Blockchains are no longer only about sending money without a bank. They can also let the people who use a network decide how it changes. On Cardano, this process is called governance: the way the community proposes, debates and decides on upgrades, rule changes and spending from the shared treasury.
Governance lets Cardano change over time without one company or foundation making the final call.
What Does Blockchain Governance Mean?
In traditional systems, executives, governments or small committees make the decisions. On a blockchain like Cardano, ADA holders, developers and stake pool operators share that power, and every vote is recorded publicly on the blockchain.
Cardano's rules for this come from CIP-1694, a Cardano Improvement Proposal that defines who votes and what they can vote on.1 The rules went live in two network upgrades: the Chang hard fork in September 2024, and the Plomin hard fork in January 2025, which added treasury withdrawals and constitution changes.2,3 Proposals, called governance actions, are submitted and voted on directly on the blockchain, and when one passes, the protocol itself carries out the change.4
The Three Branches of Cardano Governance
Like democratic governments with their checks and balances, Cardano's on-chain governance divides power between three groups. Most decisions need approval from two of the three, and the biggest ones, such as hard forks, need all three. No single group can act alone.1
1. SPOs (Stake Pool Operators)
SPOs run the servers that produce blocks and keep the network running. They also vote on a specific set of governance actions: hard forks, changes to security-related protocol parameters, motions of no confidence in the Constitutional Committee, changes to the committee, and info actions.5 Each pool's vote counts in proportion to the ADA delegated to it, so when you stake your ADA to a pool, you also add weight to that operator's vote.1 To choose a pool, see how to stake ADA on Cardano.
2. DReps (Delegated Representatives)
DReps vote for the ADA holders who delegate their voting power to them, much like a representative elected to a parliament. They vote on every type of governance action, from treasury spending to protocol upgrades and changes to the constitution.1 Anyone holding ADA can become a DRep, and you can delegate to any DRep and move your delegation whenever you like.6
A DRep pays a 500 ADA deposit to register and gets it back on retiring, and the protocol itself pays DReps nothing for voting.7 If a DRep doesn't vote or update their registration for 20 epochs (at least 100 days), the protocol marks them inactive, and the stake delegated to them stops counting until they vote again. Epochs with nothing to vote on don't count toward the 20.7
We keep a list of DReps on X, and the GovTool DRep directory lets you search registered DReps and read their profiles.
3. Constitutional Committee
The Constitutional Committee checks whether each governance action follows the Cardano Constitution, the document that sets out the principles and limits governance has to respect. It currently has seven elected members, and it judges constitutionality only, not whether a proposal is a good idea.8,5 Most action types can't take effect without the committee's approval, so an action it finds unconstitutional is stopped even if DReps support it.5
The committee has no power to submit proposals. DReps and SPOs choose its members in elections organized by Intersect, and they can remove the whole committee through a motion of no confidence. Members serve staggered terms, so seats come up for election at different times.8
What Can Governance Decide?
There are seven types of governance action:1
- Treasury withdrawals: pay ADA out of the treasury to fund a project or budget.
- Protocol parameter changes: adjust network settings such as transaction fees, block size or the minimum stake pool fee.
- Hard fork initiation: start a network upgrade that changes the rules every node follows.
- New constitution: amend the constitution or the guardrails script, a smart contract that rejects parameter changes and treasury withdrawals outside set limits.9
- Committee updates: add or remove Constitutional Committee members, or change their terms or voting threshold.
- Motion of no confidence: declare that the community no longer trusts the current committee.
- Info actions: record the community's view on a question without changing anything on-chain.
Anyone with ADA can submit a governance action. It takes a deposit, currently 100,000 ADA, which is refunded whether the action passes or expires.10 Each action stays open for a limited number of epochs (five-day periods), and if it doesn't collect enough votes in that time, it expires.11
Each type has its own approval bar. A treasury withdrawal, for example, needs yes votes from DReps holding at least 67% of the active voting stake, plus approval from the Constitutional Committee.12 Active voting stake leaves out ADA set to Abstain and ADA delegated to inactive DReps.1 When the van Rossem hard fork was approved in July 2026, it had the support of 77.6% of DRep stake, 52.7% of stake pool stake and a majority of the committee.13
How the Treasury Works
The treasury is ADA that the protocol itself holds, outside any wallet. Each epoch's reward pot is made up of transaction fees plus some ADA released from the reserves, and the treasury takes 20% of it before the rest is paid out as staking rewards.14 ADA can only leave the treasury through a treasury withdrawal that DReps and the Constitutional Committee approve. Each withdrawal must also follow the constitution and stay under the net change limit, a ceiling that DReps set on total withdrawals over a fixed period.14
Project Catalyst, Cardano's community grant program, is separate from this process. From 2020 it ran funding rounds in which ADA holders voted on project proposals. The Cardano Foundation took over the program in 2026, and Fund15 and Fund16 did not go ahead as planned.15 In the 2026 pilot fund, community curators narrowed 117 applications down, and a 35-person review panel chose 12 teams, with no public vote.16 Any new treasury money for Catalyst has to be approved as a treasury withdrawal.15 For more, see what is Project Catalyst.
How Voting Works
ADA holders take part by delegating their voting power; only registered DReps vote on each proposal. From your wallet, you pick one of three options:7
- A DRep, who votes for you on every proposal.
- Abstain, which means your stake isn't counted in any vote.
- No Confidence, which votes yes on any motion of no confidence in the Constitutional Committee and no on everything else.
You pay only the network fee, usually less than 0.2 ADA, and no deposit. Your ADA stays in your wallet, and you can change your choice at any time. A new choice takes effect at the next epoch.7 Vote delegation is separate from stake pool delegation, so the same ADA can earn staking rewards and back a DRep at once.7
Since the Plomin hard fork, you also need an active vote delegation before you can withdraw your staking rewards. Until then, rewards still accumulate in your reward account.7
Several wallets, including Eternl, Typhon and Daedalus, let you pick a DRep inside the wallet. Other wallets, such as Lace and VESPR, can connect to GovTool17 or the Cardano.org delegation page to do the same.
A DRep's vote carries the weight of all the ADA delegated to them. Votes are counted at the end of each epoch, and an action that reaches its thresholds is enacted at the start of the next one.1 Every vote and delegation is recorded on the blockchain. A delegation is linked to a stake address, not a name, and many DReps post a written explanation of each vote.7
Why Cardano Governance Matters
On-chain governance means that:
- No single organization can upgrade the protocol or spend the treasury on its own.
- Network upgrades need public approval on the blockchain. The van Rossem hard fork in July 2026 was the first upgrade proposed and approved entirely this way.13
- Every treasury withdrawal is approved or rejected in a public vote.
- ADA holders who don't have time to follow every proposal can still be represented through a DRep.
Learn More and Get Involved
- Cardano Governance: Official overview on the Cardano website, with a delegation tool and answers to common questions
- GovTool DRep Directory: Search registered DReps and delegate your voting power
- The Cardano Constitution: Full text of the constitution currently in force
- Governance Overview: Explainer in the Cardano Docs on the roles in governance
- Governance discussions: Governance category on the Cardano Forum
- Governance guides: More governance guides listed on Adastack
