A self-sustaining model for the Cardano on-chain treasury
Yield. Reserves. Transparency. Loan-first capital. Spending discipline. An ownerless framework anyone can fork, modify, or submit.
The treasury is bleeding USD value while earning zero yield
The Cardano on-chain treasury holds 1.621B ADA and generates no yield. USD purchasing power has fallen ~80% since November 2024 — not from spending, but from price exposure to a single depreciating asset. At the current burn rate, runway expires in 2033.
Five components, all production-ready today
Each component combines mechanisms the Cardano community has already approved (Snek-style loans, Foundation-style diversification, Leios-style transparency) with infrastructure that went live in the last six months (Pyth oracle feeds, USDCx Tier 1 stablecoin).
Yield loop
Treasury delegates to curated SPOs with mandatory auto-abstain registration. At ~4% on 1.6B ADA, that's ~65M ADA/year flowing back — ~$15M at current prices.
Strategic reserve
10–15% allocation to USDCx (Circle, live Feb 2026) and BTC, sized to cover ~18 months of operating costs. Diversification without abandoning ADA exposure.
Loan-first capital
Returnable capital defaults over grants where feasible. Snek Foundation's 5M ADA repayable loan (85.71% CC approval) is the precedent.
Spending cap
Annual ceiling at ≤220M ADA, paired with yield revenue. Paired with yield, runway becomes indefinite instead of expiring in 2033.
Open reporting
Every flow, every delegation, every yield event public and on-chain. USD valuations anchored by Pyth's sub-100ms institutional oracle feeds (live on Cardano late 2025).
See it for yourself
Adjust the four parameters — yield rate, spending cap, loan return rate, strategic reserve — and watch how the 20-year treasury trajectory changes. The red dashed line is the do-nothing baseline.
A proposal that makes the treasury gain ADA
The Phase 1 pilot deploys 50M ADA over 18 months — but it's structured so that the treasury ends up with more ADA than it started with. The community pays for evidence-gathering in yield, not in grants.
The full packet
Every document, every claim, every number — open, forkable, and bilingual. Critique is welcomed via GitHub issues.
Critique it, fork it, improve it
This framework is ownerless. No project, founder, or entity controls it. Substantive discussion welcomed in any of the venues below.