Validators process transactions and receive fees from users (supply-side fees).

Cardano is a smart contract platform for decentralized applications (a blockchain). Cardano was founded by Charles Hoskinson & Jeremy Wood and launched in 2017.

ADA holders own and govern the protocol. They currently do not take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue).

governance

github

twitter

website

Blockchains (L1)

Cardano

# Cardano Treasury Methodology

## 1. Overview

Treasury measures the total value of the Cardano on-chain governance treasury. The financial resources controlled by the protocol to fund ecosystem development, reward contributors, and support growth initiatives are reflected in this metric. The balance of the native asset (ADA) held within the protocol's treasury pot is captured at the conclusion of each epoch and converted to USD.

## 2. Data sources

- **Blockchain events**: On-chain epoch state snapshots, covering Cardano
- **External data**: End-of-day price feeds for ADA

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Epoch state extraction

- **Purpose**: Capture the treasury balance from the Cardano network at the end of each epoch
- **Logic**: Treasury balances are extracted from on-chain state snapshots. Data is deduplicated by selecting the most recent record for each completed epoch to ensure accuracy. Balances are captured in lovelace and normalized to ADA by decimal precision.
- **Key fields**: `treasury_lovelace` (raw balance), `end_time` (epoch conclusion timestamp)

### Component B: Daily time series generation

- **Purpose**: Create a continuous daily time series from sparse epoch-based data
- **Logic**: Epoch-end timestamps are aligned to UTC day boundaries. Because the Cardano treasury pot is updated only at epoch boundaries (approximately every five days), values are forward-filled to create a continuous daily time series. The last known treasury balance is maintained for each day until a subsequent epoch concludes and a new balance is recorded.

### Component C: USD conversion and aggregation

- **Purpose**: Normalize the treasury value to USD for reporting
- **Logic**: Daily ADA balances are multiplied by end-of-day price feeds. This conversion ensures that the USD-denominated treasury value reflects daily market fluctuations even during periods when the underlying ADA balance remains constant between epoch transitions. Daily granularity is maintained using UTC day boundaries.

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Total value of a project's onchain treasury, including its native token.

CardanoADA

Treasury

Treasury

Competitive landscape