Revised Cardano Summit 2026 Singapore

This proposal as PDF.

This is a revised and 22% reduced budget treasury withdrawal proposal for the Cardano Summit 2026 in Singapore. Following extensive discussions with the community the Foundation has revised the proposal as follows:

• This proposal is decoupled from EMURGO’s TOKEN2049 sponsorship proposal.
  
• Budget is reduced by 22% or $550,000 while retaining the tier-one experience to showcase a L1 blockchain like Cardano, achieved through reduction from three stages to two which lowers production, tech and onsite logistics costs.
  
• Increased the CF’s estimated internal resource contributions to $380,000 from $250,000 to reduce external vendor costs.

We thank the community for their honest feedback and we respect the budgetary concerns given the current bear market. Feedback was consistently positive about the Summit’s strategic vision and value. We understand the broad consensus is that a reduced budget Singapore Summit should happen without sacrificing quality or reputation. We continue to believe this proposal will bring important benefits to Cardano.

2026 is a pivotal year for accelerating Cardano’s adoption. Cardano has increased its interoperability and institutional readiness (USDCx, Pyth, Dune, CME Group, LayerZero). Aligned to the strategy, the Summit provides the perfect stage to spotlight this and to bridge the gap across technical integrations and enterprise/institutional execution. Interest in the Cardano Summit from institutions, enterprises, and media has steadily increased reaching its highest level in 2025/26.

This proposal outlines a strategic high-impact Cardano Summit 2026 to be executed in Singapore October 5 and 6th, 2026 with a 22% reduced budget.

The Foundation is requesting a total of 7,800,000 ada based on a $0.25 assumed ada value for a $1,950,000 USD budget:

This request is linked to adoption and impact targets: 250 enterprise MQLs, 50 strategic meetings within 45 days post-event, 10 live demos/technical workshops, 200 developer participants, and 30 hackathon submissions/applications. These targets are captured in the KPI framework.

Proposal Specifics and Budget Breakdown below for further details on the budget and administration process. Reductions are detailed in Section 4. Key Performance Indicators are included in Section 6.

The full concept here

Cardano Summit 2026 moves to Singapore because it aligns with the overall Cardano 2030 Vision and Strategy and fully supports it.

Cardano’s next phase of adoption must be shaped where enterprise, institutional, regulatory, and developer audiences already converge. Building on the momentum of the Cardano Summit 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFmKTQIs7dM), including the global visibility generated through the flagship event, the Singapore edition is designed to expand Cardano’s reach beyond its existing ecosystem, strengthen its position in Asia, and place the community directly alongside the institutions and partners shaping the future of blockchain infrastructure.

Intentionally built as a high-quality, two-day event that appeals to both builders and industry, this will deliver a strategic intersection where ecosystem builders and enterprise decision-makers meet.

By dedicating the first day to growing the capacity of our ecosystem and the second to industry, DeFi, retail, and regulatory partners and collaborators, Cardano Summit 2026 will provide the venue for builders, enterprises, institutions and regulators to meaningfully meet, connect, build lasting partnerships driving towards the future of blockchain.

The Summit places Cardano in front of financial institutions, asset managers, enterprises, and regulators evaluating blockchain infrastructure. The Summit will be optimized for audience targeting, speaker quality, and the agenda. Post-event engagement will be tracked through a structured follow-up process, covering qualified leads, strategic meetings, technical demonstrations, active enterprise discussions, and potential integration opportunities. This ensures the Summit is measured not only by attendance, but by the quality of adoption pathways created after the event.

Hosting Cardano Summit 2026 in Singapore immediately before TOKEN2049 is a deliberate audience strategy. It places Cardano in one of the world’s most active financial and digital asset hubs at the moment when senior leaders from finance, technology, regulation, venture, and blockchain infrastructure are already in the market. This timing improves the Summit’s ability to attract relevant speakers, sponsors, media, partners, and decision-makers while preserving a standalone Cardano identity.

The objective is not simply to increase attendance, but to convert audience concentration into qualified relationships, enterprise conversations, ecosystem visibility, and measurable post-event outcomes.

This proposal is being submitted outside of the Intersect budget process due to critical timing constraints, as payments made through this process are projected to be made in August or September at the earliest, which is unworkable for 2026 events. Waiting for this process would mean missing the crucial opportunity to build upon the Summit momentum generated in 2025.

Events at the scale of the Summit typically require at least 12 months of advance planning. Given that the event is scheduled for October 2026, an August/September withdrawal is not feasible.

To demonstrate our commitment to a successful Summit 2026, Cardano Foundation secured the 2026 location with the revenue from Summit 2025 and has already begun working on the event, using its own teams and resources. Immediately following the Cardano Africa Tech Summit in February 2026, CF initiated team alignment and started preparing the concept, agenda, website, and sponsor packages, as well as engaging the first speakers and moderators.

Why has the Cardano Summit budget increased from the USD 1,500,000 (before ticket sales and sponsorships) projected last year to approximately USD 2,263,000 (before ticket sales and sponsorships)?

In 2025, we assumed a USD 1.2M budget for the Cardano Summit 2026, which would be supplemented by the previous year's revenue. Our intention was to continue to operate with a similar scope and in a similar market environment to Berlin. The following ecosystem developments were the drivers of the change of strategy/location:

• The “Cardano 2030 strategic vision”, as voted on by the DReps, focuses on DeFi among other verticals and aligns better with a global event presence for blockchain and finance.

• Cardano Critical Integrations such as USDCx and LayerZero interoperability demand institutional visibility for a solid ROI. The same holds for other positive developments such as the conjunction of Cardano and AI agents, the rollout of CIP113 for tokenization, the progress on bitcoin bridging, ETFs, etc.

• Singapore is a global financial center that attracts major industries and investors, and this location firmly positions Cardano in front of international banks, asset managers, and regulators.

This event is timed to capitalize on TOKEN2049, the ecosystem gain direct access to a pre-qualified institutional target audience and further align with several positive ecosystem developments started in 2025.

Hosting outside this window forfeits access to thousands of pre-qualified institutional participants already present for TOKEN2049, requiring significantly higher attendee acquisition spend elsewhere.

Mission and Vision

Mission: To position Cardano as the undisputed enterprise-grade blockchain solution by converging the global crypto ecosystem with Asia’s premier financial hub. We will leverage the global reach of the TOKEN2049 event to forge alliances between Web3 builders, institutional capital, and enterprise executives on a global scale and present at the event.

Vision: A high-impact, two-day operational showcase that bridges the gap between decentralized governance, institutional finance, and enterprise adoption.

• Day 1 (Cardano Summit 2026 - Ecosystem Day): A program built around the people shaping Cardano’s next chapter: the community, builders, DReps, developers, and ecosystem leaders. From governance and committee sessions to the Layer Up hackathon final, Battle of the Builders, technical workshops, masterclasses, ecosystem deep dives, and the DARTE roundtable, Ecosystem Day will show Cardano’s vibrancy through participation, utility, and real-world progress. Open to all crypto native ecosystems - not just Cardano, to encourage builders and governance discussions evolvement.

• Day 2 (Cardano Summit 2026 - Industry Day): A focused program for enterprise, institutional, and regulatory audiences. Industry Day will examine where Cardano can support real-world adoption across tokenisation, stablecoins, interoperability, AI, digital identity, auditability, and trusted data. Through keynotes, panels, demonstrations, and targeted meetings, the day is designed to convert market interest into qualified conversations, partnership opportunities, and post-event follow-up.

Following discussion and feedback from across the Cardano community, the Cardano Foundation has revised the proposal, reducing the requested budget and narrowing the scope of the Summit without sacrificing quality.

1. ### Key Benefits

The economic landscape in 2026 sees the converging of four market-reshaping shifts that will determine which infrastructure enterprises adopt for the next decade:

1. Tokenized real-world assets reach $26.4 billion on-chain, up fourfold year on year, with McKinsey projecting $4 trillion by 2030.
   
2. Agentic commerce becomes a $3 to $5 trillion category, with 140 million agent payments already settled in the first nine months of 2025.
   
3. EU MiCA enforcement and the Digital Product Passport registry both go live in July, requiring verifiable records and licensed providers across the bloc.
   
4. Cardano is advancing identity and verification infrastructure that enables selective disclosure, trusted credentials, and privacy-conscious enterprise adoption without requiring businesses to expose sensitive data unnecessarily

These shifts directly inform the Summit’s agenda and targeted audience, ensuring alignment between market demand and Cardano’s positioning.

Cardano has live proof points across each shift: SPAR, MembersCap, Masumi, Serviceplan, NMKR, Petrobras, Würth, Syngenta, Grant Thornton and more.

The Summit places Cardano in the room where enterprise and institutional decisions are made. Held later, the decisions are already taken.

Among the key benefits for the Cardano Ecosystem with this proposal, we are looking to:

Capitalize on TOKEN2049: Leverage the presence of 25,000+ global crypto attendees in Singapore to maximize B2B networking and institutional exposure without bearing the cost of flying them in. Additionally, the cancellation of TOKEN2049’s other flagship event in Dubai this year is likely to increase demand for tickets in Singapore.

Focus on ROI and Reach: A focused, 2-day, high-yield gathering attached to one of the largest events for the industry to optimize treasury spend for the largest reach.

Institutional Liquidity & Partnership: Direct access to the Investment/Stablecoin audience gathered for TOKEN2049, addressing the need for deeper DeFi liquidity and stablecoin integration on Cardano.

Real-World Adoption: Showcasing high-value blockchain solutions to tech giants and financial hubs, moving beyond theory to actual implementation (e.g., finance, supply chain, AI, identity).

Governance & Community Cohesion: Dedicating Day 1 of the Cardano Summit to Governance and Battle of the Builders ensures the community retains ownership.

1. ### Why host the Summit in Singapore?

Singapore provides a strong strategic context for Cardano Summit 2026. It combines regulated digital asset activity, institutional engagement in tokenisation, and access to Asia’s enterprise and developer markets. By October 2026, this context creates a timely setting for Cardano to present its infrastructure, ecosystem progress, and real-world use cases to audiences actively evaluating the next phase of blockchain adoption.

We will position Cardano at the center of the world’s most active institutional and blockchain hub precisely when Cardano technical and commercial large integrations have reached a pivotal moment for mainstream finance.

Additionally, Singapore is the only major financial center where the four major shifts outlined above will be operationally live in October 2026:

1. Project Guardian has assembled 40-plus tier-one institutions, including JPMorgan, UBS, Citi, Apollo, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, Chainlink, and Swift, in live tokenization.
   
2. Operational guidance for tokenized funds was published in Q4 2025.
   
3. The single-currency stablecoin framework takes effect mid-2026.
   
4. Digital Token Service Provider (DTSP) licensing under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2022 (FSMA) has been in force since 30 June 2025.

Singapore makes huge sense as a location for Summit 2026, not least because Singapore's single-currency stablecoin framework takes effect mid-2026. Additionally, Digital Token Service Provider (DTSP) licensing under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2022 (FSMA) has been in force since 30 June 2025. No other Asia hub combines this clarity, infrastructure, and active institutional participation.

Cardano arrives with the integrations to match this positive environment: The move to Singapore is strongly motivated by several heavyweight integrations kicked off or finalized this year that require institutional-grade visibility, for instance:

1. The Stablecoin (USDCx): The integration of Circle’s USDCx via zero-knowledge technology provides the secure, stable liquidity required by Asian banks and DeFi protocols.

2. LayerZero Interoperability: Cardano will be connected soon to over 150 blockchains, allowing for seamless cross-chain asset flows, which is critical for Singapore’s status as a global liquidity hub.

3. CME Group ADA Futures: The launch of regulated ADA futures on February 9, 2026, marks the entry of ADA into the institutional derivatives market alongside Bitcoin and Ether.

4. On-Chain Financial Audits: Successes like Grant Thornton's world-first on-chain attestation of the Cardano Foundation’s audited financials via the Reeve system demonstrates to regulators, in Singapore and beyond, that Cardano can meet stringent Real-World Asset (RWA) compliance needs.

5. AI and Verifiable Agent Infrastructure: Cardano can support the trust layer for AI adoption, including identity, permissions, provenance, and auditability, with Masumi demonstrating this through trusted AI agent workflows.

Together, these developments make Singapore a credible setting for Cardano to present its maturing infrastructure to both ecosystem and institutional audiences. This Summit will also bring the flagship event to Southeast Asia for the first time, creating a more accessible regional meeting point for Cardano’s community, builders, developers, and enterprise stakeholders across Asia.

Through Day 1 (Ecosystem Day) of the agenda, the Summit will provide a dedicated setting for governance discussions, technical exchange, networking, and collaboration between regional and global participants.

With TOKEN2049 expecting over 25,000 delegates on 7–8 October, scheduling the Cardano Summit for 5–6 October creates a natural bridge for the industry's top institutional players. This strategic window secures high-intent traffic already on the ground, drastically increasing our ROI by maximizing attendee acquisition efficiency. By tapping into this existing momentum, we ensure Cardano’s value proposition is delivered directly to a pre-qualified global audience at the peak of their engagement.

1. 2026 Objectives:

2. Driving blockchain adoption (with emphasis on Cardano): By onboarding new projects, builders, use-cases and connecting the community, enterprises, and institutions with proven infrastructure, standards, and implementation experience

3. Promoting education and innovation: Sharing knowledge, case studies, and new applications to promote Cardano as the blockchain of choice.

4. Advancing infrastructure: Discussing topics such as programming, open source development, cross-chain interoperability, and DeFi capabilities.

5. Engaging the global ecosystem: Bringing together the global Cardano community, particularly those in Southeast Asia, including industry leaders, businesses, ecosystem projects, and blockchain enthusiasts for networking and connection opportunities.

6. Fostering governance discussions: Facilitating conversations about decentralized decision-making and active community participation in the Cardano ecosystem.

7. Proposal Specifics and Budget Breakdown

We are requesting a revised and reduced total of USD 1,950,000 – a substantial reduction of 22% from the previous proposal.

What has changed from the previous proposal?

By streamlining our operations,moving toward a leaner event concept and with CF committing further internal resources to substitute external vendors to the proposal, we achieve a total cost reduction of $550,000.

A significant cost reduction is achieved by moving from three stages to two (the “Main Stage” and the “Builders Stage”, aligning with the Summit 2025 format), which lowers expenditures across production, tech, and onsite logistics while maintaining the targeted impact.

Further driving cost reductions, the Cardano Foundation has increased its internal resource allocation, making additional resources available from other projects to reduce the cost of vendors. The estimated contribution rises to $380,000 from $250,000.

Consolidating our focus onto a single main stage and utilizing more internal CF resources allowed us to reduce AV requirements and travel overhead while simultaneously optimizing our catering budget. This shift reduced the total volume of speakers and moderators, reduces external vendor costs and results in the following estimated savings:

1. On Site Management and Logistics from $1,324,459 to $1,110,431
   
2. Speakers’ travel and accommodation from $117,450 to $88,594
   
3. Event Marketing & Comms from $161,000 to $115,000
   
4. Production and Tech from $250,000 to $200,000
   
5. Program and Content from $270,000 to $148,384
   
6. Design and Branding from $120,000 to $100,000
   
7. Sponsors & Expo from $265,261 to $205,261
   
8. Hackathon, Prizes & Incentives from $54,830 to $45,330

The revised budget is lower than comparable tier-one blockchain conferences in global financial hubs, while maintaining a leaner cost structure through increased internal resource allocation and reduced staging. For your benchmark, Avalanche in NY, Solana in Abu Dhabi and London, Ripple in NY are targeting Tier-1 financial city venues with clear budget increase. Other L1 strategic events do not publish their costs as standard; for full transparency the CF does.

COST BREAKDOWN: CARDANO SUMMIT 2026 by Cardano Foundation

Costs shown above are estimates. Final figures may vary; the Cardano Foundation will need to operate within the limitations of the withdrawal amount, subject to the contingencies and risk mitigation strategy outlined below.

1. ### Event Program and Agenda

The Summit 2026 Program is structured as follows:

Day 1 - ECOSYSTEM DAY - 05 October 2026

Focus: Deep dives for the core community, builders, and DReps.

• Governance & Committees
  
• Workshops & Masterclasses
  
• Battle of the Builders
  
• Layer Up Hackathon
  
• Ecosystem Deep Dives
  
• Networking Sessions
  
• DARTE Roundtable
  
• Welcome Reception

Day 2 - INDUSTRY DAY - 06 October 2026

Focus: Trust Through Technology

• Registration & Networking Breakfast
  
• Expert Keynotes & Panels
  
  • Infrastructure, AI & Trust (Enterprise Adoption)
    
  • Investment, Stablecoin & Exchanges (Finance/Crypto)
    
• Tech & Builder Demos
  
• Expo & Start-Up Street
  
• Product Demos
  
• Networking Lunch
  
• 1:1 Meetings
  
• Summit Awards & Dinner

Summit 2026 Agenda

The Summit’s agenda focuses on a central premise: that blockchain is increasingly forming the infrastructure layer for trusted digital economies and will focus on:

• Enterprise & Institutional adoption of blockchain infrastructure
  
• Digital Identity and Trust infrastructure
  
• RWAs, Tokenized financial markets and programmable liquidity
  
• The convergence of AI, Web 3 and verifiable digital systems

The final agenda and Summit program may vary based on final speaker availability, developments in 2026 and further planning progress.

Along with examining the regulatory and governance frameworks shaping the next phase of adoption, we aim to develop four key focus areas:

• Focus Area 1: explores how blockchain is reshaping financial market infrastructure. The goal is to highlight how blockchain is enabling more efficient, transparent, and programmable financial systems.
  
• Focus Area 2: As digital systems expand, the ability to verify identity and data integrity is becoming increasingly important. This focus area reflects Cardano’s thought leadership on Digital Trust Infrastructure, positioning trust and verification as core components of future digital ecosystems.
  
• Focus Area 3: focuses on real-world enterprise deployment of blockchain technologies. Sessions will prioritize live implementations and case studies, showcasing how blockchain is already delivering ecosystem value across industries.
  
• Focus Area 4: AI is rapidly transforming digital systems, but it also introduces new challenges around trust and verification. This focus explores how AI and blockchain together may shape the next generation of digital infrastructure.

1. ### Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Impact

Aligned with Vision 2030 and the Critical Integration Budget, this Summit 2026 remains highly focused on delivering impact and growth for Cardano and its builders.

We are targeting:

1. ### Revenue

Revenue Target: The Summit 2026 aims to generate USD 450,000 in revenue through ticket sales and sponsorships. This is an increase of approximately 50% from the Summit 2025 revenue, which was USD $313,000. Revenue from the Summit 2025 is being used to lower costs of the Summit 2026 edition.

Reinvestment: The team has worked to maximize efficiency and is committed to increasing generated revenue annually.

100% of the revenue generated from the Summit 2026 will be ring-fenced for:

• Securing deposits for the Summit 2027 venue.
  
• Offsetting initial operating costs for the 2027 planning cycle.

1. ### Accountability

Cardano Foundation will ensure direct administration of the budget, assisted with an on-chain smart contract based on the treasury management contract developed by Sundae Labs (https://github.com/SundaeSwap-finance/treasury-contracts), with oversight from: DQuadrant, Intersect, NMKR, Sundae Labs.

These contracts provide a simple but robust way to manage funds withdrawn from the treasury. They ensure that the funds cannot be delegated, and cannot be used in governance voting. They also guarantee that any residual ada held at the contracts eventually returns to the Cardano treasury.

After withdrawal, the withdrawn ada will be immediately split across an independent project to reflect the endeavor (or “vendor” as per contract naming convention) under this proposal.. The vendor contract is subject to its own pre-configured payment schedule of two milestones for the Cardano Summit 2026 (Cardano Foundation)

An illustration of the full accountability cycle and contract setup can be found in Fig.1.

Smart Contract Administration

There are two contract types: treasury.ak, which holds the initial pooled funds withdrawn from the Cardano treasury, and vendor.ak, which securely locks funds intended for a specific vendor and a specific project, subject to periodic vesting.

The below Fig 1. demonstrates the flow of funds should this withdrawal be approved.

The treasury contract, and vendor contract are not delegated to any stake pool or DRep, as per the constitutional requirement for withdrawn, and unspent assets to be neutral.

The treasury contract receives the ada from a Treasury Withdrawal. Across these two contracts, 13 separate actions are permitted. These actions are split between general actions anyone can initiate and specific operations protected by configurable permissions.

Actions anyone can initiate include:

• Initializing the treasury contract by withdrawing funds from the reward account to the treasury script.
  
• Delegating the treasury and vendor script addresses to the auto-abstain DRep, as required by Article II, Section 7 of the Constitution.
  
• Unregistering the stake credential and reclaiming the 2 ADA deposit after the expiration date.
  
• Sweeping funds at the treasury script back to the Cardano treasury after the expiration date.

• Sweeping back funds locked with a malformed datum from the vendor script back to the treasury script (e.g., if someone sends funds directly to the vendor script without a datum).
  
• Sweeping funds locked at the vendor script back to the treasury script after the expiration date.

Treasury Operations (Subject to Oversight Committee Permissions):

• Fund: Creating a project for a vendor with a set of delivery milestones. This is the main operation and expected to be executed once.
  
• Sweep Early: Sweeping funds held at the treasury contract back to the Cardano treasury early, before the expiration date.
  
• Disburse: Disbursing funds to an arbitrary address and datum. Highly sensitive operation, thus the most protected one, with 3 out of 4 Oversight Committee members needing to authorize.
  
• Reorganize: Reorganizing funds held at the treasury contract, such as splitting and merging UTxOs.

Vendor Operations (Subject to Oversight Committee Permissions): A vendor contract, funded by the treasury contract, ensures the payment conditions set in the “fund” operation are enforced. Vendor contracts have the following operations:

• Withdraw: When all payment conditions for a milestone are met, the vendor can withdraw their milestone payment.
  
• Pause: Pausing a specific milestone for a vendor, preventing it from being claimed in case of a dispute of delivered work. (Must be executed by the Oversight Committee)
  
• Resume: Resuming a paused milestone, after the dispute has been resolved. (Must be executed by the Oversight Committee)
  
• Modify: Modifying a project to restructure the milestones or pay funds back to the treasury script. (Must be executed by the Oversight Committee and the vendor)

Contract Parameters & Transparency: To ensure operational security, the contracts are strictly parameterized by a registry token (a one-shot NFT to identify script hashes), a treasury expiration timestamp, and a vendor maximum payout date to ensure contracts cannot be extended indefinitely. Finally Sundae Labs and Xerberus have designed a metadata standard to ensure that each transaction is fully justified, transparent, and easily indexable on-chain by interested parties and tool builders.

The vendor, Cardano Foundation, will exercise permissions under its respective vendor contract and each has existing finance and payment processes designed to ensure approval and release of funds, which must happen before an on-chain authorization.

A dashboard, available at https://treasurywithdrawals.cardanofoundation.org/ and linked under references, will be publicly visible and will also include additional updates and information on this proposal. This will also allow the Community to track the progress of the withdrawal.

Smart Contract Audit

The used contracts are robust and heavily battle-tested, having been run extensively in preview, Sanchonet, and mainnet environments. The Sundae Labs Treasury Contract smart contracts underwent rigorous audits by two independent, well-respected Cardano audit firms, TxPipe and MLabs, and those reports can be found in the audits/ directory of the project repository:

https://github.com/SundaeSwap-finance/treasury-contracts/tree/main/audits

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Sundae Labs and Intersect for developing, sponsoring and testing the Treasury Contract smart contracts, and providing the Treasury Contracts SDK. Our thanks also go to MLabs, TxPipe and Amaru, who audited the contracts.

Further, we would like to express our sincerest thanks to DQuadrant, Intersect, NMKR and Sundae Labs for agreeing to become this withdrawal’s Oversight Committee.

Milestones

Disbursements by the treasury contract owner will be made according to the following milestones, which will be publicly viewable by the Cardano community on the Cardano Foundation’s withdrawal dashboard: https://treasurywithdrawals.cardanofoundation.org/ . The proposer will upload reporting information to this dashboard for Community visibility.

Cardano Summit

• Milestone 1: 6,240,000 ada, USD 1,560,000
  

Milestone 1 is a kickoff milestone to enable the Cardano Foundation to organise the Summit, engage vendors and make necessary deposits, it will be available for withdrawal upon approval of this governance action by DReps and funding of the treasury contract.

• Milestone 2: 1,560,000 ada, USD 390,000
  

Milestone 2 is the final payment milestone payable after delivery of the event. Upon reaching this Milestone, the Cardano Foundation will upload proof of delivery of the event and an updated report on organisation and budget. This will be publicly viewable by DReps.

CF believes that by using the above smart contract framework, combined with the other multiple layers of accountability contained within this proposal (audits and community oversight) that the Cardano community will receive comprehensive visibility over this withdrawal. It is fully in the interests of the Cardano Foundation to deliver according to this proposal, as they have already substantially invested in realizing these events, and intend to continue doing so for the future, as long-term members of the Cardano community.

1. ### Audits

The withdrawal contains a provision for the cost of an audit, included within “Proposal Specifics and Budget Breakdown” above.

The Cardano Foundation is subject to annual audits by its auditor Grant Thornton. Additionally, the Cardano Foundation provides comprehensive annual reporting of its activities and financials, visible to the Community at any time. The latest report for 2025 (https://cardanofoundation.org/activity-financial-insights-report-2025.pdf) can be found here and is included in the References below.

In a groundbreaking step this year, the Cardano Foundation and its auditor signed off on Cardano Foundation’s annual financial statements for 2025 on-chain, through the Reeve platform, providing an additional layer of accountability.

Subject to final engagement terms, CF is engaging Grant Thornton to provide additional assurance that this withdrawal was paid to the correct recipients (CF’s wallet) as set out herein.

1. ### Risks and Risk Mitigation

Ada price volatility: We have conservatively used the current ada price for this proposal.

Should exchange rate fluctuations have an adverse impact on the budget for this proposal, we will adjust the scope of the proposal accordingly, while mitigating overall impact insofar as possible, or deduct the impact from revenue generated. Conversely, should the ada price appreciate between proposal submission and event execution, without being offset by necessary event expenses, the Cardano Foundation will return the profit from such a price appreciation to the Cardano Treasury within 6 months after the events. Final reporting will be provided to the Community via the dashboard.

Geopolitical conflict: This proposal may be negatively impacted if current conflicts escalate. This may impact travel to Singapore, costs and/or the event/s’ schedule/dates.

If the event is cancelled for reasons beyond the proposers’ control, the cost of preparing for the event will be deducted from the budget and the balance will be returned to the Treasury. Alternatively, if it proves more cost effective for the Treasury to postpone the events, the proposers may choose to do so, extending the period of delivery under this proposal, and shall keep the Community updated on the reasoning behind this decision.

1. ### Disclaimer & Dependencies

• Execution Timeline and Approval: The successful execution of events depends on timely approval from DReps. A lead time of six months is required for event execution following proposal approval. A reduced planning timeline may result in a reduced scale of the event and changes to the event agenda, planning speakers, or similar aspects of organizing the events.

• Active Engagement & Participation: Non-negotiable active engagement from the community and ecosystem is essential, encompassing both speaking roles and general attendance.

• Highlighting Technological Advancements for institutional and enterprise adoption: Demos and presentations must be designed to effectively showcase the latest and most significant advancements in Cardano technology.

1. ### Constitutional self-assessment

In an effort to ensure the governance action fulfills all requirements laid out in the Cardano Constitution, the proposers have prepared the following self-assessment. We believe we have fulfilled the requirements of the Cardano Constitution based on the points listed below.

Article I.1 - Guiding Tenets:

• This proposal aligns with the guiding tenets of the Cardano Constitution, specifically by fostering ecosystem growth, ensuring transparency through public milestone reporting, and utilizing decentralized infrastructure for fund administration. It does not violate any of the 10 core tenets.
  
• Regarding Tenet 8, which a Constitutional Committee (CC) consortium flagged as a potential issue in a previous version of this proposal: in our opinion a proposal's constitutionality must be evaluated strictly on its own merits, limited by its direct on-chain effects and its attached governance action metadata insofar as possible. Incorporating projections (especially estimations) included in previous governance action’s metadata into the assessment of a new governance action strays beyond the CC’s mandate. Per the Constitution, the CC is limited to assessing the constitutionality of a proposal, substantive evaluations (such as those of actual cost vs previous estimations) sit within the remit of DReps. Additionally, Tenet 8 has historically been interpreted to govern protocol-level efficiency, such as computational load, transaction fees, and the cost of operating the blockchain. Determining whether a proposed spend is economically justified is for the DReps to decide. While we respect the independent judgment of all CC members, we respectfully disagree with the given interpretation for Tenet 8.

Article II.3.1 - Smart Contracts Use:

• This section encourages use of smart contracts where beneficial. This proposal is leveraging the open source and audited smart contracts developed by SundaeLabs and Intersect to administer the requested funding amount, thereby directly adhering to the wish of the Constitution to use smart contracts where beneficial.

Article II.6.1 - Governance Action Metadata Format:

• This section contains formatting requirements for governance actions, requiring they be in a standardized, legible format, and containing an immutable document with additional context for the proposal. The metadata of this proposal adheres to the required standardized and legible formatting outlined in CIP-0108 and the metadata file itself is hosted in an immutable fashion on IPFS. The hash of the metadata file hosted on IPFS is referenced in the metadata anchor hash field of the governance action and the link to the CID is referenced in the metadata anchor URL field of the governance action metadata. As the uploaded file is immutable and permanent on IPFS, the metadata cannot be altered post-submission, ensuring cryptographic integrity.

Article II.6.2 - Governance Action Metadata Structure:

• The governance action metadata adheres to the required structure by including a title, abstract, justification, and relevant supporting materials. Specifically, the rationale clearly outlines the strategic value of expanding Cardano’s presence in Asian markets, with global reach, via the Cardano Summit 2026 in Singapore.

Article II.7.1 - Treasury Withdrawals Terms:

As required by this section of the Constitution, this proposal includes:

• Purpose of the withdrawal: The purpose of this withdrawal is set out above and is the coordinated delivery of a flagship Cardano Summit in Singapore to increase Cardano’s presence.
  
• Period of delivery of proposed activities which the withdrawal shall be used for: The Cardano Summit 2026 will take place from 5-6 October.
  
• Relevant costs and expenses of the proposed activities: a breakdown of the budgeted costs are specified in “Proposal Specifics and Budget Breakdown” within the rationale section of this proposal.
  
• Circumstances under which the withdrawal might be refunded to the Cardano Treasury: the funding requested is to host the Cardano Summit 2026, all funding requested will be used to achieve this goal and it will be straightforward to verify that the event was delivered. Circumstances under which the withdrawal or a portion thereof might be refunded to the Cardano Treasury include: 1) The cancellation of the Cardano Summit 2026 before vendor payments are due, with the balance after payments to be returned to the Treasury, 2) The event is executed successfully but total expenses fall under the requested amount, in which case unspent ada will be returned to the Treasury within 6 months of the events taking place, or 3) Due to ada price appreciation, there is a profit on withdrawn ada, which will be refunded to the Treasury within 6 months of the events taking place. This does not include revenue, which like in 2025, will be applied to secure 2027 events.

Article II.7.2 - Prior Treasury Funding:

• The Cardano Foundation received ada during 2025 treasury withdrawals under the “Unveiling the First Unified Global Events Marketing Strategy for Cardano” (“global events proposal”) (https://adastat.net/proposals/680d1b63565577986442d222) for conducting various global events and sponsorships, and the “Cardano Summit 2025 and regional tech events” proposal (https://adastat.net/proposals/680d1b63565577986442d14c). As highlighted above, both the 2025 flagship Summit was successful. The global events proposal is still ongoing as certain events take place in 2026 under this proposal but the Community can view successful milestone reporting through the Intersect dashboard.

Article II.7.3 - Net Change Limit Adherence:

This section requires that treasury withdrawals do not exceed a Net Change Limit for the relevant period.

• As of the date of writing this proposal, a Net Change Limit of 350 million ada starting from epoch 613 (13-02-2026) and ending in epoch 713 (03-07-2027) has been approved by the DReps and acknowledged by the constitutional committee members when approving the Amaru 2026 Budget Treasury Withdrawal. Of the 350 million ADA in the NCL, 67,842,000 ADA has already been withdrawn, leaving a NCL balance of 282,158,000 ADA. The 7,800,000 ADA requested in this proposal falls well within the remaining NCL balance.

Article II.7.4 - Periodic Independent Audits and Oversight Metrics:

This section requires that ada be allocated from the withdrawal (funding request) to cover periodic independent audits and implementation of oversight metrics. This proposal makes provisions for:

• Periodic independent audits under the section titled “Audits” above, together with the allocation under Proposal Specifics and Budget Breakdown.
  
• Creating a publicly available dashboard to track and monitor the smart contract instance used to administer the funding, and view updates to KPIs.

Article II.7.5 - Treasury Withdrawal Administrator

This section requires that proposals specify one or more administrators.

• This proposal designates an administrator in the section titled “Accountability” It also specifies an administration process using smart contracts and an Oversight Committee. This follows an established practice of self-administration of proposals using smart contracts, with maximum Community visibility.

Article II.7.6 - Administrator Custody

This section requires that, where an administrator holds funds, that funds are kept in separate, auditable accounts which are not delegated to an SPO and are set to a predefined auto-abstain voting option.

• This proposal withdraws funds to one treasury contract script address, which will then be used to instantiate and fund one vendor contracts (Cardano Foundation), each of which provides public oversight of all operations and can be audited by the Cardano Community.
  
• These script addresses associated with the vendor contracts are not delegated to an SPO and are set to the auto-abstain voting option.

Appendix I.TREASURY-02a - Cardano Blockchain Guardrails

• In accordance with the guardrail TREASURY-02a, this withdrawal does not exceed the NCL at the moment of submission.

Appendix I.TREASURY-03a - Cardano Blockchain Guardrails

• In accordance with the guardrail TREASURY-03a, this proposal is denominated in ada.

1. ### Track record

The Cardano Foundation's proven delivery of four consecutive, globally impactful Cardano Summits establishes their invaluable institutional and enterprise knowledge and a track record of high-quality, large-scale event execution.

Since 2022 Cardano Foundation has been successfully organizing the yearly Cardano Summit for the Cardano Ecosystem.

Read more in this blog:

https://cardanofoundation.org/blog/cardano-summit-2025-journey-and-results