[Proposal setup] Proposal title

Please provide your proposal title

Ekklesia: High-Frequency Voting on Cardano with Hydra

[Proposal Summary] Budget Information

Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA

100000

[Proposal Summary] Time

Please specify how many months you expect your project to last

7

[Proposal Summary] Translation Information

Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated

No

Original Language

en

[Proposal Summary] Problem Statement

What is the problem you want to solve?

Large scale on-chain voting on Cardano Layer 1 is neither cost-effective nor fast.

[Proposal Summary] Supporting Documentation

Supporting links

• https://2025budget.intersectmbo.org/
,
• https://intersect.ekklesia.vote/

[Proposal Summary] Project Dependencies

Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

Yes

Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'

Hydra SDK (https://hydra.family/head-protocol), Mesh SDK (https://meshjs.dev), CardanoSigner (https://github.com/gitmachtl/cardano-signer)

[Proposal Summary] Project Open Source

Will your project's outputs be fully open source?

Yes

License and Additional Information

Apache 2.0

[Theme Selection] Theme

Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal.

Governance

[Campaign Category] Category Questions

Describe what makes your idea innovative compared to what has been previously funded (whether by you or others).

Ekklesia represents a hybrid governance process where we bridge seamlessly between on-chain (L1 and L2) and off-chain processes to ensure that all voters can easily participate while still trusting and verifying results through on-chain mechanisms. This is a departure from previously funded models that largely relied strictly on on-chain L1 solutions or off-chain or smart-contract based solutions.

Describe what your prototype or MVP will demonstrate, and where it can be accessed.

The MVP release of Ekklesia will demonstrate a functional, evergreen, on-chain governance process for Cardano. The functional prototype will be hosted at https://ekklesia.vote and source code will be hosted under the Lerna Labs organization on GitHub: https://github.com/lerna-labs

Describe realistic measures of success, ideally with on-chain metrics.

Success for Ekklesia will be measured through regular usage of the platform for meaningful decision making in the governance community. Whether this be for parameter setting or adjustment, budget steering, or other governance-related reasons, we will target to conduct polls at least on a monthly basis leveraging mainnet Cardano L1 transactions and Hydra L2 voting.

[Your Project and Solution] Solution

Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem

By leveraging the speed and efficiency of Hydra L2 State Channels in Cardano we can conduct large-scale, high-frequency polling of various governance participants (DReps, SPOs, ADA Holders) without incurring prohibitive costs or L1 impacts such as blockspace contention or overly large deposits.

Key Features

• Hydra-Powered Off-Chain Voting: All votes occur inside a Hydra head (L2), significantly reducing transaction costs and increasing throughput.
• L1 Settlement & Security: Final vote results are committed to Cardano L1 as a Merkle root hash, ensuring data integrity and verification.
• Immutable Proposals via IPFS: Ballot Proposals are published as immutable JSON documents stored on IPFS.
• Transparent & Auditable Process: Full voting history, proposal data, and final results are publicly verifiable, allowing for independent audits and future reconstruction of the ballot.
• Predefined Voter groups such as DReps, Stake Pool Operators (SPO) or individual whitelisted voter groups based on asset holdings or other conditions with live on-chain data or snapshot based metrics
• Weighted or unweighted voting based on DRep delegation, asset or ADA holdings or other predefined conditions with live on-chain data or snapshot based metrics
• Automated On-Chain Proposal lookup and CIP definition to let anyone propose ballots by a pre-defined metadata standard transaction to be accepted by the Voting Authority

How It Works

• Voting Authority (VA) Initiates a Hydra Head: A Hydra instance is opened, with voting metadata (e.g., vote name, description, duration) included in the commit.
• Ballot Proposals (BP) Are Published: Immutable proposals are stored on IPFS
• Voters Vote Off-Chain in Hydra: Using a web app, voters submit votes (Yes / No / Abstain + optional comment). Votes are recorded in a UTxO.
• Voting Window Closes: At the predefined time, the system snapshots the L1 stake weight based on the predefined voter conditions and prevents further voting.
• Final Aggregation & L1 Submission: The VA consolidates votes into a Merkle tree, discarding invalid votes, and publishes the root hash to Cardano L1.
• Results Are Publicly Verifiable: Anyone can reconstruct the voting results using the Merkle root, ensuring full transparency.

Technical Components

• Hydra Heads: Off-chain voting ledger with real-time state updates.
• IPFS Integration: Stores immutable Ballot Proposals with a decentralized discovery mechanism.
• Universal Wallet-Connector to enable voting for different user groups such as SPOs or MultiSig DReps.
• Cardano-Signer integration for voting with cold keys or offline signing.
• Mobile friendly Web App: User interface for voters to cast and manage their votes.
• Backend for Voter Authorities: User interface to manage ballots, accept on-chain proposal submissions, monitor progress of live votes and publish voting results on L1.

[Your Project and Solution] Impact

Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

This project - once finished - will pave the way for real-world adoption of Cardano and Hydra with a secure and cost-efficient voting application that can not only be used for voting within the Cardano ecosystem such as governance, SPO-Votes, NFT projects or DAOs, but creates a blockchain-centric secure voting framework with use cases beyond the Cardano ecosystem itself.

After showcasing the original Ekklesia MVP for the Intersect 2025 Budget Reconciliation (https://2025budget.intersectmbo.org/) we have seen significant interest from entities within and outside the Cardano ecosystem and would like to bring this project to a point where it can help the overall adoption of Cardano with real-world voting use cases on a much larger scale.

[Your Project and Solution] Capabilities & Feasibility

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

The team consists of long standing Cardano Community members with a proven track record and a diverse set of skills ranging from a broad understanding of the Cardano ecosystem, its needs and preferences to the technical details of scalable, decentralized applications that provide a good user experience on desktop and mobile devices at the same time.

With the short-notice development of a fully working and deployed MVP for the Intersect 2025 Budget Reconciliation (https://2025budget.intersectmbo.org/) we have already proven the overall concept and feasibility and gathered extensive community feedback along the way to ensure the product fits the needs of the Cardano ecosystem and its users.

With the now much larger timeframe, additional features and an independent audit we will ensure the overall product quality and best value for money for Cardano.

[Milestones] Project Milestones

Milestone Title

Hydra Integration

Milestone Outputs

We will demonstrate a complete end-to-end poll using the Ekklesia tech stack and hydra integration on the Cardano Preprod Testnet. A report will be generated identifying the relevant preprod network transactions to confirm successful opening and closing of the Hydra head. The report will also include information about fetching and retrieving the results of this demo poll.

Acceptance Criteria

Reviewer will be able to confirm that the Hydra head was opened and closed successfully on the preprod testnet using an existing explorer. Reviewer will also be able to confirm the existence of source code shared via a private repository.

Evidence of Completion

• Links to Cardano preprod testnet transactions on relevant explorers
• Report documenting methodology to confirm that a Hydra head opening and closing is linked to an Ekklesia poll
• Report documenting methodology to fetch raw results from the IPFS hash provided
• Report documenting methodology to manually confirm poll results

Delivery Month

2

Cost

36000

Progress

30 %

Milestone Title

Backend & Frontend Improvements including API for Third Party Tooling

Milestone Outputs

During this milestone we will make improvements to the backend and frontend architecture of the software to prepare for the independent third party audit as well as create API endpoints for third-party tooling to access data from Ekklesia instances.

Acceptance Criteria

• Reviewer(s) will be given read-only access to private repositories where work is on-going in advance of code audit and open source release to confirm that pull requests and commits are being performed.
• Reviewers will be able to review documentation of API endpoints for third-party tooling

Evidence of Completion

• Read-only access to GitHub repositories showing proof of code modifications and enhancements via commits and pull requests
• Public-facing documentation of third-party API endpoints

Delivery Month

3

Cost

18000

Progress

50 %

Milestone Title

Documentation

Milestone Outputs

During this milestone we will write and release documentation of the Ekklesia system including system design documentation, user manual, and third-party tooling API documentation. Written documentation will be published and publicly available via GitHub.

Acceptance Criteria

Reviewers will be able to review documentation and compare to the user experience of a testnet deployment of Ekklesia for completeness and thoroughness. Reviewers will be able to confirm the existence of documentation publicly published to GitHub. Reviewers will be able to confirm that a Postman Collection for testing API endpoints has been published.

Evidence of Completion

• Publicly available documentation covering system design, user experience, and third party tooling API
• Postman collection published for testing API integrations
• Links to relevant GitHub pages and releases

Delivery Month

4

Cost

8000

Progress

60 %

Milestone Title

Automation, CIP definitions & load testing

Milestone Outputs

• Draft CIP for on-chain publication/submission of ballot proposals
• Increased automation processes for Ekklesia including dynamically opening and closing hydra heads, detecting proposal submissions based on on-chain transactions, automated closeout and publication of results
• Load testing to identify system capacity and potential areas for optimization

Acceptance Criteria

• Reviewer can confirm that a CIP pull request has been submitted documenting on-chain methods for proposal proposers to submit and update their proposal via on-chain transactions and metadata
• Reviewer can see pull requests and commits against the repositories documenting the addition and expansion of automation tooling
• Reviewer can see results of load testing

Evidence of Completion

• A proposed CIP is submitted to the CIP repository
• Pull requests and commits against GitHub repositories
• Load testing results documentation

Delivery Month

5

Cost

8000

Progress

70 %

Milestone Title

External Audit

Milestone Outputs

• Independent Third-Party Audit report to identify critical security issues and ensure overall product quality
• Code updates or modifications as necessary to address any critical issues identified during the audit

Acceptance Criteria

• Reviewer can review the third-party audit findings as PDF or Word-Doc
• Reviewer can see pull requests and commits against the repositories to address any critical issues identified in the course of the audit

Evidence of Completion

• A third-party audit report
• Pull requests and commits against GitHub repositories to address issues

Delivery Month

6

Cost

20000

Progress

90 %

Milestone Title

Open Source Release + Closeout

Milestone Outputs

• Relevant repositories switched to public visibility with Apache 2.0 licensing
• Documentation updated and published pursuant to any code or process changes after the audit
• Closeout report documenting the experience, lessons learned, and next steps for the project

Acceptance Criteria

• Reviewer can confirm that source code has been released publicly under Apache 2.0 licensing
• Reviewer can confirm that documentation is publicly available
• Reviewer can read closeout report document

Evidence of Completion

• Project repositories published as open source with Apache 2.0 license
• Documentation publicly available
• Closeout report document publicly available

Delivery Month

7

Cost

10000

Progress

100 %

[Final Pitch] Budget & Costs

Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

• 50,000 ADA: Principal system design, integration work, user experience development, testing, and refinement of user-facing frontend, admin-facing backend, and blockchain-facing components.
• 20,000 ADA: Independent, third-party contractor costs to perform a thorough audit of all code and system design documents to identify potential vulnerabilities and risk mitigation strategies.
• 12,000 ADA: Automation development, testing, and refinements to address issues raised during the audit process including follow-up audits to confirm compliance and remediation has been completed.
• 10,000 ADA: Authoring and development of documentation for administrators, users, and third-party integrators utilizing API endpoints.
• 8,000 ADA: Contingency funds for unexpected or varying costs including server hosting and other hardware related to testing and deployment.

[Final Pitch] Value for Money

How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?

• Scalability: Enables fast large-scale voting without congesting the Cardano L1.
• Cost-Efficiency: Significantly reduces transaction costs using Hydra’s off-chain scaling.
• Decentralization & Transparency: Results are fully auditable and publicly verifiable.
• Future-Proofing: The architecture allows for future L1-based proposal publication, automated delegation adjustments, and governance feature expansion.
• Re-useable components and libraries: Individually components such as the Wallet-Connector with CardanoSigner support for MultiSigs, universal signature verification, etc. will be open-sourced as re-usable libraries to be used throughout the entire ecosystem
• Independent audit: All code will be audited by an independent auditor to ensure the quality of the final product

[Required Acknowledgements] Consent & Confirmation

Terms and Conditions:

Yes