The Cardano Foundation cancelled its annual Cardano Summit for the second time after a community funding proposal narrowly failed to reach the required supermajority. The vote on the 7.8 million ADA (≈$1.84 million) request for the Singapore event saw 65.2% in favor—just 1.47 percentage points short of the 66.67% threshold. The rejection comes as the network's transaction fees have cratered to $356,400 in early 2026, a fraction of the $8.35 million collected four years ago.
The 1.47% gap
The revised proposal asked for 7.8 million ADA to cover the summit in Singapore. The tally: 135 Delegated Representatives (DReps) voted yes, 61 no, and 24 abstained. That left support at 65.2%—a hair below the supermajority required under Cardano's governance system. An earlier version on May 9 sought roughly 14 million ADA and drew support from only 10% of DReps. The Foundation had no choice but to pull the plug.
Fee revenue and locked value
The fee collapse paints a stark picture. In the first part of 2026, the Cardano network generated just $356,400 in transaction fees. Four years earlier that number was $8.35 million. Total value locked sits below $129 million, good for 28th place among all blockchains. Cardano's market cap, though, remains at $8.8 billion—a reminder that market value and on-chain activity don't always move together.
Standoff with DReps
The funding rejections aren't happening in a vacuum. Founder Charles Hoskinson has been in a standoff with DReps pushing for tighter control over treasury spending. The community's message seems clear: they're not willing to greenlight large event budgets when the network itself is generating so little fee revenue. That tension isn't going away anytime soon.
TOKEN2049 as a fallback
Instead of a full summit, Cardano's commercial arm EMURGO secured approval to represent the ecosystem at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore on Oct. 7-8. Hoskinson is now assessing interest in turning the EMURGO booth into an embedded MiniSummit. Whether that mini-summit actually materializes depends on community appetite—and whether the gap left by the failed vote can be filled without another formal proposal.
