Cardano Open: Developers

Funds open source tools and environments to enhance the Cardano developer experience. Apply to create impactful, community-driven open source solutions!

Budget Constraints

Total Budget: ₳3,100,000 available

Proposal Range: from ₳15K to ₳100K

Overview

Cardano Open: Developers will fund devs, programmers, and engineers creating or contributing to open source technologies that strengthen the Cardano developer ecosystem. We believe in open source software, hardware, and data solutions driving transparency, security, and collaboration for the good of the network.

The goal is to streamline integrated development environments, boost coding efficiency, and simplify the developer experience on Cardano. Learn more about open source at opensource.org.

Category Requirements

Do

• Open source licensing of project outputs is required

• Clear statement of your open source license

• Open source outputs from project start

• Provide high quality documentation

Don’t

• No proprietary materials (including software or hardware)

• No projects that are non-technical

• No info-only websites and content

• Forget to be open, public, and available on Day 1

Who should apply?

This category is for software developers, blockchain engineers, data architects, and open source contributors eager to build O/S tools, libraries, or environments that improve the Cardano developer ecosystem.

The scope is wide open for creating smart contract debugging tools, crafting SDKs support new languages, or DevOps specialists designing interoperability CLIs. If your proposal focuses on non-technical initiatives like education or marketing, apply to Cardano Open: Ecosystem instead.

Areas of interest

Proposals may focus on open source technical solutions, for example:

• Standardizing, developing, or supporting full-stack solutions and integrated development environments e.g. new language and code extension support for Plutus debugging.

• Creating libraries, SDKs, APIs, toolchains, or frameworks e.g., new SDKs for Cardano privacy preserving smart contracts.

• Developing governance and blockchain interoperability tooling e.g. a CLI tool for cross-chain transaction validation

Proposal Guidance

• Proposals must be source-available from day one with a declared open source repository e.g. GitHub, GitLab.

• Select an OSI-approved open source license e.g. MIT, Apache 2.0, GPLv3) that permits the community to freely copy, inspect, and modify the project’s output. Visit choosealicense.com for guidance.

• Ensure thorough documentation is available from day one and updated regularly.

• Describe how the project will benefit the Cardano developer community and foster collaboration e.g. through tutorials, webinars, or forum posts.

• Proposals must have a delivery timeline of no more than 12 months.

Eligibility Criteria

The following will not be funded:

• Proposals not primarily developing new technology or contributing to existing open source technology e.g. learning guides for Plutus or Aiken, these would belong in the Cardano Open: Ecosystem category.

• Proposals producing proprietary software/hardware or open sourcing only a portion of the codebase.

• Proposals lacking an OSI-approved open source license, public repository, or high-quality documentation from day one.

• Proposals not directly enhancing the Cardano developer experience e.g. general blockchain tools without Cardano-specific integration.

You may submit your proposal in this category via Catalyst App during submission window.