Eternl: Path to Sustainability (2026-2027)

Eternl is a non-custodial Cardano light wallet for the web, browser extension, Android, and iOS.

Users rely on Eternl for payments, staking, governance, and DApp interaction.

This proposal enables 12 months of operations, maintenance, and improvements. It includes frontend and backend maintenance and development, backend infrastructure, user support, and day-to-day operations.[^1]

The goal is to keep Eternl secure, compatible, stable, and available as Cardano keeps evolving. This costs around $420,000 per year.

Budget and Budget Breakdown

The Path to Sustainability

Eternl will introduce a Pro plan for personal and company use.

Eternl has an install base of about 100,000 on the browser extension and about 30,000 across Android and iOS.

If about 4.2% of that install base, or roughly 5,500 users, support Eternl by buying a Pro plan, this income alone would fully cover the annual $420,000 cost.

Since markets are down badly, this proposal helps cover Eternl's costs until income from Pro plan sales is enough to fully replace them.

We will keep a basic version of Eternl free, but aim to make Eternl Pro the best experience for all Ada holders.

What We Ask From the Cardano Community

Total: ₳1,680,000, at about $0.25 per Ada.

What We Will Do After the Treasury Withdrawal

We will convert the full amount into stablecoins and deposit it into a public company wallet for everyone to monitor.

Paying It Back to the Treasury

Every December and June, we will assess the following:

1. Full repayment

Are the remaining treasury stablecoins plus paid plan income above $420,000? If yes, we will use 100% of the surplus to repay the treasury. We will do this until the full USD value of this proposal, as received from the treasury, has been repaid. This means repaying an amount equal to $420,000 in Ada.

1. Additional treasury donation

Has the full $420,000 USD value already been repaid in Ada? And was income from Pro plan sales above $420,000 in the last 12 months?

If yes, we will donate 50% of the income above $420,000 to the treasury. We will do this until an additional $210,000 worth of Ada has been donated to the treasury.

1. Transparency

Every paid Pro plan will be recorded on-chain with metadata. We will publish a report on Pro plan earnings. We will also publish the treasury repayment and donation transaction hash.

Administrative Remarks

Tastenkunst GmbH will be the treasury fund administrator for this proposal. This proposal is not milestone-based. It ensures funds availability for a 12-month period.

Summary

Impact

Eternl is one of the primary gateways for Cardano's power. Its maintenance and further development assure reliable access to the blockchain.

Core Cardano KPIs Alignment

Pillars

FAQ

1. Will you be voting on your own proposal?

Yes. Our delegates certainly expect Eternl to be available in the future.

1. What income streams do you have?

Eternl charges a small service fee on transactions of 100 Ada or above in its DApp Browser and the MonsterSwap feature. In the current low-volume, low-price environment, those fees have been insufficient to cover costs, which is why we need to introduce paid plans as a more reliable source of income.

1. Why didn't you introduce paid plans earlier?

We had hoped for a stronger market and for the Ada price to stay above $0.50, but that didn't happen. Our goal was to earn enough in service fees to be sustainable and to provide all Eternl features and updates for free to all users.

1. Will the service fees or Tastenkunst's other income streams be taken into account when calculating the treasury payback?

No. The service fees cover rent for our small office, accounting costs, legal costs, and other expenses, such as software licenses.

1. Will Eternl be open-source?

The main UI will not be open-source. We will publish some libraries that we use in Eternl via the npm registry: https://www.npmjs.com/org/eternl

1. If the Ada price is above $0,25 when you convert the funds, what will you do?

We will only keep $420,000 in stablecoins; the remaining Ada will be returned to the treasury.

1. Eternl got Treasury funds in the last budget process. How did that go?

In the 2025 budget process, we requested ₳583,000 ($408,000) for 12 months of operations. We valued Ada at $0,70 in last year’s proposal.

Due to the Ada price decrease, we have not received the expected amount; to date, we are about $133,000 short of the proposed amount. That’s the main reason we have to submit this proposal to ensure continuity for the team as we introduce the long-planned Pro mode.

1. What will happen if Eternl does not get treasury funds?

Paid plans will help us understand whether Eternl can become self-sustaining under current market conditions. If we do not sell enough licenses beyond August, we will have to let go of our developers, scale Eternl down to essential maintenance, and shift our focus to work outside the Cardano ecosystem.

We want to keep Eternl available. But without enough funding, we may have to remove the free option and focus on users who support Eternl with paid licenses. This would mean a smaller team, fewer resources, and less resilient infrastructure. As a result, new features and support may be affected.

What's Coming Up for Eternl in the Coming Months?

Eternl Core

A complete rewrite of Eternl's core, which has been in development for a few months. We implemented our own CBOR library in TypeScript, to be published under BUSL-1.1 later this year, and replaced CSL across the entire codebase. Faster transaction building and more flexibility for future feature additions. This also means a snappier interface and better loading times.

Eternl Hub

Safely connect any Eternl app to any other Eternl app, e.g., an extension to a mobile app, or to devices of family or coworkers. Share wallets and settings. Even share wallets temporarily. Users can forward signing requests, e.g., create a transaction on the extension and sign it on a mobile device, or vice versa. We have many more features planned for Hub, like better DApp connections, and for that, we will introduce a CIP and make Eternl Hub open-source.

Enhanced Hardware Wallet Support

We will add more hardware wallet providers, enabling them to add fully featured Cardano support on their devices. Additionally, Eternl mobile apps will support Bluetooth connections and gain support for Ledger, OneKey, and Trezor, coming in v2.1.

Enhanced Wallet Data Export

Create entities, e.g., companies or individuals, and export data that combines all entities' accounts into a single view, saving hours of manual processing of intra-entity transactions.

Maintenance and Continued Development

Backend Infrastructure & Operations

• Resilient multi-region server setup
• Cardano node operation, including Hardfork upgrades
• Chain indexers (DBSync) on PostgreSQL
• Application servers for syncing, translations, stakepool data, governance data, smart contract data, scam token registry, and transaction submission endpoints
• Metadata aggregation for assets, governance, and pools across multiple data sources
• Backend services for upcoming Eternl Hub features
• 24/7 monitoring, alerting, and incident response across multiple servers

Frontend Maintenance & Cross-Platform Development

• Cross-platform shipping: Chrome extension, Web App/PWA, iOS, Android, plus a public beta channel
• Continuous security-critical upgrades
• CIP implementation as new standards emerge: dApp connector (CIP-30), NFT standards, new connection types, L2 support in the future
• Implementation and testing of new Hardfork features. Especially fundamental changes coming up with Dijkstra and Leios.
• Multisig wallet creation, configuration, and signing flows, transaction sharing
• dApp interoperability across the broader Cardano dApp ecosystem
• App Store and Play Store compliance, especially Apple's review cycles
• Hardware wallet support: Ledger, Trezor, OneKey, Keystone, more coming, tracking firmware updates from each vendor
• Bluetooth hardware wallet support, with mobile Bluetooth expansion in progress

Enhancing Governance Tooling

• DRep dashboards and proposal browsers
• Enhancing in-wallet voting on governance actions
• Ongoing expansion of voter and DRep tooling, e.g., creating governance proposals directly in Eternl

User Support

• Discord-based ticketing as the primary channel, plus a maintained Telegram channel
• Bug triage and direct assistance are handled by the development team
• Community-supported help in public channels
• 1-on-1 support channels with many ecosystem projects
• Maintenance and enhancement of the Eternl Wiki through adding to the knowledge base and producing short educational videos

Day-to-Day Operations

• Release management across all distribution channels
• Coordination with hardware wallet vendors, dApp developers, and CIP authors
• Internal code review and ongoing security practices

History of Catalyst Grants and Treasury Grants

Catalyst

1. #900103 - Enable Eternl (Fund 9) - $90,000
2. #900102 - Evolve Eternl (Fund 9) - $90,000
3. #900203 - Translate Eternl (Fund 9) - $46,000
4. #1000157 - Enable Eternl - F10 (Fund 10) - ₳554,000
5. #1000081 - Eternl - Accessible Multi-sig - F10 (Fund 10) - ₳69,200
6. #1000197 - Cardano knowledge base - F10 (Fund 10) - ₳20,800

Intersect

1. Update Eternl to implement CIP-95 - ₳70,000

Treasury Withdrawal

Tastenkunst GmbH was the recipient of treasury funds from the 2025 budget process. The funding period for this proposal ends in July 2026.

1. Withdraw ₳583,000 for Eternl Maintenance administered by Intersect
   https://adastat.net/governances/8ad3d454f3496a35cb0d07b0fd32f687f66338b7d60e787fc0a22939e5d8833e10