Voting Update

Summary of the Video (Voting Update)

Charles Hoskinson (live from Colorado) discusses a governance voting milestone for Cardano and explains why completing the constitutional process is essential before further major protocol and organizational changes can be finalized.

1) Governance voting threshold and the need for the constitutional committee

• Hoskinson points to an active “governance action” related to updating the constitutional committee.
• The community has reached the threshold for DREPs, but still needs a small percentage more support for SPOs to fully pass the required approval level.
• He emphasizes that nothing meaningful can proceed without having a constitutional committee in place.
• He urges any SPOs who haven’t voted yet to vote, aiming to clear the remaining ~last 7% to reach the 51% approval threshold and install the new committee.

2) Why the constitutional committee matters for protocol evolution (Laus/LaO and the hard fork)

• Hoskinson ties the committee to required downstream work, including:
  • Updating the constitution
  • Enabling steps necessary to get “Laos/LA…” into the system (as referenced in the subtitles) and approve/execute the hard fork
• He describes these as barriers across multiple layers:
  • Bureaucratic (governance/constitution)
  • Structural (constitutional changes needed to facilitate the next phase)
  • Technological (e.g., testnets)

3) Transition to decentralized development and “hardening” Cardano’s infrastructure

• He reviews Cardano’s multi-year shift from Input Output (a prior central development model) toward a more decentralized development ecosystem.
• The transition includes moving responsibilities for core infrastructure—especially the Haskell node—from IO to third-party development firms over time.
• A key near-term milestone is to:
  • get Laos into the Haskell node
  • make it work and prepare for pre-production/pro
  • then “flip the switch” to activate the hard fork

4) Node diversity progress and the ecosystem’s readiness by 2027

• He argues that node diversity has been a major success, citing workshops and efforts across:
  • code writing
  • funding independent nodes
  • governance/oversight
• He also references another members-based organization (Pragma) supporting node diversity efforts.
• He presents a vision for January 1, 2027, including:
  • an independent, “self-recursive” ADA-holder-based governance structure
  • a technical roadmap for 3–5 years
  • multiple governance organizations (diverse in mandate and scope)
  • at least three viable node implementations (Go, Rust, and Haskell)
  • 10+ development firms working across the stack
  • a diverse wallet ecosystem and an on-chain treasury
• Remaining gaps:
  • the governance model is said to have legislative and judicial functions, but lacks a strong executive function
  • he expects this will require debate, but says that debate needs the constitutional committee first

5) Broader outlook: real-world adoption signals and DeFi momentum

• Hoskinson claims Cardano is still “in it to win it,” emphasizing continued momentum rather than retreat.
• He mentions potential TVL inflows connected to:
  • RealFi, bringing TVL to Cardano
  • a Bitcoin DeFi initiative (“Hogan”) with $600M in soft commitments, which he expects could convert into billions of TVL over time

6) Closing

• He calls 2025–2026 difficult years but frames progress as what the community “needed,” even if it wasn’t fully what was hoped.
• He reiterates the priorities:
  • finish governance
  • complete the hard fork
  • strengthen institutions
  • complete the roadmap and budget improvements
• He notes he’ll be traveling to Mountain View to speak with Google, and will attend a cryptography conference while discussing progress on “Nightstream” and related “midnight space” topics.

Presenters / Contributors

• Charles Hoskinson (speaker/presenter)