In a recently released video lasting one hour, Charles Hoskinson shared substantial insights regarding the funding of the Cardano ecosystem for 2026. He highlighted several challenges and the strategies that will be employed to address them.

“There’s nothing here that, with the money that we have, Cardano can’t fix.” – Charles Hoskinson, addressing significant weaknesses in current models.

Existing Funding Structure in Cardano

Hoskinson insists that the primary funding model is divided into three components: infrastructure, utility, and experience. He noted that historically, Cardano’s funding has been skewed towards the infrastructure layer while the utility and experience parts have not received adequate attention.

• Infrastructure covers nodes like Ouroboros Leios, Plutus, and Aiken.
• Utility encompasses the functionalities available to users through this infrastructure, which includes developing decentralized applications in the wider DeFi space.
• Experience refers to user interaction with the ecosystem via wallets, account abstractions, and on/off ramps.

The expense of sustaining and developing a node team is approximately $1 to $5 million per year, necessitating between 10 and 40 full-time engineers. Suggested infrastructure funding includes three established node projects: Haskell, Rust, Go along with Project Bluepring and Hydra, plus languages such as Aiken and Plutus.

Funding Utility and Targets for 2026

Given the current unfavorable conditions of the Cardano ecosystem (low MAU, TVL, and transaction volume), Hoskinson advocates for funding the utility layer with specific requirements like oversight, operational expense reduction, salary adjustments, and alignment with strategic aims.

The concept is to create a weighted index of project tokens for the treasury to acquire 10-30% of each project’s total supply in this index.

Strategic goals for funded dApps should focus on Bitcoin DeFi using the Pogan protocol and transitioning to hybrid dApps with Midnight for enhanced privacy.

Furthermore, a percentage of the protocol revenue (suggested to be 10%) should be utilized to purchase ADA and contribute it back to the treasury. This way, these investments are expected to be self-sustaining in one to three years as the treasury divests from the increasing index.

Experience Layer Funding

Discussing the funding for the experience layer, Hoskinson stated that there is a need to revamp ambassador roles and improve user onboarding, as well as support wallet providers. He highlighted the necessity of organizing between 20 and 30 high-value hackathons each year to enhance developer experiences.

To attract external capital, the ecosystem must be prepared to invest in its own development. Additionally, fragmented and competitive treasury proposals risk creating a ‘race to the bottom’, making it imperative to maintain a unified strategy.