Cardano developers cut community fund requests to $46.8 million, advancing scalability and Bitcoin DeFi deployment

Deep Tide TechFlow News, April 23, according to CoinDesk, Cardano’s core development company Input Output submitted nine funding proposals to the community treasury for 2026, totaling $46.8 million, a significant reduction of about 52% from $97.5 million last year, marking their first step toward gradually reducing dependence on community funds.

The nine proposals focus on two main areas: first, the consensus upgrade plan Leios, which is expected to increase Cardano’s transaction processing capacity by 10 to 65 times, aiming to surpass 1,000 transactions per second, with testing planned for June and full deployment by the end of the year; second, the Bitcoin DeFi system Pogun, allowing Bitcoin holders to lend, borrow, and earn yields through Cardano without custody by centralized institutions, with the lending feature expected to be publicly released in the second quarter.

This voting involves approximately 1,000 elected representatives (DReps), with the deadline for voting on May 24. The results will determine whether the Cardano community views Input Output as an ordinary funding applicant. Meanwhile, the new stablecoin USDCx in the Cardano ecosystem has reached a circulation of 14.6 million tokens within weeks of launch, and the total locked assets on the network have increased from $137.5 million to $142.7 million.