuracy. Because this page depends on what has been disclosed, it may be incomplete — certain categories are more likely to include undisclosed items (e.g., non-announced fundraisings or material relationships), and the absence of an entry should not be read as confirmation that none exists.
Provide a concise narrative that clearly states each of (a)–(e) below.
Response
Cardano is a proof-of-stake Layer 1 blockchain built on peer-reviewed research and formal methods. It targets the delivery of secure, scalable public infrastructure for financial and identity services, with a stated goal of providing reliable financial services to people who lack access to them. The network launched its mainnet on September 23, 2017 and has since moved through the Byron, Shelley, Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire development eras, with the Voltaire era delivering community governance over the protocol and its treasury. (Source: Introduction, Ouroboros overview, CoinDesk)
Ongoing development and operations are funded through the onchain treasury, which receives 20% of each epoch's reward pot drawn from transaction fees and reserve-based monetary expansion. Treasury spending is authorized only through Treasury Withdrawal governance actions ratified by DReps and the Constitutional Committee. Since 2025, DReps have set a Net Change Limit for each budget period through an info action, which caps cumulative withdrawals in that period. The 2025 Net Change Limit was 350 million ADA, and the 2026 to 2027 Net Change Limit is 350 million ADA. The Net Change Limit was the first mechanism adopted to bound treasury spending, and the community is working on successor approaches, so this control may change in future budget periods. Intersect, a member-based organization, facilitated the 2025 and 2026 budget processes, and the Cardano Budget Process Framework for 2026 passed DRep approval on April 4, 2026. Future budget cycles are not tied to Intersect, and other organizations or a different process may take on this role. Input Output Global remains the primary protocol engineer, with work shifting toward a decentralized, independent set of ecosystem vendors funded through this process. (Source: , , )
Cardano runs the Ouroboros proof-of-stake consensus protocol. Stake pool operators produce blocks with probability proportional to the ADA delegated to their pools, and epochs last five days. The ledger uses an extended UTXO model with native assets and Plutus smart contracts. Governance follows CIP-1694, under which three bodies ratify governance actions by onchain vote. These bodies are Delegated Representatives (DReps) who vote with ADA delegated to them, stake pool operators (SPOs), and a seven-member Constitutional Committee that rules on whether each action complies with the Cardano Constitution. The Plomin hard fork in early 2025 completed the transition to this governance framework. (Source: Ouroboros overview, Governance overview, Intersect Update Special Edition)
Ada is the native asset of Cardano. It pays transaction fees, secures the network through stake delegation to stake pools, earns staking rewards without a lock-up or unbonding period, and carries governance voting power that holders exercise directly as registered DReps or through delegation to a DRep. (Source: Introduction, How to delegate?, Governance overview)
No founding entity retains protocol control. EMURGO, Input Output, and the Cardano Foundation relinquished the genesis keys of the blockchain, and every protocol parameter change, treasury withdrawal, constitutional update, Constitutional Committee change, and hard fork requires ratification by at least two of the three governance bodies. The Interim Constitutional Committee, which included seats for Input Output, EMURGO, the Cardano Foundation, and Intersect, was replaced in September 2025 by a fully community-elected committee after all four organizations declined to stand for election. Ongoing evolution of the governance model runs through Constitution amendments submitted as onchain governance actions, including Constitution v2.4 submitted on December 18, 2025 and the Constitutional Amendment Portal launched in August 2026. (Source: Governance overview, Governance Actions, Constitutional Committee Elections 2025, Recent Cardano Governance Actions, Constitutional Amendment Portal)
For each existing entity: Labs/DevCo (e.g., Founder, CEO, CTO, COO), Foundation (e.g., President, Executive Director, CFO, COO), and DAO / onchain governance leadership (if applicable) list the: (a) full names, (b) official titles, (c) and prior experience of key team members. For any non-existent entity, explicitly mention it does not exist. External links may be included but they will not factor into the score.
Response
Full Name | Entity | Official Title | Prior Experience |
|---|---|---|---|
Charles Hoskinson | Labs/DevCo | CEO and Founder, Input Output Group | Co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Input Output in 2015. Charles Hoskinson |
Tamara Haasen | Labs/DevCo | President | Joined Input Output in 2017 and progressed from culture officer and chief of staff to President. Tamara Haasen |
Gerard Moroney | Labs/DevCo | Chief Commercial Officer | Studied mechanical engineering at the University of Limerick and earned a PhD at the University of Liverpool. Career in technology consulting, program management, and chief technology officer roles. |
Prof Aggelos Kiayias | Labs/DevCo | Chief Scientist | Holds the chair in cybersecurity and privacy at the University of Edinburgh and directs its Blockchain Technology Laboratory. |
Frederik Gregaard | Foundation | Chief Executive Officer | Over two decades of leadership experience including PwC, where he led digital innovation initiatives. Appointed the Foundation's first CEO in September 2020. About us, CEO appointment |
Andreas Pletscher | Foundation | Chief Operating Officer | Director at PwC Switzerland, executive director at Bank Vontobel AG, and senior consultant at IBM. About us |
Nicolas Jacquemart | Foundation | Chief Legal Officer | Formerly with the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA. PhD on blockchain systems and financial market regulation. About us |
Stephen Wood | Foundation | Chief Financial Officer | Finance Director and Executive Committee Member at Copper.co. About us |
Jillian MacNab | Foundation | Chairperson of the Foundation Board | Founding partner at Künzi Hess MacNab, Zurich. Over 20 years in private practice and legal roles at Goldman Sachs, UBS, and in private equity. About us |
Mary Beth Buchanan | Foundation | Board Member | Chief Legal and Policy Officer at Nexum Capital. Formerly Global Chief Legal Officer at Merkle Science, Chief Legal Officer at Bitstamp, General Counsel at Kraken, partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, and United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. About us |
Andreas Eschbach | Foundation | Board Member | 22 years at PwC including 15 years as Managing Partner for PwC Europe's IT audit practice. Independent technology and board advisor. About us |
Fernando Luis Vazquez Cao | Foundation | Board Member | CEO of SBI Digital Asset Holdings and, since 2025, President, Banking and Capital Markets at Chainlink Labs. About us |
Tingvard | DAO/Onchain Governance | Constitutional Committee Member (term to epoch 726) | Community collective. Intersect publishes no prior-experience record. Constitutional Committee Elections 2025 |
Eastern Cardano Council | DAO/Onchain Governance | Constitutional Committee Member (term to epoch 726) | Community collective that also held a seat on the Interim Constitutional Committee. Constitutional Committee Elections 2025 |
Ace Alliance | DAO/Onchain Governance | Constitutional Committee Member (term to epoch 726) | Community collective. Intersect publishes no prior-experience record. Constitutional Committee Elections 2025 |
Philip DiSarro | DAO/Onchain Governance | Constitutional Committee Member (term to epoch 799) | Individual Cardano developer. Intersect publishes no prior-experience record. Constitutional Committee Elections 2025 |
Cardano Curia | DAO/Onchain Governance | Constitutional Committee Member (term to epoch 799) | Community collective elected in the December 2025 snap election. Recent Cardano Governance Actions |
Marek Mahut | DAO/Onchain Governance | Constitutional Committee Member (term to epoch 799) | Individual elected in the 2026 election. Intersect publishes no prior-experience record. Update Constitutional Committee 2026 |
Leandros BSP | DAO/Onchain Governance | Constitutional Committee Member (term to epoch 799) | Community collective elected in the 2026 election. Intersect publishes no prior-experience record. Update Constitutional Committee 2026 |
Cardano has three entity types. The primary DevCo is Input Output Global, Inc. The primary Foundation is the Cardano Foundation (Cardano Stiftung). The onchain governance system has no legal wrapper and no executive officers, and its leadership surface is the elected Constitutional Committee. (Source: Leadership - Input | Output, About us | Cardano Foundation, Governance overview) | |||
DAO/Onchain Governance |
Provide a structured description of the DAO's governance, powers, and economic rights. If a DAO does not exist, state so. Address the lettered items below. Even if there is no DAO, there must be an answer to (d).
Response
Cardano operates an onchain governance system under CIP-1694 in which ADA holders, through DReps, SPOs, and the Constitutional Committee, ratify all protocol and treasury decisions. The system has no legal wrapper and no legal personality. (Source: Governance overview, Governance Actions)
The onchain governance system owns no intellectual property. The CARDANO and ADA word marks and the Cardano logos are owned by the Cardano Foundation. The core protocol repositories, including cardano-node, are hosted under the IntersectMBO GitHub organization following the migration of the first 25 core repositories from Input Output that began in December 2023, and are licensed under the Apache License 2.0. (Source: Trademark Policy, cardano-node LICENSE, Intersect Update Special Edition)
Any ADA holder can submit a governance action by posting a refundable deposit. Seven action types exist. These are motion of no confidence, new Constitutional Committee or threshold update, Constitution update, hard fork initiation, protocol parameter change, treasury withdrawal, and info action. Each action is ratified by a stake-weighted onchain vote of the applicable bodies and enacted automatically at the following epoch boundary. Treasury withdrawals require approval by DReps and the Constitutional Committee at a 67% DRep threshold. Net Change Limit info actions require support from more than 50% of active DRep voting stake. Constitutional Committee changes require 67% DRep approval and 51% SPO approval. Hard fork initiation requires ratification by DReps, SPOs, and the Constitutional Committee. Each Constitutional Committee member holds one of seven votes and rules on constitutionality only. No multisig, pause key, or upgrade key exists outside this process, and the founding entities relinquished the genesis keys. (Source: Governance overview, Governance Actions, Recent Cardano Governance Actions, Constitutional Committee Elections 2025)
Cardano has no token-locking mechanism. Delegated ADA remains liquid, has no lock-up or unbonding period, and can be spent at any time. Delegation to a stake pool earns staking rewards and delegation to a DRep confers governance voting power, and both are revocable at will without affecting spendability. (Source: How to delegate?, Governance overview)
Ada holders receive 80% of each epoch's reward pot as staking rewards, distributed proportionally to delegated stake after pool fees. The remaining 20% of the reward pot accrues to the onchain treasury. ADA holders have no right to a direct distribution from the treasury. Treasury funds move only through Treasury Withdrawal governance actions ratified by DReps and the Constitutional Committee, and cumulative withdrawals in a budget period cannot exceed the active Net Change Limit. The 2025 Net Change Limit of 350 million ADA ran from epoch 532 through epoch 612 following an eight-epoch extension, and the 2026 to 2027 Net Change Limit is 350 million ADA. The treasury balance stood at approximately 1.69 billion ADA in April 2025 with inflows of approximately 4.32 million ADA per epoch. (Source: Cardano monetary policy, Governance Actions, Recent Cardano Governance Actions, Understanding Cardano's Net Change Limit)
No party holds authority to dissolve Cardano's onchain governance, and no wind-up mechanism exists because the governance system has no legal wrapper. Governance actions can replace the Constitution, replace or remove Constitutional Committee members, or pass a motion of no confidence in the committee, each subject to the ratification thresholds in (b). A motion of no confidence or an unratified committee places governance in a state where no further actions requiring committee approval can pass until a valid committee is ratified. (Source: Governance Actions, Constitutional Committee Elections 2025, Recent Cardano Governance Actions)
For the Primary Foundation do the following independently. If an entity does not exist, state that explicitly. Items (a)–(f) apply only if that entity exists; state explicitly that the entity doesn't exist. Definitions: The primary Foundation and DevCo can be explained as those entities which are directly involved in the issuance of the native token at launch.
Response
The Cardano Foundation (Cardano Stiftung) is a Swiss not-for-profit foundation with UID CHE-184.477.354 and registered address at Dammstrasse 16, 6300 Zug, Switzerland. It is supervised by the Swiss Federal Foundation Supervisory Authority within the Federal Department of Home Affairs, prepares statutory accounts under the Swiss Code of Obligations, and is audited by Grant Thornton AG, Zurich. A predecessor Cardano Foundation entity was domiciled in the Isle of Man. (Source: Trademark Policy, Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025, Cardano Genesis Distribution)
The Foundation owns the word marks ADA, ADACOIN, ADAPAY, CARDANO, and CARDANO FOUNDATION, the Cardano and Cardano Foundation logos, and the Japanese-script marks for Cardano and ADA, and administers them under a published trademark policy. It does not own the protocol code, which is licensed under Apache License 2.0 and hosted under the IntersectMBO GitHub organization. The Foundation holds 100% of the capital and voting rights in three subsidiaries. These are Cardano AG (Zug, Switzerland), CF Services GmbH (Berlin, Germany), and CF Operations Ltd (Cork, Ireland). (Source: Trademark Policy, Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025, cardano-node LICENSE)
The Foundation holds no unilateral power over governance, the treasury, protocol parameters, or ADA issuance. It participates in governance as one registered DRep among many, voting the ADA delegated to it, and it delegated 140 million ADA to seven builder DReps and committed a further 220 million ADA to eleven adoption and operations DReps under its DRep Delegation Program. It held one seat on the Interim Constitutional Committee and declined to stand in the 2025 Constitutional Committee election. Its treasury requests are subject to the same ratification thresholds as any other proposer. Its 2025 Cardano Summit withdrawal was ratified, and its revised Cardano Summit 2026 Singapore withdrawal request failed to reach the two-thirds DRep threshold in May 2026 and was cancelled. (Source: Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025, Constitutional Committee Elections 2025, CoinDesk on the Summit 2026 vote)
The Foundation holds no equity in, board seats on, or contractual control over Input Output Global, Inc. The two entities are independent organizations that coordinate through Intersect committees and the onchain governance process. (Source: Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025, Trademark Policy)
The Foundation holds no pause, upgrade, or governance-executor authority over the Cardano protocol. All protocol changes are ratified through the onchain governance process described in Section 3(b). (Source: Governance overview, Governance Actions)
The Foundation received 648,176,761 ADA in the genesis block and 8,258 BTC in donations from the pre-launch sale proceeds (1,090 BTC to the Isle of Man predecessor and 7,168 BTC to the Swiss foundation). At December 31, 2025 it held 561,357,269 ADA and 656 BTC, and it earned CHF 8.198 million in staking rewards during 2025 by delegating its ADA. No protocol mechanism directs fees, rewards, or issuance to the Foundation. The Foundation receives treasury funds only through ratified Treasury Withdrawal governance actions. Its 2025 withdrawals were a 6,000,000 ADA budget for Cardano Summit 2025 and regional tech events, of which 2,805,059 ADA was spent, and a Cardano Global Events withdrawal that remained in progress at year-end 2025. As a Swiss foundation it has no equity holders and makes no distributions. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution, Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025)
For the Primary DevCo do the following independently. If an entity does not exist, state that explicitly. Items (a)–(f) apply only if that entity exists; state explicitly that the entity doesn't exist. Definitions: The primary Foundation and DevCo can be explained as those entities which are directly involved in the issuance of the native token at launch.
Response
Input Output Global, Inc. is a for-profit corporation domiciled in Wyoming, United States. It was formed in Delaware on June 15, 2016 and domesticated to Wyoming on December 18, 2018 under Wyoming Secretary of State filing 2018-000833262, with its principal office at 2015 Ionosphere Street, Unit 201, Longmont, Colorado 80504 and Charles Hoskinson listed as President. The company was founded in 2015 as Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), a Hong Kong company, which received the genesis allocation and remains the entity named in the Cardano Foundation trademark policy as the builder of the Cardano blockchain technology. (Source: Wyoming Secretary of State filing, OpenCorporates, Terms and Conditions, Trademark Policy)
Input Output owns the intellectual property in its own products, including the Lace wallet, and its name, logos, and trademarks, as stated in its terms and conditions. It does not own the Cardano trademarks, which belong to the Cardano Foundation. Input Output began migrating the first 25 core Cardano repositories to the IntersectMBO GitHub organization in December 2023, and cardano-node is licensed under Apache License 2.0. (Source: Terms and Conditions, Trademark Policy, Intersect Update Special Edition, cardano-node LICENSE)
Input Output holds no unilateral power over governance, the treasury, protocol parameters, or ADA issuance. It relinquished its genesis keys, held one seat on the Interim Constitutional Committee, and declined to stand in the 2025 Constitutional Committee election. It submits protocol upgrades such as the van Rossem hard fork through the Intersect Technical Steering Committee for ratification by DReps, SPOs, and the Constitutional Committee, and any treasury funding it receives requires a ratified Treasury Withdrawal governance action. (Source: Governance overview, Constitutional Committee Elections 2025, Intersect Update Special Edition)
Input Output holds no equity, board seats, or contractual control over the Cardano Foundation, which is governed by its own Foundation Board under Swiss foundation supervision. (Source: Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025, About us | Cardano Foundation)
Input Output holds no pause, upgrade, or governance-executor authority over the Cardano protocol. Node releases it engineers take effect on mainnet only when stake pool operators adopt them and, for hard forks, only after a hard fork initiation action is ratified onchain. (Source: Governance Actions, Cardano upgrade: van Rossem hard fork)
IOHK received 2,463,071,701 ADA in the genesis block as part of the Technical and Business Development Pool. Charles Hoskinson has stated publicly that this allocation was compensation for services and risk under the original agreement with the Japanese voucher purchasers and is not a community-controlled fund. No protocol mechanism directs fees, rewards, or issuance to Input Output. Treasury funding to Input Output flows only through ratified Treasury Withdrawal governance actions, with disbursement through milestone-based smart contracts administered under the Intersect budget framework. Input Output has not publicly disclosed its current ADA holdings, its equityholders, or any dividend or distribution policy. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution, Bitcoinist on the Genesis ADA statement, Cardano Budget 2026 Overview)
Disclose launch and initial supply details in a single initial allocation schedule covering the token's launch.
Response
31,112,484,646 ADA were issued in the genesis block at mainnet launch on September 23, 2017, all of it unlocked. This comprised 25,927,070,538 ADA for voucher purchasers and 5,185,414,108 ADA for the three founding entities, equal to 20% of the ADA sold. The remaining 13,887,515,354 ADA of the 45,000,000,000 ADA maximum supply were placed in the protocol reserves, which release ADA programmatically through monetary expansion rather than through any lock or vesting contract. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution, The Cardano Constitution, Cardano monetary policy, CoinDesk)
No single fixed launch price was set. ADA vouchers were sold for bitcoin, or for yen converted into bitcoin, across five tranches at rising prices. Aggregate proceeds were 108,844.5 BTC, equal to a net USD cost of $62,236,134 for 25,927,070,538 ADA, an average of $0.0024 per ADA. Tranche-level average prices were $0.0020 (T1), $0.0022 (T2), $0.0024 (T3), $0.0024 (T3.5), and $0.0026 (T4), calculated from the audited net USD cost and ADA sold per tranche. Vouchers converted to ADA at a fixed one-to-one ratio at mainnet launch. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution)
The market symbol is ADA. The official documentation writes the asset name in lowercase as ADA. The smallest unit is the lovelace, equal to one millionth of one ADA. (Source: Introduction, Cardano Genesis Distribution)
Maximum supply is fixed at 45,000,000,000 ADA by the Cardano Constitution. Circulating supply was 36,738,713,413 ADA as of September 7, 2026, with the balance held in the protocol reserves and the onchain treasury. Supply is inflationary at a decaying rate. Each five-day epoch, the protocol moves 0.3% of the remaining reserves (parameter rho) plus all transaction fees into a reward pot, sends 20% of that pot to the treasury (parameter tau), and distributes the remaining 80% as staking rewards. Because rho applies to a shrinking reserve, the absolute ADA released declines every epoch. Both rho and tau are protocol parameters that governance can change through a ratified protocol parameter change action. No burn mechanism exists. (Source: The Cardano Constitution, Cardano monetary policy, CoinMarketCap, Governance Actions)
No recipient category was subject to vesting. All 31,112,484,646 genesis ADA, including the founding-entity allocations, were fully unlocked at launch. The only scheduled release is the programmatic drawdown of the 13,887,515,354 ADA reserves at 0.3% of the remaining balance per epoch, which began with staking rewards in the Shelley era and continues indefinitely toward the 45,000,000,000 ADA cap. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution, Cardano monetary policy)
Address each of the following sub-items based on the project's airdrop status. If a sub-item does not apply to the project's situation, state that explicitly.
Response
Planned but not yet executed airdrop
Not applicable. Cardano has no planned airdrop and therefore makes no recipient-list commitment. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution)
Executed airdrop
Not applicable. Cardano has never executed an airdrop of ADA. The entire genesis supply was distributed through the pre-launch voucher sale and the three founding-entity allocations, and all subsequent supply has entered circulation through protocol staking rewards and treasury withdrawals. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution, Cardano monetary policy)
No airdrop planned or conducted
We have never conducted an airdrop to date and do not plan to execute one. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution)
Supplemental notes
The Cardano Foundation has stated that no official Cardano, Cardano Foundation, EMURGO, or IOHK representative, ambassador, or partner promotes or endorses giveaways of ADA or any other asset, and the official safety guidance identifies ADA giveaway offers as scams. (Source: , )
Projects must disclose all material terms of market-making arrangements that affect token liquidity. If the project has no agreements or deals with market makers, state that explicitly; doing so earns full credit. For each market maker, include in a table:
If the project has no agreements or deals with market makers, state that explicitly; doing so earns full credit. If no native tokens were loaned or allocated to market makers, state that explicitly; cash/fiat retainers or fees are not required for this item.
Response
Input Output Global has not publicly disclosed any market-maker agreement involving ADA, and no ADA was allocated to market makers in the genesis distribution. The Cardano Foundation announced on April 2, 2026 that it is deploying an eight-figure ADA amount of its own holdings into Cardano-based DEXs through Flowdesk to deepen liquidity for USDA and USDM. The Foundation has not disclosed the ADA amount as a share of supply, the term, or the agreement structure. The onchain governance system has approved no treasury withdrawal for market making. The Cardano Foundation's 2025 financial statements record no market-maker loan or allocation among its crypto assets or financial assets. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution, Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025)
Projects must disclose all material terms of centralized or decentralized exchange listings that affect token liquidity. For each listing, include in a table:
If the project has no agreements or deals with CEX or DEX, state that explicitly; doing so earns full credit; cash/fiat fee amounts are not required for this item.
Response
Neither the Cardano Foundation nor Input Output Global has publicly disclosed any exchange listing agreement, ADA listing fee, or exchange liquidity commitment for ADA. ADA trades on more than 1,700 markets, and no ADA was allocated to exchanges in the genesis distribution. The Cardano Foundation's September 2025 roadmap committed an eight-figure ADA amount of Foundation-held liquidity to Cardano stablecoin projects through multiple channels. On April 2, 2026 the Foundation announced that it is deploying that liquidity into Cardano-based DEXs through the market maker Flowdesk, with a focus on the USDA and USDM stablecoin pairs. The Foundation has not disclosed the specific pools, ADA amounts, or commercial terms of the Flowdesk arrangement. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution, Yahoo Finance, Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025, Cardano Foundation on X, April 2, 2026)
Disclose all prior token sales by the Project — including fundraising rounds, any material OTC sales to investors, and any discounted market-maker sales. For each sale, provide:
If no prior sales occurred, state that explicitly (e.g., "No prior fundraising, OTC, or discounted MM sales have occurred.").
Response
Cardano conducted one fundraising event, a pre-launch sale of ADA vouchers redeemable one-for-one for ADA at mainnet launch. Attain Corporation of Japan managed the sale through its sales force in Japan under KYC requirements, across five tranches from September 2015 to January 2017. The sale raised 108,844.5 BTC from 14,402 paid invoices, equal to a net USD cost of $62,236,134, with 94.45% of proceeds from Japan, 2.56% from South Korea, and 2.39% from China. The Cardano Foundation audited each tranche and reconciled the bitcoin received against Attain's sales database to within 0.01%. No venture round, SAFT, OTC sale, or discounted market-maker sale has occurred, and the founding entities received their ADA as genesis allocations rather than through a sale. (Source: Cardano Genesis Distribution, An Update on Cardano's ADA Redemption Program)
If any, list prior exploits or incidents that directly affected the token, token supply, tokenholder balances, token contract, minting controls, burn mechanics, or custody of token supply. This question is not asking about general protocol, application, or smart contract exploits unless the incident directly affected the native token itself. If no prior incidents, state this explicitly (e.g., "No exploits affecting tokenholders or protocol funds as of YYYY-MM-DD").
Response
No exploit has resulted in loss of protocol funds, treasury ADA, or tokenholder ADA as of 2026-09-08. The mainnet has recorded four availability and consensus incidents, none of which put staked or held ADA at risk. (Source: Cardano Development Updates incident reports, Incident report: network partition)
Incident 1 of 4
2023-01-22; Cardano mainnet ledger / block-producing nodes Cardano Development Updates
Incident 2 of 4
2024-06-25; Cardano mainnet / block producer nodes (denial-of-service attempt) Cardano Development Updates, Cardano Survives a Denial of Service Attack
Incident 3 of 4
2024-09-01; Cardano mainnet ledger (Chang hard fork)
Describe material risk factors across the three categories below. Each category includes prompts to address at a minimum.
(a) Regulatory, Legal & Tax Risks — Describe how evolving laws and regulations could affect the project by answering, at a minimum, questions like:
Impact of Regulatory Change on TGE and Listings: (If applicable) How could evolving or conflicting laws and regulations affect your ability to complete the TGE, deliver tokens to purchasers, and list or maintain the token on trading venues in key jurisdictions?
Entity-Level Regulatory Impact: (If applicable) How could regulatory or legal changes impact your core entities (Foundation, DevCo, DAO, affiliated service providers), including enforcement actions, licensing requirements, or forced changes to structure or operations?
Tokenholder Tax Treatment: (If applicable) What uncertainties exist around how tokenholders may be taxed, and make clear that tokenholders are responsible for understanding their own tax obligations?
Jurisdictional & User Access Restrictions: (If applicable) If the project restricts access for certain jurisdictions or user types (e.g., U.S. persons, sanctioned countries, retail vs. professional), what are those restrictions and what risks do they create for users and for the project?
(b) Protocol, Technology & Security Risks — Describe risks to network and contract reliability, correctness, and safety by answering, at a minimum, questions like:
Bugs and Design Flaws: (If applicable) What bugs, design flaws, or implementation errors could exist in your core protocol code, smart contracts, and any bridges, rollups, or oracles that you depend on, and how could these lead to loss of funds or disruption of the protocol?
Security Measures & Their Limitations: (If applicable) What security measures have you taken (audits, formal verification, bug bounties), and what types of failures might these measures still fail to detect or prevent?
(c) Token Economics, Unlocks & Incentive Risks — Describe how the token's economic design and supply schedule could affect holders by answering, at a minimum, questions like:
Critical Economic Assumptions: (If applicable) Which economic assumptions (e.g., staking yields, fee revenue, liquidity incentives, MEV capture, demand for blockspace) are critical for protocol security, utility, and governance, and what happens if those assumptions fail?
This Token Transparency Filing is provided for general informational purposes only and does not verify or warrant the accuracy of individual answers.
Incident 4 of 4
2025-11-21; Cardano mainnet and Preview testnet (chain partition) Incident report: network partition
Incident 1 of 4
A bug in ledger data-structure handling tied to the insertion and deletion order of multi-asset tokens caused about 50% of block producers and relays to restart. Cardano Development Updates
Incident 2 of 4
An attacker submitted a series of spam transactions each containing 194 large reference scripts, funded from three wallets of about 20,000 ADA each. High deserialization costs disrupted block producer nodes and slowed throughput. Cardano Development Updates
Incident 3 of 4
An inconsistency between written and read ledger state snapshots, a side effect of removing pointer addresses in the Conway era, caused restarted nodes to replay from genesis. Cardano Development Updates
Incident 4 of 4
A malformed delegation transaction exploited a bug in an underlying software library that validation code did not trap. Nodes on different library versions handled the transaction differently, splitting the network into a chain containing the poisoned transaction and a healthy chain without it. Incident report: network partition, November 2025 Incident
Incident 1 of 4
Block production paused for approximately two minutes. No loss of funds. Cardano Development Updates
Incident 2 of 4
Reduced throughput for about 12 hours. The attacker spent 4,603 ADA in fees. Staked ADA was never at risk and no funds were lost. Cardano Development Updates, Cardano Survives a Denial of Service Attack
Incident 3 of 4
Node restarts took up to two hours longer than normal. The chain ran uninterrupted and no funds were lost. Cardano Development Updates
Incident 4 of 4
Temporary chain split lasting approximately 14 hours. The chain never went down and no funds were lost. November 2025 Incident, Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025
Incident 1 of 4
Input Output engineers, SPOs, and DApp developers reproduced the bug and shipped a hotfix in node v1.35.5 on 2023-01-27. Cardano Development Updates
Incident 2 of 4
A community developer from Anastasia Labs halted the attack by deregistering the attacker's stake keys. Reference-script cost restrictions and a revised cost model shipped in node versions 8.9.4, 8.12.1, 8.12.2, and 9.0.0 and later for the Chang hard fork. Cardano Development Updates, Cardano Survives a Denial of Service Attack
Incident 3 of 4
Hotfix node v9.1.1 released within 24 hours of the hard fork. Operators were advised not to restart nodes until upgraded. Cardano Development Updates
Incident 4 of 4
SPOs, the Cardano Foundation, Input Output, EMURGO, and the Intersect security council coordinated diagnosis and a fix, and the canonical chain overtook the alternate branch under Ouroboros chain selection. Incident report: network partition, November 2025 Incident
Incident 1 of 4
Resolved. No recurrence recorded. Cardano Development Updates
Incident 2 of 4
Resolved with mitigations deployed. Cardano Development Updates
Incident 3 of 4
Resolved. Cardano Development Updates
Incident 4 of 4
Resolved. All nodes adopted the canonical chain. November 2025 Incident
Incident 1 of 4
Incident 2 of 4
Incident 3 of 4
Incident 4 of 4
Governance Control over Monetary Policy & Rewards: (If applicable) To what extent can governance change monetary policy, fee parameters, or reward allocations (e.g., inflation rate, treasury flows, incentive programs), and how could such changes adversely affect tokenholders?
Response
Impact of regulatory change on TGE and listings
The token generation event is complete and all genesis ADA was delivered in 2017, so regulatory change cannot affect issuance or delivery. Regulatory change does affect trading venue access. In June 2023 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission named ADA as a crypto asset security in its complaints against Binance and Coinbase. The SEC dismissed the Coinbase action with prejudice on February 27, 2025 and has since stated that a crypto asset itself is not a security, while courts remain inconsistent on when crypto asset transactions are securities transactions. U.S. spot ETF access remains unsettled. Grayscale filed a Form S-1 for the Grayscale Cardano Trust ETF in August 2025, CME Group listed ADA futures on February 9, 2026, and Grayscale withdrew its S-1 on August 7, 2026 while applications from other issuers remain under SEC review. A renewed adverse securities classification in any major jurisdiction would force delistings on regulated venues in that jurisdiction and reduce ADA liquidity. (Source: Cointelegraph on the SEC Coinbase complaint, Commissioner Peirce statement on the Coinbase dismissal, Coinbase Form 10-K FY2025, Grayscale Cardano Trust ETF Form S-1, crypto.news on the Grayscale withdrawal)
Entity-level regulatory impact
The Cardano Foundation is a Swiss foundation under federal foundation supervision and holds a Zug tax ruling accepted on June 7, 2019 that taxes it under a cost-plus model with a 5% markup. Changes to Swiss foundation, tax, or financial market law would alter its cost base, its reporting duties, or its ability to hold and stake ADA. Input Output Global, Inc. is a Wyoming corporation with U.S. operations and is exposed to U.S. federal and state digital asset law, including any future determination that its development activity or token holdings trigger registration or licensing requirements. Neither entity is subject to any disclosed enforcement action. The onchain governance system has no legal wrapper, so a regulatory determination that DReps, Constitutional Committee members, or Intersect as budget administrator are performing regulated functions would fall on those participants individually and could reduce governance participation. The Cardano Foundation engaged directly with the SEC Crypto Task Force, the U.K. FCA, the European Data Protection Board, and the European Parliament during 2025. (Source: Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025, Wyoming Secretary of State filing, Cardano Budget 2026 Overview)
Tokenholder tax treatment
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service treats digital assets as property, taxes income received in digital assets, and requires holders to report digital asset transactions including staking rewards. ADA holders receive staking rewards every epoch and governance-related deposits and refunds, each of which is a reportable event in many jurisdictions. Tax treatment of staking rewards, DRep delegation, and treasury-funded payments differs across jurisdictions and continues to change. Tokenholders are responsible for determining and meeting their own tax obligations. (Source: IRS Digital assets, Cardano monetary policy)
Jurisdictional and user access restrictions
The Cardano protocol imposes no jurisdictional or user-type restrictions. Any person can run a node, operate a stake pool, delegate ADA, register as a DRep, or submit a governance action. Access restrictions arise only at the level of third-party exchanges, custodians, and wallet providers that apply their own compliance rules, and at the level of Cardano Foundation and Intersect programs, such as treasury-funded vendor contracts, that require vendor onboarding and compliance checks. ADA holders in jurisdictions where regulated venues delist ADA face reduced liquidity and pricing dislocations relative to other markets. (Source: Governance overview, Cardano Budget 2026 Overview)
Bugs and design flaws
Cardano's mainnet has experienced four consensus and availability incidents caused by implementation errors rather than economic exploits. These are the January 2023 ledger data-structure bug that restarted about half of block producers, the June 2024 large-reference-script denial-of-service attempt that slowed throughput for about 12 hours, the September 2024 ledger snapshot inconsistency at the Chang hard fork, and the November 2025 chain partition in which a malformed delegation transaction exploited an untrapped library bug and split the chain for about 14 hours. In 2022 a SECP256k1 binding bug that could have let a single transaction crash every node was caught on testnet before mainnet deployment. None of these incidents caused loss of funds. The same class of failure, a validation gap in the Haskell node or its dependencies, remains the primary technical risk, and the network's reliance on a single dominant node implementation concentrates that risk until the Rust-based Amaru node reaches production. Smart contracts deployed on Cardano and third-party bridges and oracles carry their own risk of loss and are outside protocol control. (Source: Cardano Development Updates incident reports, Incident report: network partition, Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025)
Security measures and their limitations
Ouroboros is a peer-reviewed proof-of-stake protocol with published security proofs. Node releases are tested on the Preview and Preprod testnets before mainnet, and hard forks require onchain ratification by DReps, SPOs, and the Constitutional Committee. Intersect operates an incident response process and a security council that coordinated the November 2025 response. The Cardano Foundation runs an Antithesis deterministic simulation testing integration to surface node bugs, funds the Amaru alternative node implementation for client diversity, and maintains a responsible disclosure policy with a bug bounty covering a subset of its services. These measures do not eliminate residual risk. The Foundation's disclosure policy excludes the core Cardano blockchain technology from its scope, the November 2025 partition occurred in code that had passed existing test suites, and user-level threats such as phishing, fake support, and fake giveaway scams can cause permanent loss of ADA that no protocol measure prevents. (Source: Ouroboros overview, Cardano upgrade: van Rossem hard fork, Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025, Responsible Disclosure Policy, Common Cardano scams)
Critical economic assumptions
Cardano's security and treasury funding rest on reserve-based monetary expansion. Each epoch 0.3% of the remaining reserves plus transaction fees form the reward pot, of which 80% pays stake pools and delegators and 20% funds the treasury. Because the reserve declines geometrically, reward and treasury inflows fall every epoch, and transaction fees must replace them to sustain staking yields and treasury capacity. Treasury inflows were approximately 4.32 million ADA per epoch in April 2025 against a balance of approximately 1.69 billion ADA, and the 2025 Net Change Limit authorized withdrawals of 350 million ADA, roughly equal to one year of inflows. If fee revenue does not grow as reserves deplete, staking yields fall, delegation and pool participation weaken, and the treasury runway shortens. Treasury withdrawals also add ADA to circulating supply and create sell pressure when recipients convert to fiat. The founding entities' genesis allocations carry no lock, and Input Output has not disclosed its holdings, so the timing of any disposals by those holders is unknown to the market. (Source: Cardano monetary policy, Understanding Cardano's Net Change Limit, Recent Cardano Governance Actions, Cardano Genesis Distribution)
Governance control over monetary policy and rewards
Governance controls every economic parameter except the 45,000,000,000 ADA maximum supply, which the Constitution fixes. Protocol parameter change actions can alter the monetary expansion rate, the treasury share, transaction fee coefficients, the minimum pool cost, and the pledge influence factor, and the Intersect Parameter Committee submitted a parameter change action in August 2026 to cut minPoolCost from 170 to 75 ADA and raise Plutus memory limits, subject to DRep and SPO ratification. Treasury Withdrawal actions move ADA out of the treasury within the Net Change Limit, and Net Change Limit info actions pass with more than 50% of active DRep stake. Constitution updates and hard forks can change the rules themselves. Voting power is stake-weighted, so large holders and large DReps carry proportionate influence, and the Cardano Foundation's DRep Delegation Program directs 360 million ADA of Foundation-held stake to selected DReps. Tokenholders bear the risk that ratified changes reduce staking yields, increase fees, accelerate treasury spending, or reallocate rewards in ways that dilute or disadvantage passive holders. (Source: The Cardano Constitution, Governance Actions, Lowering minPoolCost, Recent Cardano Governance Actions, Activity and Financial Insights Report 2025)
