Cardano was built by three founding entities, each with a separate job. Input Output (IO) handles research and protocol engineering. The Cardano Foundation handles governance, standards, and
Cardano was built by three founding entities, each with a separate job. Input Output (IO) handles research and protocol engineering. The Cardano Foundation handles governance, standards, and representation. EMURGO handles commercial adoption, tooling, and education. Since Cardano moved to on-chain governance, a fourth body, Intersect, coordinates budgets and network upgrades.
In 2026 the arrangement has been tested by funding disputes and EMURGO’s exit from the main coordination group.
Cardano is not run by a single company. Its work was split among three organizations from the start.
Input Output, also called IOG or IO Global, researches, designs, and develops the Cardano protocol. It is led by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson.
Its current focus is Ouroboros Leios, an upgrade to Cardano’s consensus layer meant to raise throughput. One IO proposal states that “Cardano must scale from today’s approximately 800,000 transactions per month to over 27 million.” A public Leios testnet, called Musashi Dojo, launched at the end of June 2026, and IO is targeting a mainnet launch by the end of the year.
IO now has to ask the community for money. In April it submitted nine treasury proposals, which it said came to “just under 50%” of the previous year’s request. They included 62.1 million ADA for network maintenance, The Block reported.
The Cardano Foundation handles representation, governance, and standards. It works on tokenization, digital identity, and voting participation.
Recent examples include:
EMURGO is often called Cardano’s commercial arm. It works on the parts that make Cardano usable in practice:
EMURGO does not define the protocol or represent Cardano to regulators. Those jobs belong to IO and the Foundation.
Intersect is a member-based organization. It describes itself as “an impartial coordination layer” for Cardano’s governance and technical processes, not a body that governs on the community’s behalf.
In 2025, Intersect administered the ecosystem budget and coordinated 39 treasury withdrawals. It also coordinated the response when the chain temporarily forked. In 2026, it is running a standard budget cycle, supporting network upgrades, and publishing quarterly KPIs.
ADA holders now decide how treasury money is spent. Organizations, including the founding entities, submit funding requests, and DReps vote on them.
The main entities also coordinated through a five-member group called the Pentad:
On July 9, 2026, EMURGO said it was leaving the Pentad to focus on recovery from the SecondFi exploit. SecondFi is a wallet service backed by EMURGO. Three incidents compromised 374 wallets and caused losses of about 16 million ADA. EMURGO has said SecondFi will not reopen, even after security audits finish.
Some community members asked EMURGO to give up its governance voting power and return its original ADA allocation. DRep Chris O hinted at legal action if it did not.
Funding has caused open friction. In November 2025, Hoskinson criticized the Foundation’s spending, saying it lacked “accountability, oversight, or real KPIs.”
The Foundation’s community and governance lead, Nicolas Cerny, replied by citing “CF derangement syndrome.” He urged people to use “critical thinking rather than simply parroting the talking points of certain individuals.”
Votes have gone both ways for IO. As of late May, 86.72% of votes on one IO research request were against it, and Hoskinson had warned that layoffs could follow if proposals failed. In June, IO said treasury funding for its work had been approved with 88% support. The Foundation abstained on several 2026 votes, saying it wanted “to avoid directing the outcome.”
The past few weeks brought several updates:
Cardano’s work is split among three founding entities. Input Output builds the protocol, the Cardano Foundation handles governance and standards, and EMURGO supports adoption and tooling. Intersect coordinates budgets and upgrades. Since 2025, funding requests have gone through on-chain votes, which has exposed disagreements among these groups and led to EMURGO’s exit from the Pentad.
