Cardano community representatives rejected a request for 12.29 million ADA to fund Pogun, leaving the proposed treasury allocation unratified and inactive. Representatives with delegated voting power backed the proposal with 35.67% of votes and opposed it with 64.33%, while the Constitutional Committee separately approved its review with seven votes in favor, representing 100% support. The outcomes are not contradictory: the committee cleared the action under its remit, but Delegated Representatives (DReps) authorized by ADA holders did not approve the treasury spending.
The vote shows that Input Output's role as an early builder and major participant in Cardano does not automatically translate into access to community treasury funds. At the same time, Input Output retains the right to choose where it deploys its products commercially. Future decisions on whether to use Cardano are likely to depend more on technical conditions, user distribution and commercial support than on an established policy of making Cardano the permanent first choice.
The 12.29 Million ADA Request Fails to Pass
Pogun is a credit and liquidity product backed by Input Output, designed to bring bitcoin into decentralized finance. Its proposal sought 12.29 million ADA from the Cardano treasury for development. In return, Cardano would receive a share of the product's business revenue, along with a route to recover funds and participate in future income under the terms of the proposal.
On-chain voting records show that the Pogun governance action ultimately failed to complete ratification or execution. DReps participate in governance after receiving voting authority from ADA holders, and their decision determined whether the treasury withdrawal could proceed. The Constitutional Committee's seven affirmative votes reflected only the committee's own review and could not replace DRep approval of the spending request.
Input Output helped build Cardano, but the network's governance bodies continue to exercise separate responsibilities. The result indicates that there is no automatic decision-making channel connecting a founding team or early builder to community funds.
How the Revenue-Sharing Proposal Was Structured
In an overview of the Pogun proposal published by Input Output in April 2026, the company said the product would return 20% of revenue to the Cardano treasury until the initial funding had been repaid. After that point, Cardano-related products would provide the treasury with a permanent 5% return.
The formal proposal described the revenue measure as a share of quarterly earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), and linked the repayment amount to $2.95 million. In practical terms, Cardano would have funded product development first, then recovered its investment through the agreed revenue share while retaining participation in subsequent income.
DReps ultimately declined to expose the treasury to the risks of a commercial project whose revenue and user adoption had not yet been established, while also giving up the potential upside outlined in the proposal. Because Pogun's future revenue, usage and distribution across different networks do not yet have a verifiable data history, the amount of potential income Cardano may have forgone by rejecting the proposal cannot be calculated with precision.
Hoskinson Says Deployment Will Follow Network Conditions
Input Output co-founder Charles Hoskinson said in a livestream on September 18, 2026, that the company would select the most suitable network for each product rather than continue a policy of making Cardano the first and permanent deployment venue.
Hoskinson still considers Cardano one of the technical options for bitcoin decentralized-finance activity involving systems built around a bitcoin-like transaction-output structure. He said RealFi was scheduled to launch on Cardano in October 2026, while Pogun was expected to go live within 90 days of the livestream, placing the target around mid-December 2026. Those dates remain planned targets rather than completed deployments.
Under Hoskinson's description, a planned launch of Pogun on Cardano could bring transaction fees, total value locked (TVL) and trading volume to the network. However, after the grant was rejected, the economic relationship between Cardano and Pogun would differ from the original proposal. Cardano could still benefit from network activity without receiving the revenue-sharing arrangement that the vote rejected.
Input Output's multi-chain approach did not begin entirely with this vote. Midnight City V2, a proxy-based application linked to the Midnight ecosystem, was already recorded as deployed on the Midnight network in July 2026. The company's emphasis on evaluating networks product by product therefore cannot be attributed solely to the failed Pogun funding request.
Exclusive Deployment Remains an Open Question
Hoskinson also said that Pogun, without treasury funding, would not serve Cardano exclusively. Project traffic could be directed to other networks, and ecosystems able to provide funding or distribution support could potentially receive an exclusive deployment arrangement.
The on-chain proposal submitted for Cardano's governance vote clearly documented the funding request, repayment structure, permanent return and planned Cardano deployment. It did not, however, include an explicit exclusivity clause. The written record establishes that Cardano did not receive the proposed revenue participation. Whether any network will later become Pogun's exclusive platform comes from Hoskinson's description of future commercial arrangements and should not be treated as a term of the original proposal.
Treasury Discipline Meets Product Competition
The vote limited the influence of a single builder over community funds, but it also means Cardano will need to compete for future Input Output deployments through technical capability, user activity or other commercial conditions. Input Output remains free to raise funding on other networks, negotiate with competing ecosystems and offer incentives to partners willing to provide capital or distribution channels.
Pogun's eventual rollout will show how those two forms of independence operate together. If Cardano becomes the project's primary deployment venue, the rejected revenue-sharing arrangement will represent a significant opportunity cost in the treasury decision. If activity shifts elsewhere, Cardano could miss related fees, liquidity and transaction volume. The confirmed facts at this stage are that the 12.29 million ADA withdrawal did not proceed, Input Output retains control over product deployment, and Cardano's governance bodies independently voted on the treasury expenditure.
At the latest data update, ADA was trading at $0.23, down 0.68% over 24 hours but up 8.03% over seven days, 1.71% over 30 days, 29.33% over 60 days and 42.09% over 90 days. Cardano's market capitalization was approximately $8.28 billion, while 24-hour trading volume was about $485.72 million, down 23.29%. Circulating supply stood at roughly 36.75 billion ADA, with a fully diluted valuation of approximately $10.14 billion, ranking Cardano 14th by market capitalization.