DReps voted in a poll to handle treasury withdrawals as 39 individual proposals, rather than grouped packages. After several weeks, their preference was implemented. In mid-July, Intersect submitted all 39 proposals. Voting closed today, with 37 approved and 2 expiring without approval. DReps Show Strong Participation The community has long debated how treasury withdrawals should be structured. Some argued for bundled proposals, concerned that voting on 39 individual withdrawals would overwhelm DReps and lead to low participation. There were fears that only the most urgent proposals would be approved, leaving others behind. Those concerns proved unfounded. DReps showed strong engagement from the start. In the final epoch alone, they voted on 8 withdrawal proposals. Ultimately, 37 out of 39 were approved, only 2 were not approved, with a high explicit share of NO votes. This outcome demonstrates that DReps are willing and able to handle a high volume of proposals efficiently. It’s also worth noting that, during this voting period, 4 additional governance actions were active—yet participation remained high. Only 20% of Registered DReps Participated in Voting Although nearly 1,000 DReps are registered, only around 200 to 230 participated in the treasury withdrawal votes—roughly 20% turnout. The proposal with the highest number of YES votes was the IOG CORE proposal, receiving 199 YES, 5 NO, and 6 abstentions. Midgard followed closely with 198 YES and 7 NO votes. In terms of voting power, Blockfrost led with 82.4% support, requiring just 192 YES votes to pass. One of the proposals that failed—High-yield RWA Asset—received 100 YES votes, 113 NO votes, and 20 abstentions. Interestingly, 233 DReps voted on this proposal, more than on the IOG proposal. The approval threshold was 67%, but many proposals exceeded that, with support reaching 70% to over 75% of the voting stake. On the other hand, several proposals crossed the threshold very narrowly, for example, with 67.38%. However, a significant portion of voting power—between 500 million and 1.5 billion ADA—did not participate. This raises questions about why many registered DReps abstained from voting on such critical proposals. One possible reason is timing, as voting occurred during summer holidays in many countries. This makes the contribution of active DReps even more valuable, as they may have voted despite limited availability during vacation periods. Should the Approval Threshold Be Raised? With nearly all proposals passing, it's worth asking whether the current system is functioning as intended, or if adjustments are needed. Many proposals received over 70% support from the voting stake, and EMURGO voted YES across the board. This raises the question of whether the approval threshold for treasury withdrawals should be increased slightly, for example, from 67% to 70%. A higher threshold would reduce the influence of dominant DReps and require broader consensus, including support from smaller DReps. Raising the threshold would make approvals more difficult. If it later becomes clear that important governance actions are failing due to low DRep participation, the threshold could be lowered again. For now, however, DReps appear to be fulfilling their role effectively, and there’s no immediate concern that essential proposals are being blocked. What’s Next? A governance action has been submitted to amend the Constitution. If approved, it would remove the requirement to submit an Info governance action before a withdrawal proposal—greatly simplifying the process. Looking ahead, it’s time to begin discussions about the Net-Change Limit (NCL) for next year. Ideally, the new NCL should be approved before the end of the year. This year’s funding process for key ecosystem teams was slow and inefficient. Many participants described it as chaotic. One contributing factor was the prolonged debate over the NCL, including attempts to modify it during proposal discussions. It’s worth questioning whether the NCL is even necessary. Perhaps it would be more effective to simply monitor Treasury outflows over time. However, any change to this approach must be agreed upon by DReps.
