Welcome to Intersect’s Development Update #70. This week, Cardano takes another leap forward in building secure, scalable, and community-led treasury infrastructure. The Oversight Committee is now live, providing independent verification of governance actions to safeguard treasury operations. Intersect’s smart contract framework is finalized, paving the way to submit 39 Treasury Withdrawal governance actions on-chain!

We're also preparing for the growing role of native stablecoins, and the Intersect Board has approved a significant step forward, doubling the number of elected member seats from two to four ahead of the October election cycle.

Catch up on these milestones and more below.

Intersect has launched a new Oversight Committee to reinforce security and accountability within Cardano’s smart contract-based treasury operations. This independent group will play a critical role in verifying governance actions and ensuring no single entity can move or modify funds unilaterally.

Five independent, third-party organizations are coming together to form this new committee, bringing their expertise and technical prowess to provide checks and balances on our role as Administrator within the smart contract framework.

• Sundae Labs
• Xerberus
• NMKR
• Dquadrant
• The Cardano Foundation

As part of the smart contract framework, all treasury withdrawals require multi-signature authorization. While Intersect initiates actions in its role as Administrator, the Oversight Committee acts as a safeguard, verifying that each step complies with the expected process before signing. This strengthens trust and ensures resilience as Cardano transitions to decentralized funding.

You can learn more about the Oversight Committee and its role in the broader governance structure here - Read more



Smart contract framework finalized for treasury withdrawals

Intersect has finalized our configuration of smart contract framework (developed by Sundae Labs) to manage Cardano’s treasury funds on-chain with enhanced security, transparency, and auditability. The system uses treasury contracts to hold funds and vendor contracts to manage milestone-based payments for community-approved proposals. A multi-signature model ensures Intersect can initiate actions as Administrator, but funds cannot be moved without verification from an independent oversight committee, preventing unilateral control.

This framework will serve as the destination for all Treasury Withdrawal governance actions and lay a foundation for future funding, administration, and ecosystem growth. With the Oversight Committee confirmed and our smart contract framework finalized, we are now poised to submit 39 Treasury Withdrawal governance actions with robustness and security at the forefront.

Read the complete framework overview
Learn about Intersect’s role as Budget Administrator.

Unlocking new opportunities with Cardano’s native stablecoins

Intersect is laying the groundwork for the adoption of Cardano’s native stablecoins as part of the evolving treasury management. In our role as Administrator, we’ve been actively engaging with the teams behind USDM (@USDMOfficial) and USDA (@AnzensOfficial) to assess how stable assets might support more flexible and practical funding mechanisms across the ecosystem.

As we prepare for the upcoming Treasury Withdrawal governance actions, we are building contractual frameworks that account for the option of converting ada into stablecoins for operational use, subject to governance and regulatory approval. Notably, one vendor, Tweagio by @ModusCreate, has proposed stabilizing its ₳11 million allocation by splitting funds equally between USDM and USDA. If approved, this would mark one of the largest applications of Cardano-native stablecoins in ecosystem funding to date.

We’re also collaborating with @nbxcom, acting as a custodian and exchange provider, to ensure the secure handling and strategic planning of stablecoin integration. This effort reflects a growing confidence in the utility of stablecoins and a shared commitment to ensuring that the ecosystem is ready to leverage them responsibly.

With these preparations underway, Cardano is positioned to unlock new capabilities for vendors, builders, and the broader community.

Expanding member representation on the Intersect Board

As Cardano’s governance ecosystem continues to evolve, Intersect is committed to ensuring the community has a strong voice in shaping its direction. The Intersect Board is a key part of that journey, responsible for defining strategic direction, overseeing the organization’s performance, and safeguarding its mission.

Currently composed of five directors, including two elected by the membership, the Board provides oversight across critical decisions affecting the ecosystem. You can learn more about the Board and its responsibilities here.

Following its June meeting, the Board has agreed to expand from five to seven, with the number of seats elected by members rising from two to four, effectively doubling community representation at the board leadership level and marking an elected majority body. This change reflects the growing scale and diversity of the Intersect membership and reinforces our commitment to participatory governance.

The next Board election will take place in September and October 2025. With this expansion, more members will have the opportunity to directly shape the future of Intersect and its role in Cardano’s decentralized governance.

You can read the meeting minutes where this decision was made here.

This change marks a pivotal milestone in our shared journey, strengthening representation, building legitimacy, and ensuring members remain at the heart of Intersect’s future.

The Constitutional Committee election

The audit of the election for Cardano's Constitutional Committee is complete, and the final results have been confirmed.

The seven members who will form the new, fully-elected Constitutional Committee are:

• Cardano Atlantic Council
• Tingvard
• Eastern Cardano Council
• KTorZ
• Ace Alliance
• Cardano Japan Council
• Phil_uplc

What comes next

With the members now officially confirmed, the focus shifts to the on-chain transition. While the new members begin preparing and generating their credentials for their roles, a critical governance action is being planned.

A formal ‘Update Committee’ governance action must be submitted to the blockchain. This action will register the new committee's credentials, set their term expiry dates, and define the voting approval threshold.

Both the Civics Committee and the Intersect Board of Directors have reviewed and approved a proposed timeline to submit this action in late July. This timing is strategic for two key reasons:

1. It ensures the newly elected committee will not be required to vote on 39 imminent treasury withdrawal proposals.
2. It ensures the new committee will be active before the current Interim Constitutional Committee's (ICC) mandate expires on September 6.
   

This governance action must be ratified by both Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) and Delegated Representatives (DReps). The proposal allows for ratification to occur anytime up until the end of the governance action's lifetime. If ratified, a mandatory one-epoch delay means the new committee will officially become active at the end of the following epoch, ensuring a seamless handover of constitutional oversight.

Membership and Community

The Intersect team is heading to Rare Dev & Governance Day on August 7 at Topgolf, Las Vegas! Join us for a full day of lightning talks, workshops, and governance discussions—plus some networking and golf to wrap it all up. It all kicks off with a relaxed social evening on August 6.

Register here: https://lu.ma/52rggq6i 

Missed Session 1 of the Enterprise Forum?

No worries, we’ve got the replay ready! Dive into key insights on Web3, Cardano, and enterprise use cases. Watch here: YouTube – Web3 in Focus Session 1

Stay tuned, details for session 2 are coming soon!

Enterprise membership spotlight: TapTools

As an Intersect Enterprise Member, TapTools stands out as one of Cardano’s leading on-chain data platforms. Their comprehensive dashboard offers real-time insights into token performance, wallet activity, and DeFi protocols, making blockchain data more accessible and actionable for everyday users and enterprises alike.

TapTools is not only helping users navigate the Cardano ecosystem with clarity but also contributing to greater transparency and user empowerment, key principles aligned with Intersect’s mission. With upcoming feature expansions and deeper analytics tools in development, TapTools continues to drive innovation within the Cardano ecosystem.

The governance tools working group keeps running twice a week to accommodate participants from different time zones. The Cardano Govtool Consortium, supported by the working group, continues to provide context and address questions regarding the budget information action submitted on-chain last week. There is currently positive support for the info action.

Questions that have been asked so far about the info action are being collected here.

Since the end of June, the contracts to maintain Govtool have expired. Still, the builders who have submitted the info action continue to ensure Govtool remains up and running and address any priority zero issues.

Alongside continuing the maintenance work, the work to refine what comes next continues, in particular in the working group session and the X space from Thursday 10th, the participants reviewed the top discussions in GitHub. If you want to have your say, here are the discussions. 

Open Source

Podcasts

It’s finally here, our podcast with CHAOSS, released yesterday, July 10, 2025, delves deeper into the data-driven impact and thought process behind POSM. Listen to the podcast on the application of your choice! Apple Podcasts | Spotify 

The Open Source “Cowboys” podcast is back! Be sure to catch our new thought leadership series, starting with Silona Bonewald. 

In this episode, we explore her journey from pioneering Inner Source at PayPal alongside Danese Cooper to shaping the future of open collaboration through Hyperledger and now Web3. Watch here!

Developer Advocate Program

As we continue building the Developer Advocate Program to support the growth of the Cardano developer ecosystem, both the Open Source Office (OSO) and Open Source Committee (OSC) have taken time to reflect on how we can best align this initiative with our broader goals. As part of this process, we’ve refined our approach to gathering key information from applicants and made small but meaningful updates to the application form, job description, and supporting materials.

To that end, we are opening a second round of applications from July 14 through July 31, 2025.

This second round is not a reflection on the strength or quality of previous submissions. Instead, it's a response to how we can better structure the program and ensure we’re collecting the right insights from applicants as we evolve the role. 

We warmly encourage anyone who applied during the first round to reapply, especially if the revised description continues to align with your experience and interests.

If you have any questions or need further clarification, please don’t hesitate to reach out to oso@intersectmbo.org. 

Community hubs

Although Intersect’s direct management of the six community hubs has come to an end, we want to highlight some of the fantastic work that each of our hubs has been part of since they launched back in 2024:

Japan hub

Led by Yuta and Yuri, almost 30% of Intersect individual memberships come from Japan. The Japan hub has held over 20 local face-to-face meetups within Japan in various locations such as Tokyo, Okinawa, Fukuoka, and Osaka. The growing number of members is a testament to the brilliant work the Japan hub has done in engaging members of their community through face-to-face localized events, as well as virtually through weekly X spaces.

Sri Lanka hub

Led by CoinCeylon, our Sri Lanka hub has excelled in creating graphics and videos for their hub, in English as well as Tamil and Sinhala. An example of this is their Intersect ‘Get to Know’ series, explaining the five pillars of Intersect, which you can watch here. Additionally, they have been holding various University workshops across Sri Lanka to educate younger generations on blockchain fundamentals, providing students with certifications upon success. This has been a great initiative and has proved successful, as students have been eager to get involved.

Africa hub

Led by WADA, our Africa hub launched localised hubs across Ghana, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with launch events occurring in each country. This enabled community members to get involved, whether their preferred language is English, French, or Swahili. The hub held weekly virtual meetings in French and English to update their communities on what has been happening within Intersect and the broader Cardano ecosystem, as well as DRep discussions with African DReps, exploring the current landscape, key challenges, and ideas to strengthen participation within Cardano governance.

LATAM hub

Led by Mauro Andreoli, our LATAM hub launched localised hubs in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay and hosted launch events in each country. The hub spans across Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, encouraging representation in both languages. As well as monthly town halls, our LATAM hub attended Blockchain Rio and Argentina Digital Nation in 2024 (organized by member Otávio Lima).

Europe hub

Led by Clay Nation, our Europe hub held monthly town halls to discuss Intersect and initiatives in the broader Cardano ecosystem. The hub hosted and attended events across Europe, including in-person meetups in Lisbon, Paris, and Amsterdam.

North America hub

Led by AWEN, our North America hub excelled at hosting X Spaces with large audiences, with spaces reaching over 300 attendees to discuss topics such as Cardano governance and Stablecoins. Collaboration across the country was also essential, with the hub hosting events such as GM 2025 in partnership with Cardano GM in Fort Myers, Florida, and a Consensus side event in Toronto, Canada. 

We extend our sincere thanks to all our hub managers for their dedication and hard work. We look forward to seeing these community hubs evolve into Cardano-focused hubs, with the support and funding needed to grow and empower future initiatives.

We’re hiring: People & Culture Lead

Intersect is seeking a People & Culture Lead to help us build a thriving, values-driven team and enhance our capacity to serve Cardano’s community.

This role will focus on the upcoming transition of consultants through open recruitment, nurturing our culture, supporting career progression and professional development, and helping our staff do their best work. You’ll work closely with leadership to design people practices that align with Intersect’s mission and our servant-leadership ethos, empowering our members rather than directing them.

• HR experience with a passion for culture building
• Skilled in recruitment, career development, and team wellbeing
• Big advantage: understanding of Cardano and decentralized communities

Apply now and help shape the future of Intersect.

That’s it for this week’s update. Thank you for reading. To learn more about Intersect’s work, explore our Knowledge Base, which provides detailed information on governance structures, committees, and funding. Additionally, visit the Intersect website for the latest news, updates, and roadmap information.

Join the conversation on Discord, and follow us on Twitter (X) and LinkedIn to engage with fellow members, working groups, and the broader community.

Your voice helps shape the future of Cardano governance.