Blockchain treasury funding: how on-chain votes pay builders

How treasury spending is decided

Treasury requests follow the same broad path, with different rules at each step:

1. Draft in public. Polkadot proposers post a draft on Polkassembly or Subsquare for at least 7 days; Akash requires a post in its GitHub discussions; xGov proposals are discussed on the Algorand forum for at least two weeks.
2. Submit on-chain. You create the proposal with the amount, the asset and the recipient address, and place a deposit.
3. Token holders vote. Votes are weighted by tokens held, staked or delegated, and many treasuries require a quorum.
4. The treasury pays. Approved funds go to your address, at once or in scheduled tranches.
5. You report in public. Funded teams post progress and spending where voters can see them.

Seven treasuries compared

The table uses each program's own rules as recorded in web3grant's directory on October 1, 2026. Cells are simplified; check the program page for details.

• Polkadot OpenGov TreasuryPolkadot OpenGovUp to $12MAnytime
• Kusama OpenGov TreasuryKusama OpenGovUp to $1.8MAnytime
• Cardano TreasuryCardano governanceUndisclosedAnytime
• Akash Community PoolAkash NetworkNo outside team has won a community pool vote since August 2025. Recent spends went to work run by the core teams.UndisclosedAnytime
• Livepeer Community TreasuryLivepeerUndisclosedAnytime
• CKB Community Fund DAONervos communityUndisclosedAnytime
• xGovAlgorand FoundationProposals are still accepted, but payouts wait on a Foundation top-up of the xGov treasury and a newly elected Council.$634–$50.7KAnytime

Polkadot and Kusama OpenGov

On Polkadot you pick one of six treasury tracks by amount: Small Tipper (up to 250 DOT), Big Tipper (1,000 DOT), Small Spender (10,000 DOT), Medium Spender (100,000 DOT), Big Spender (1,000,000 DOT) or Treasurer (10,000,000 DOT). Larger tracks need a bigger deposit and have longer confirmation periods. Spends can be paid in DOT, USDC or USDT and scheduled as several payouts over time. The Polkadot treasury documentation explains the tracks in full.

Kusama, Polkadot's canary network, works the same way with caps from 8.25 KSM to 333,333.33 KSM. Recent approved spends went mostly to infrastructure and services, such as public RPC providers, system chain collators and the Subscan explorer, plus a few builder projects such as Bloque. Several 2026 requests were rejected. For other options in the ecosystem, see Polkadot grants.

Cardano treasury withdrawals

Since the Plomin hard fork, Cardano's treasury can only be spent through treasury withdrawal governance actions under CIP-1694, and every ecosystem budget, including new Project Catalyst funding, goes through this route. A withdrawal passes when DReps (delegated representatives) holding 67% of the active voting stake approve it and the Constitutional Committee finds it constitutional. It is ratified at an epoch boundary and the funds move at the next one.

Most approved withdrawals are paid through an administrator such as Intersect, which signs a contract with you after KYC or KYB checks and pays by milestone through a smart contract. The route suits mature projects and shared infrastructure; cardano.org points small or early-stage work to Catalyst or hackathons. See Cardano grants for those.

Akash, Livepeer and Nervos

The Akash community pool funds any project that helps the network, at any scale. You post a draft with a TL;DR, timeline, amount and a cost breakdown in hours and hourly rate, then submit it on-chain with a 1,000 AKT deposit, returned unless the vote ends in "no with veto". Funded teams record their spending in a public reporting folder on GitHub. As of October 2026, though, no outside team has won a community pool vote since August 2025.

Livepeer's treasury mostly funds Special-Purpose Entities (SPEs) and teams with a defined scope. You need 100 LPT to submit, a recipient address (usually a team or SPE multisig) and, in practice, a line-item budget: proposals without one rarely pass.

The CKB Community Fund DAO pays in stages under rules adopted in March 2026. The first payment is at most 20% of the budget and no more than $10,000, larger budgets must be split into milestones, and each milestone is checked by DAO Stewards and confirmed in a 3-day vote that passes unless the community rejects it. You can ask for a fixed CKB amount, a fixed amount of the USDI stablecoin, or a fixed USD value paid in CKB.

Algorand xGov

xGov pays only retroactively, for open-source Algorand tools that are already built and working. You pass KYC, request a set amount of ALGO and, if the committee approves and the xGov Council confirms it meets the terms, the treasury pays in full. As of October 2026, xGov still accepts proposals, but payouts wait on a Foundation top-up of the xGov treasury and a newly elected Council.

What it costs to ask

A treasury request costs a deposit, sometimes fees, and a lot of public time. The deposit rules differ in when you get your money back:

• Refunded after the vote: Cardano's 100,000 ada deposit.
• Returned unless vetoed: Akash's 1,000 AKT is lost only if the vote ends in "no with veto".
• Returned only if it passes: Livepeer's 100 LPT.
• Refundable, plus fees: xGov's 3% deposit is refundable; the 100 ALGO proposer fee and 100 ALGO proposal fee are separate.
• Held, not paid: the CKB Community Fund DAO asks you to hold 100,000 CKB in the Nervos DAO to start a vote.

If you don't hold the token, you may need to buy it before you can ask, and its price can move while your deposit is locked. The time cost is larger: public drafts, replies to every question, delegate calls and, after funding, regular reports.

Risks of treasury funding

Treasury funding is open to anyone, which also means the bar is set by whoever votes. The main risks:

• The vote fails. As of October 2026, no outside team has won an Akash community pool vote since August 2025, and recent spends went to work run by the core teams. Many recent Polkadot requests were rejected, and several 2026 Kusama requests too.
• Everything is public. Your budget, hourly rate, delays and missed milestones are visible to the whole ecosystem, permanently.
• The token price moves. Most treasuries pay in their own token, so the value can change between the vote and the payout. Our guide to grants paid in tokens covers how to budget for that.
• Payouts can stall. xGov's approved proposals currently wait on a treasury top-up.
• The rules change. The CKB Community Fund DAO adopted new rules in March 2026, and since the Plomin hard fork Cardano's treasury can only be spent through on-chain governance actions.

How to improve your odds

Proposals that pass usually look the same: small, specific, discussed early and easy to check. Practical steps:

• Start small. A first request on a low track, such as Polkadot's Small Tipper or Big Tipper, builds a delivery record for a larger one later.
• Workshop the draft before going on-chain. Answer questions in the forum and talk to delegates and large holders, who often decide the outcome.
• Itemize the budget. Show hours, rates and other costs; our Web3 grant budget guide has a format.
• Tie payment to milestones. Polkadot spends can be scheduled in tranches, and Cardano and Nervos pay by milestone already.
• Report without being asked. A public trail of milestone reports is what voters check the next time you ask.

For the proposal itself, see our guide to writing a DAO funding proposal and the general guide on how to write a Web3 grant proposal.

Treasury money through intermediaries

If you're not ready to face a token vote, treasury money often reaches builders through smaller programs that a treasury has already funded. Cardano's treasury funds Project Catalyst, whose 2026 pilot closed on August 20 with no next round announced, and Cardano PRIME, a 120M ADA program run by AlphaGrowth that pays milestone grants for DeFi building blocks. On Livepeer, some SPEs pass treasury funds on to builders through RFPs, grants and bounties of their own. These programs review applications the usual way, so you skip the public vote.

FAQ

Do I need to hold tokens to request treasury funding?

Requesting treasury funding usually requires some tokens for the deposit, but not always a large holding. Polkadot's decision deposit starts at 1 DOT on the Small Tipper track, while Akash asks for 1,000 AKT and Cardano for 100,000 ada, refunded after the vote. The CKB Community Fund DAO requires you to hold at least 100,000 CKB in the Nervos DAO to start a vote.

What happens to my deposit if the treasury vote fails?

What happens to a treasury deposit after a failed vote depends on the network. Cardano refunds the 100,000 ada deposit after the vote whatever the result. Akash returns the 1,000 AKT deposit unless the vote ends in "no with veto". Livepeer returns its 100 LPT only if the proposal passes. Read the current rules on the network's own documentation before you submit.

Can a company request blockchain treasury funding?

A company can usually request blockchain treasury funding, because most treasuries let anyone with an account submit a proposal. Cardano withdrawals are typically paid through an administrator such as Intersect, which runs KYC or KYB and signs a contract with the recipient. Livepeer recipients are often teams or special-purpose entities with a multisig. Check whether the treasury expects an individual, a team or an entity.

How long does blockchain treasury funding take?

Blockchain treasury funding takes from about two weeks to several months. Akash votes close after 7 days and Livepeer's after about nine, but the public discussion before submission adds time. The CKB Community Fund DAO runs a 30-day deliberation before a 7-day vote, and our estimate for a Cardano treasury withdrawal is about 12 weeks from submission to a decision.