Cardano's delegated representatives let a 12.29 million ADA funding request from Input Output expire without ratification, rejecting a Bitcoin DeFi product called Pogun. Charles Hoskinson responded by saying Input Output will place future products wherever technical and commercial fit is strongest, rather than automatically prioritizing Cardano.
Delegated representatives voted 35.67% in favor and 64.33% against the Pogun governance action. As a result, the request for 12.29 million ADA expired without ratification or enactment. Cardano's Constitutional Committee had already reviewed the same proposal separately and recorded seven yes votes, equal to 100% committee approval. The two outcomes are compatible: the committee backed the proposal, but DReps, who vote with authority assigned by ADA holders, controlled whether the treasury withdrawal could advance.
What Pogun offered Cardano
Pogun is an Input Output-backed credit and liquidity product built to bring Bitcoin into decentralized finance. Its proposal offered Cardano a share of the business in exchange for development funding. According to Input Output's April 2026 overview, Pogun would have returned 20% of earnings to the Cardano treasury until the initial funding was repaid, followed by a perpetual 5% return on Cardano-related products. Repayment was tied to $2.95 million. DReps avoided exposing the treasury to a venture whose revenue and adoption were uncertain, and they also declined its defined upside.
Hoskinson drops the Cardano-first policy
In his Sept. 18, 2026 broadcast, Hoskinson said Input Output will choose the best network for each product instead of following a Cardano-first-and-forever policy. He still described Cardano as the strongest technical choice for Bitcoin DeFi connecting systems that use Bitcoin-like transaction outputs. He also said RealFi would launch on Cardano in October 2026 and Pogun would arrive within 90 days of the broadcast, or by roughly mid-December, though the stated dates remain forward-looking targets.
Hoskinson said the unfunded product will not be exclusive to Cardano, that traffic may be routed to other networks and that another ecosystem could receive exclusivity in exchange for support. However, the on-chain Pogun proposal reviewed for the vote contains the funding request, repayment structure and perpetual return, but it omits an explicit exclusivity covenant. Input Output's product-by-product approach also predates the vote: Midnight City V2, an agent-based application tied to the Midnight ecosystem, was already documented on Midnight in July 2026.
Cardano's governance institutions retained control over treasury spending, while Input Output retained control over its commercial choices. If Cardano remains Pogun's main venue, the rejected revenue agreement may matter more than Hoskinson's exclusivity warning; if activity migrates elsewhere, the network's budget discipline will carry a larger opportunity cost.
Source: CryptoSlate
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