Cardano’s delegated representatives have allowed a 12.29 million ADA funding request for Input Output-backed project Pogun to expire, underlining that the company’s role as a founding builder does not guarantee access to the network’s treasury.
Pogun is a credit and liquidity product intended to bring Bitcoin into decentralised finance. Its proposal offered Cardano a share of the business in return for development funding, but the request was not ratified or enacted.
The vote gives a clear indication of Cardano’s decentralised governance. Its representatives rejected public funding for a commercial project linked to a major ecosystem participant, while Input Output remains free to decide where and how its products are launched.
The final Koios voting summary showed 35.67% of delegated representative voting power in favour and 64.33% against. Delegated representatives, known as DReps, vote using authority assigned to them by ADA holders and their decision determined whether the treasury withdrawal could proceed.
The Constitutional Committee reached a different conclusion, recording seven votes in favour, representing 100% approval from that body. The two outcomes are not contradictory: the committee supported the proposal, but the DReps did not approve the spending.
Input Output’s April 2026 overview said Pogun would return 20% of earnings to Cardano’s treasury until the initial funding had been repaid. It would then provide a perpetual 5% return on Cardano-related products.
The formal proposal based those payments on quarterly earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, with repayment linked to $2.95 million. Cardano would have financed development while gaining a route to recover the money and share in future earnings.
By rejecting the proposal, DReps avoided exposing the treasury to an enterprise with uncertain revenue and adoption. They also gave up the potential returns described in the plan. However, Pogun has not yet established the future earnings, usage or network distribution needed to calculate what Cardano may have forfeited.
In a 18 September 2026 broadcast, Charles Hoskinson said Input Output would select the most suitable network for each product rather than maintain a permanent Cardano-first policy.
Hoskinson nevertheless described Cardano as the strongest technical option for Bitcoin DeFi linking systems that use Bitcoin-like transaction outputs. He said RealFi would launch on Cardano in October 2026 and Pogun would be deployed within 90 days of the broadcast, roughly by mid-December. Both remain forward-looking targets.
He added that a live Pogun deployment could generate transaction fees, total value locked and trading volume for Cardano, even without the rejected revenue-sharing agreement. Cardano could benefit from activity on its network without owning part of the product’s earnings.
Input Output’s broader multichain approach predates the vote. Midnight City V2, an agent-based application associated with the Midnight ecosystem, was documented on Midnight in July 2026.
Hoskinson said Pogun would not be exclusive to Cardano, traffic could be directed to other networks and another ecosystem might receive exclusivity in exchange for support. The on-chain proposal did not contain an explicit exclusivity clause; it recorded the funding request, repayment terms, perpetual return and planned Cardano deployment.
The result leaves Cardano’s institutions in control of treasury spending, while Input Output retains control of its commercial decisions. The network’s governance has limited the influence of a founding company over community funds, but it must now compete for the company’s future products rather than rely on history to come first.
