Yes

The Elephant in the Room: Are We Funding Innovation or Outsized Web2 Salaries? I keep seeing the same narrative popping up across the timeline: “We need more funding for Cardano projects,” “Why isn’t the ecosystem supporting its builders?” or “We need to rally together to save [Project X] from financial issues.” But while everyone is jumping to look for solutions on how to deploy more capital, almost no one is asking the foundational, hard questions about fiscal responsibility and operational runway. Let’s be real for a second. When we look beneath the hood of some of these struggling projects, we have to ask: Are these genuine Web3 innovators or are they just failed Web2 founders looking for a decentralized safety net to fund obscene corporate salaries? Starting a company in any industry, but especially in crypto requires a lean, gritty mentality. It means keeping overhead low, managing cash flow like your life depends on it and prioritizing product delivery over massive personal payouts. Instead, we’re seeing early stage startups overspending from day one, paying executive and staff salaries that would make established, revenue generating companies blush. A few realities we need to start addressing as a community: VC Rules Still Apply: Just because funding comes from a treasury, a catalyst fund or a community raise doesn't mean it’s "free money." It needs to be managed with the same strict discipline a traditional venture capitalist would demand. Proof of Value Before Proof of Payout: If a project is burning through hundreds of thousands of dollars before delivering a working product or achieving any semblance of product-market fit, the issue isn't a lack of community support, it’s bad management. The Startup Ethos: Early stage building is about sacrifice and alignment. If founders aren't willing to tie their compensation to milestones, revenue, or long term growth, their incentives are fundamentally misaligned with the holders and users funding them. Supporting the ecosystem shouldn't mean blindly subsidizing poor business models or inflated payrolls. True support means demanding accountability, transparency and a realistic path to sustainability. If a project is failing purely because they overspent on operations before they built a user base, that’s not an ecosystem funding problem. That’s a basic business failure. It’s time we start asking the right questions before we open the wallets. This post is not aimed at any project in particlar.

What Cardano needs is a little bit of 'emotionless Elon Musk' effect to find fkn profitability and sense to it all $cardano $ada

After four years of building for Cardano, today we have difficult news to share.

Why do we have an MBO that depends on treasury, why do we have no FE running for profit things? Foundation is only one that should run out of funds at some point. Either way we live in how we live right now and it’s baby steps in the right direction. I am for the following things: 1) All FE’s listen to talk by Patrick Masson, ED of the Apereo Foundation on the guide to being self sustainable: 2) I am for open source projects learning how to become self sustainable overtime via a COSS business model as outlined by the Chinstrap Community here: 3) All MBO’s need paid memberships that derive benefits for those paying and by default people paying are paying because it’s in their interest to do so. 4) everything open source deserves pay needs to be out of our minds by an ecosystem, I’m for paying for OS work that is used. 5) products need to raise funds via VC and revenue, all taxpayer dollars can fund useful amVPs then it’s up to projects to build their own revenue pipelines. 6) everyone needs to plan where $ will come from and stop looking at government to pay for it. 7) events should be run for profit.

No influencer can shill Cardano at this point to anyone. Green candles is the only marketing that will work, the fact that this needs to be said....

To answer the question, No I for one don’t want to fund your platform. If you don’t want to post/make videos about cardano that’s fine. The best influencer cardano ever had was the whale. He brought more people to cardano than any of these clowns and he never asked for a cent 🤣

"You don't need to be an expert, all you need is common sense." arrived to Cardano. The end is near.

Typically, when a marketing avenue isnt working (as quoted below, the chains that are paying content creators are seeing similar views as our "unpaid"creators), the answer isnt usually, increase that spend 10x. The answer is usually to try something different.

If you are any good as a content creator then you don’t need treasury funds! Trouble with community governance is people treat it like a popularity contest to extract money for self gain! Been saying it for time.

Now you know that the employees at IOG are compliant. Obedient employees are just that, opposite of creative and competent. Compliancy is the main requirement when @IOHK_Charles is hiring. That's why I dont believe IOG can deliver anymore.

The Cardano community always seem to put two and two together late. My tweet below was already quite late in the day but it's taken another two years since then for the Cardano community to finally understand. x.com/i/status/1783143684202… @ItsDave_ADA @jasonappleton @navi_gat0r

Yes. 100%

Charles, when every critic becomes a villain, the pattern is not everyone else. The pattern is you. You just listed Optim, Iagon, Cardano Whale, Dave, Rick, Adam and others like this is an "inventory." It is not an inventory. It is a list of people in this ecosystem who have questioned you, disagreed with you, did something you didn't like, challenged IOG, challenged a narrative or refused to act like Cardano governance exists only to ratify what you want. And instead of reflecting on why so many serious people keep ending up on the other side of your megaphone, you reach for the same playbook every time - Dismiss the substance. - Attack the person. - Recast yourself as the victim. - Then tell everyone else to "grow up." So let's take the Iagon part of your "inventory," since you brought us into it. You say Iagon "started bullying and harassing" Midnight ambassadors. That is a convenient story, but it is not what happened. I as a dRep asked a governance question, NOT Iagon. A dRep asked whether people with roles connected to Midnight or IOG linked interests, who also held meaningful dRep voting power, should abstain on IOG related treasury proposals. That is governance. That is literally what dReps are supposed to do - ask hard questions, examine conflicts, protect treasury neutrality and represent the $ADA holders who delegated voting power to them. If a person is participating in governance with delegated $ADA while also holding a role connected to a project or organization affected by that vote, asking about conflicts is not an attack. It is accountability. And let's be very clear - ambassadors are not above scrutiny. dReps are not above scrutiny. Iagon is not above scrutiny. IOG is not above scrutiny. Midnight is not above scrutiny. You are not above scrutiny. This is supposed to be decentralized governance, not a court where certain people get protected status because they are useful to Charles Hoskinson. The moment a person participates in public governance with public voting power, the public is allowed to ask public questions. You did not answer the conflict question. You reframed it as "bullying" - ironically this is exactly what you have been doing in this ecosystem. Then you escalated it into an attack on Iagon, my leadership and the holders. You used your platform to tell the market you had "no more time" for the project unless leadership changed. You warned that Iagon could fail and destroy value for token holders. You called into question the ethics and integrity my leadership. You accused us of acting out of spite rather than engaging with the actual governance concern. And then, after the damage was done, you turned around and said people are "playing the victim." That is not leadership. That is deflection. You cannot threaten a Cardano native project, watch real holders suffer, then accuse the people objecting to the threat of being childish. You cannot say you care about token holders while dismissing "your token holders" when those holders happen to be in a project that challenged you. There are no "Iagon holders" over there and "Cardano holders" over here. $IAG holders are $ADA holders. They are stake pool operators. They are voters. They are dReps. They are builders. They are community members. They are families. They are the same ecosystem you claim to defend. When you attack a Cardano project, you are not attacking some foreign body. You are attacking people inside Cardano. That is the part you keep avoiding. You talk about ambassadors being bullied. Fine. I will say this clearly - I do not condone harassment of any ambassador, volunteer, dRep, builder, SPO or community member. Anyone who crosses into personal abuse should stop. But do not use "protecting ambassadors" as a shield to make governance questions untouchable. Do not use volunteers as human armor around treasury proposals. Do not say "decentralized governance" when the rule is really - vote,but do not question my side - ask question but not about my people - participate but only if you accept the consequences of my platform turning on you. That is not governance. That is intimidation. And since we are talking about red lines, where were those red lines when Iagon was being called a scam? Where were those red lines when IOG aligned voices and consultants were smearing Iagon publicly? Where were those red lines when defamatory claims, racial slurs and personal attacks were being thrown at builders who have spent years building on Cardano? Where was the concern for "bullying" then? The standard cannot be: When your side attacks, it is criticism. When others ask questions, it is harassment. When you escalate, it is leadership. When people respond, they are victims. When you use a 1M follower account, it is accountability. When a dRep asks about conflicts, it is a mob. That double standard is exactly why people are speaking up. You say people "lash out, get hit hard and then play the victim." No. People ask legitimate questions. You hit hard. Then you call their injuries proof that they were wrong to ask. That is the pattern. A dRep raises a conflict of interest concern. You call it bullying. A project CEO disagrees with IOG proposals. You call it spite. A community member challenges your narrative. You diagnose them, mock them, block them or write them off. Then, when people notice the pattern, you call them children. Charles, the lack of self-reflection here is breathtaking. At some point, when the same story keeps happening with different people, different projects, different dReps, different critics,and different cycles, maybe the common denominator is not that everyone else is irrational. Maybe the common denominator is that you treat disagreement as disloyalty. Maybe the common denominator is that you confuse criticism with attack. Maybe the common denominator is that you cannot separate Cardano from yourself. That is dangerous in a decentralized ecosystem. Because Cardano does not belong to you. It does not belong to IOG. It does not belong to Iagon. It does not belong to Midnight. It does not belong to any ambassador group, any DRep bloc, any founder, any company or any whale. It belongs to the $ADA holders and the people building, maintaining, securing, voting, delegating, questioning and participating in it. And if those people cannot ask whether conflicts exist without being threatened, mocked, financially harmed or publicly targeted, then governance is not free. You said "grow up kids." Here is the adult version: Answer the question. Should dReps with roles, incentives, payments, affiliations or obligations connected to an organization seeking treasury funds disclose those overlaps and consider abstaining? Yes or no? That was the issue. Not your ego. Not my tone. Not Iagon’s existence. Not whether Midnight ambassadors are good people. Not whether Charles feels attacked. Not whether people should be afraid to ask next time. The question was about conflict, disclosure and treasury integrity. If there is no conflict, explain why. If there is a conflict, disclose it. If abstention is not necessary, make the case. If the Constitution already provides the standard, apply it equally. But do not turn a governance question into a loyalty test. Do not demand apologies for asking what every serious governance system must be willing to ask. Do not pretend you are defending decentralization while using centralized influence to punish dissent. And do not tell people to "grow up" while threatening to burn projects down. The Cardano community should be able to disagree without fear. dReps should be able to vote NO without being branded enemies. Builders should be able to compete without being targeted. Token holders should not become collateral damage in personality conflicts. Ambassadors should be respected, yes. But they should not be used to make legitimate governance scrutiny off limits. So yes, let's take inventory. Who asked a governance question? Who answered with escalation? Who raised a possible conflict? Who turned it into a campaign against a project? Who claims to care about token holders? Who publicly attacked leadership of a project whose holders are also Cardano community members? Who says others play the victim? Who keeps casting himself as the victim whenever accountability arrives? That is the pattern people are seeing. And no amount of "grow up kids" changes it. Iagon will continue building. I will continue voting my conscience as a dRep. I will continue asking questions when treasury neutrality, conflicts of interest and governance integrity are at stake. If I am wrong, answer with facts. If you disagree, make the argument. But threats, mockery, blocks and public intimidation are not arguments. They are the behavior of someone who wants decentralized governance only until it decentralizes power away from him. Cardano deserves better than that.

It is not a problem to give treasury money to IO. @IOHK_Charles It is a problem to give it to Charles and IO in the current ineffective and arrogant state. When you thrive for too long, you become arrogant, ineffective, consuming too much money and bound to fail!

Friendly reminder that babel fees have already been implemented for 1 years on @FluidTokens Aquarium. And yes, they are open source, anybody can use them and they are audited. The only fair alternative to Aquarium are off-chain Babel fees implementable with nested transactions. Please stop giving treasury money for already available solutions!

Cardano’s original roadmap wasn’t a suggestion; it was a promise. Byron. Shelley. Goguen. Basho (SCALING). Voltaire (GOVERNANCE). The plan was to build a powerhouse, then hand over the keys. Instead, Charles flipped the script. He pushed Voltaire to the front, gave us the keys to a "decentralized" house that’s still missing the plumbing, and is now asking for 100s of millions from the Treasury to finally fix the scaling. Let’s be real: 📍 Why are we voting on "governance" when the base layer still struggles with throughput? 📍 Is Voltaire just a shield to offload the massive cost of Basho onto the community? 📍 We were promised "Academic Rigor," but it feels like we got a "Pivot to the Treasury." Building a Parliament before the Infrastructure isn’t decentralization—it’s a distraction. Cardano was supposed to be the "Ethereum Killer." Now it looks like a DAO looking for a bailout to finish the tech it promised 5 years ago. The "slow and steady" excuse is officially expired.

🚨 Cardano Treasury Reality Check 🚨 I wanted to answer one simple question: How much ADA is Cardano actually generating in transaction fees compared to what governance is spending from the Treasury? Chain tip used: 2026-04-29 11:06:01 UTC 📆 Last 30 Days Cardano collected about: 💰 255,833.61 ADA in transaction fees During that same window, enacted Treasury withdrawals totaled: 🏦 57,700,000 ADA That means enacted Treasury withdrawals were: 🔥 225.54x larger than tx fees collected 30-Day Breakdown • Tx fees collected: 255,833.61 ADA • Enacted Treasury withdrawals: 57,700,000 ADA • Withdrawals minus fees: 57,444,166 ADA • Net Treasury pot change: -40,630,951 ADA • Actual enacted withdrawal actions: 3 Those 3 enacted withdrawals were: • 50,000,000 ADA • 6,900,000 ADA • 800,000 ADA 📆 Last 365 Days - Now zoom out. • Tx fees collected: 3,825,873 ADA • Enacted Treasury withdrawals: 414,873,507 ADA • Withdrawals minus fees: 411,047,634 ADA • Withdrawal / fee multiple: 108.44x But the most important number is the actual Treasury balance effect. Using ada_pots.treasury, the Treasury went from: 🏦 1,734,673,185 ADA to 🏦 1,621,148,478 ADA That is a net 365-day decline of: 📉 113,524,707 ADA Important Caveat epoch.fees is not a perfect “Treasury revenue” field. It is network transaction fees collected. The actual Treasury balance movement should be checked against ada_pots.treasury. That is exactly why I included both. The Signal Is Clear Cardano collected about 3.8M ADA in tx fees over the last year. During that same period, enacted Treasury withdrawals totaled about 414.9M ADA. And the actual Treasury pot still shrank by about 113.5M ADA. It means Treasury sustainability needs to be treated like a first-class governance issue. If we are going to approve spending at this scale, then the ecosystem needs a serious conversation about: ✅ fee intake ✅ recoverable funding models ✅ ROI ✅ accountability ✅ long-term sustainability Because spending hundreds of millions of ADA while generating only a few million ADA in fees is not something governance should hand-wave away. The Treasury is not infinite. Cardano needs growth, but it also needs discipline.

Something is coming. A demo is on the way — Fireblocks meets Cardano. Powered by Iagon. Stay tuned.

None of us saw or wanted to see it for so long, but now we understand why the entire industry despise @IOHK_Charles. Imagine where would Cardano be right now if this person would have a little bit of control over his ego. We would have been top 2 if not top 1 already. #Cardano