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Technical Backlog -

Proposal Prioritisation

2025 - Initial socialisation presentation

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Product Committee & Core Infrastructure Roadmap

Journey so far

The Core Infrast ructure Roadmap (CIR), with contributions by the community and technical working groups, have been collating potential roadmap items since August - you can read about the work to date on the knowledge base.

Alongside this the Product Committee, have been holding open sessions to discuss and formulate high level goals.

These goals and potential projects are linked. Goals and projects which receive higher levels of support (community prioritization) are likely to be put forward for a higher proportion of the budget.

Exceptions and caveats always exist, to ensure we maintain a secure, stable end product which delivers value each year - we will highlight these as they are discussed.

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Ways to participate!

View the CIR process and Submit a potential project for review and prioritization here!

CIR Process 👉🏻 Take a look here
Submit a potential Project 👉🏻 Submit here
Potential backlog items 👉🏻 View Here

Participate in the Product Committee goal discussion here!

Regular open calls 👉🏻 Register here
An open miro board 👉🏻 Add feedback here
An open survey 👉🏻 Participate here

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Prioritization - How it will work

We will introduce you to a number of the goals defined by the product committee, the goals which have a strong alignment a potential technical roadmap.

We will then introduce the projects which likely support these goals, which are likely to contribute to the desired goal outcomes in 2025 and beyond.

Why only likely?

Nobody can guarantee outcomes. Projects have risks, some known and some unknown. However, we believe these projects which could contribute to these desired outcomes.

We will then provide an opportunity for the community to feedback preference and prioritization on the projects discussed.

These are continuous process, with prioritization opportunities throughout 2025. Review processes implemented by the CIR group will continue to review and add potential projects to the backlog throughout 2025 and beyond.

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Technical Steering Committee

Introducing the TSC

Once the goals and the projects have been prioritized then the Technical Steering Committee will recommend how best to implement them and oversee the technical delivery.

The TSC is a rallying point for members, suppliers, and third parties to coordinate the delivery of development services to support the Cardano blockchain.

Recommending the execution details of the backlog

Drafting of milestone deliverables, acceptance criteria, and quality assurance for the execution recommendation

Facilitating a tender/award process for major contracts with members

TSC Members: (Chair) Kevin Hammond, (Vice-chair) Adam Dean, Neil Davies, Nicholas Clarke, Markus Gufler, Ben Hart, Johnny Kelly

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Scope

There are many committees discussing many parts of the budget and prioritisation of items. The initial scope under consideration here is what we have called and defined as ‘Continuity’;

“Cardano “Continuity” is defined or referred as any approved technical services needed to build or fix current and future areas of the core Cardano blockchain.

Continuity in this definition can include new development, such as the CIP-1694 governance software, upgrades or improvements to components such as ledger, consensus, networking and API/CLI.”

Generally considered as something which affects the node and/or potentially everyone.

Innovation style scope, individual projects and associated funding, will be handled separately from the session today.

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Attract dApps and users - product market fit

Cardano, like any other ecosystem requires increasing usage so users to thrive. In particular, supporting more use cases will function as an attractor to bring more users which in turn attract more users and dApps, which in turn drive more transaction activity which will generate a higher value for our native token as well as higher value of our treasury.

Problem to solve

Cardano has qualities that make it competitive and unique, however, as of now, the application of these qualities has not resulted in wide usage

Desired Outcome

Drive initiatives that bring developers and so dApps and users to Cardano for real-world applications - help find product market fit

Get more Usage | Attract dApps and users

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Get more Usage | Attract dApps and users

The following projects are associated with this goal

Ouroboros Leios

Transaction Finality Improvements (eg New -Anti Grinding and/or Ouroboros Peras)

Transaction Prioritisation/Pricing Models

Babel Fees

Investigate Proof Of Useful Work

Partner Chains

MidGard

(Full list of projects and associated details are available on the Intersect Knowledge base)

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Easier to build on and to use Cardano

Cardano offers value if its core technology, and the abstraction layers above, are used by builders to support use cases that solve users' problems, so providing value to them. With this simple concept in mind, and considering what Cardano as a product is offering, it becomes clear that making it easy to build on Cardano, and so to use Cardano, it becomes a key goal for the ecosystem

Problem to solve

How Might We reduce barriers and simplify processes for using and building on the Cardano blockchain?

Desired Outcome

Enhance the usability, accessibility, and appeal of the Cardano blockchain for both developers and everyday users

Get more Usage | Easier to build on and to use Cardano

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Get more Usage | Easier to build on and to use Cardano

The following projects are associated with this goal

Hydra Development

Mithril Development

Timeliness Market

Decentralised Oracle

Decentralised Stablecoin

API Improvements

(Full list of projects and associated details are available on the Intersect Knowledge base)

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Meet the needs of apps

Cardano is a foundational layer that could support different types of applications for different use cases (many of which are probably still to be discovered). Cardano is not the only option on the market. This goals relates to all the initiatives that can enhance and expand Cardano’s core qualities with a focus on making Cardano itself a competitive option that builders and businesses will pick among other options.

Problem to solve

How Might We make Cardano meet the needs of apps that want to build on it (in terms of speed of transactions and speed of development), so being competitive with other options and getting more users?

Desired Outcome

Get Cardano to be a viable and competitive option for a broader set of scenarios

Cardano competitive option | Meet the needs of apps

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Cardano competitive option | Meet the needs of apps

The following projects are associated with this goal

Cardano Node Architecture Refresh

Automatic Formal Verification

Property Based Testing Tool

Static Analyser

(Full list of projects and associated details are available on the Intersect Knowledge base)

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Reliable decentralised governance

Cardano offers value if its core technology, and the abstraction layers above, are used by builders to support use cases that solve users' problems, so providing value to them. With this simple concept in mind, and considering what Cardano as a product is offering, it becomes clear that making it easy to build on Cardano, and so to use Cardano, it becomes a key goal for the ecosystem

Problem to solve

How Might We make the new Cardano governance strong to support the newly formed Cardano government?

Desired Outcome

Support the evolution of an open and reliable governance system for Cardano that encourages wide community participation

Governance | Reliable decentralised governance

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Governance | Reliable decentralised governance

The following projects are associated with this goal

Governance Improvements

Cardano Wallet/GraphQL

Guardrail and Identity Management Script Maintenance

Revised Stake Pool Incentive Scheme

Parameter Committee Research (PCP Process)

(Full list of projects and associated details are available on the Intersect Knowledge base)

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Maintain Cardano’s current qualities

Cardano prides itself on being research led, being reliable and trustworthy as a blockchain, it prides itself on an active, engaged, and passionate community, and much more. As we enter a new era of Cardano, where decisions are decentralized to the community, it’s key to have focus and effort in maintaining Cardano itself and preserving its core qualities

Problem to solve

How might we ensure ensuring Cardano remains trustworthy, reliable, and competitive?

Desired Outcome

Maintain and enhance Cardano's core properties while improving communication and support for projects

Business as usual | Maintain Cardano’s current qualities

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Business as usual | Maintain Cardano’s current qualities

The following projects are associated with this goal

Log-structured Merge-tree (LSM) Integration

Transaction Monitoring System

Ledger App Rewrite

Tiered Pricing Model

Core Maintenance

(Full list of projects and associated details are available on the Intersect Knowledge base)

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Uncommitted Budget

In any large scale delivery, product, project or programme there are unforeseen eventualities and events which may need to be acted upon at relatively short notice. This may include responses to security events and emerging CIPs such as CIP-69 in 2024.

The TSC has recommended a proportion of the core budget be held in contingency to act accordingly to these such circumstances in-year. This line item has two key considerations;

How much should be set aside?

What agreement is required for using the uncommitted budget?

Following a review and analysis of spend in 2024 the Technical Steering committee has recommended a contingency of 30%, which can be utilized based on a majority quorum vote by TSC members (5 out of 7), maintaining transparency where details of such agreements are made publicly available (*subject to review following constitutional changes)

The greater proportion we save for later the more opportunities there maybe for additional prioritization reviews throughout the year.

In the feedback at the end of this presentation we will ask your views on this question!��

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More details?

As you can appreciate there are a lot of details to share, further information is available on the Intersect knowledge base on the following topics;

Details on the budget committee and the prioritization process can be found here
Product Committee participation, goals, context and desired outcomes available in full here
Full details on the CIR review process is here. If you have a project you would like to submit for consideration you can do so here!
The Knowledge Base version of this presentation is available here
Potential projects can be found here on the knowledge base!

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Have your say

Now you have been introduced to the product goals and the related technical projects aimed at solving them we would like your feedback.

Which of the goals do you believe to be most important now, in 2025?
Which of the goals do you believe the most important over the next 5 years
What are the most important projects for 2025?
Have we missed anything?
And other questions!

Both quantitative and qualitative feedback are wanted, we want to hear what you have to say.

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Participate, provide your feedback

Recommend potential project prioritization 👉🏻 Available here

Anonymised community report on suggested prioritization will be made available in the near future