Intersect will be a home for the Cardano’s future development and an aggregation point for community governance

Good governance requires strong institutions

The decentralized digital infrastructure made possible by a blockchain protocol, such as Cardano, enables a more resilient, secure, transparent, and innovative ecosystem where individuals control their own data, identities, and future. Building and maintaining this critical infrastructure requires significant investment and resources.

A member-based organization addresses many of the challenges of coordinating such investments and resources by bringing together various stakeholders with common goals and shared values. The vital role of such organization can be compared to that of civil engineering or public works in any municipality or local authority. Municipalities are responsible for maintaining roads, bridges, and other civic infrastructure. Some of this work is routine, mostly predictable, and has predictable costs that are relatively easy to control. We can think of most of Cardano’s smaller and routine updates as similar to repairing street lights, fixing potholes, and any other maintenance operation to preserve and enhance existing infrastructure.

However, major expansion projects require highly capable firms, sound financing, and intense public consultation as these net-new projects may deliver across multiple years, attract heightened scrutiny, and must come with increased accountability. Adding new features and updates to a blockchain core mechanisms are comparable to these large-scale undertakings.

Community Aggregation

The opportunity to maintain Cardano’s core technology and develop a roadmap for the future attracts a diverse group of stakeholders. As a natural aggregation point, a Cardano town square, Intersect also allows for those firms and organizations making the most significant contributions to the ecosystem to raise and elevate their voices on how Cardano’s technological underpinnings can and should evolve. It is precisely these members that make up the various boards, councils, committees and working groups that meet regularly to perform the tasks of defining, designing, delivering, and communicating the many public works projects around open source Cardano core technologies.

Cardano ultimately relies on numerous stakeholders and contributors, including developers, validators (stake pool operators or SPOs), and other network participants, to provide ongoing support and maintain the underlying protocol. Just like municipalities, open source ecosystems like Cardano require ongoing funding to support routine maintenance and operations, as well as more significant expansion projects. Cardano generates funding through transaction fees and the network's decentralized treasury, which can be used to fund various initiatives and projects.

The five pillars to Intersect

At its core, Intersect will focus on ensuring, through its members, the future maintenance and development of Cardano. As a community governed blockchain, this means caring about both the technology and processes that enable technical progress and consensus through discourse and collaboration.

Intersect has five pillars:

1. Support the community to develop the ecosystem by hosting developer-focused conferences, hackathons, and events.
2. Administrate and champion Cardano’s community-led governance implemented by CIP 1694.
3. Coordinate delivery of the community approved Cardano Technical Roadmap.
4. Coordinate the routine maintenance of Cardano for system stability.
5. Coordinate open source development of core technologies for Cardano.

Governance of the MBO

Similar to municipalities or local councils, Intersect will have a governing board occupied and administered by its members, with various committees and working groups focused on specific domains and interests. The design of Intersect’s governance and membership structure helps identify strategic priorities for Cardano’s development by having broad representation through a diverse global membership base.

Work Packages

Think of work packages as procurement briefs capturing the requirements that Cardano and institutions (including, but not limited to, Intersect) need vendor support to deliver. Through working groups, committees, and the governing board, Intersect will identify work packages aimed at maintaining Cardano or contributing to the Technical Roadmap.

More specifically, institutions like Intersect may propose work packages for community consideration and approval. Once approved and created, Intersect will invite experienced and capable member organizations to bid for them, and facilitate oversight. For larger work packages, Intersect will facilitate delivery progress and, through its members, hold firms accountable. Members will participate in Cardano’s governance through various member-led committees and working groups who may ultimately author technically sound governance action proposals.

The year ahead

Cardano restores trust to global systems – scientifically creating a more secure, transparent, and sustainable foundation for individuals to transact and exchange, systems to govern, and enterprises to grow. Cardano is in the age of Voltaire, and Intersect is an integral institution to safeguard Cardano’s future.

In the coming weeks and months, Intersect will share membership options and ways to join, introduce its first committees and working groups, and detail how members of Intersect will contribute and shape the Technical Roadmap. No matter what membership level you join at, Intersect and its members will play an active role in realizing Cardano’s potential.

Certain events later this year will discuss priorities and strategy for Intersect’s inner workings, along with member meet-ups and the very first global membership meeting. To get involved, organizations and individuals interested in supporting the growth of the Cardano ecosystem should register their interest here.