What if your city said you get to decide what the city needs? That you get to set the budget and select contractors to fill those needs?
Would this excite you? Give you a sense of purpose? What if you and your neighbors were paid for participating?
In the Cardano community there is a sum of money, currently valued at 1 billion USD, that is being used to experiment with these “what ifs”.
The name of the experiment is Project Catalyst. Every few weeks, Project Catalyst makes a certain amount of money (ADA) available to entrepreneurs, builders, and tool makers in the Cardano ecosystem. These community members propose solutions to difficult problems, and everyone is invited to vote for the best ideas to receive funding. The experiment has had 5 successful iterations. The first round didn’t actually give out any money. Rounds 2 through 5 awarded about 4 million dollars to dozens of teams, funding over 150 proposals. A detailed writeup about Project Catalyst is available in our library.
When the full vision of the Cardano network is realized, in a future phase known as the “Voltaire” era, the Cardano Treasury will be governed by community input and votes. Budgeting and spending decisions will be in the hands of a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) - which is to say you, and me, and anyone who holds ADA and is willing to participate. For now, we are learning about how a DAO should be designed, through this experiment called Project Catalyst.
