Beyond MVG Project: Milestone 2 data release and progress update

The Beyond MVG team submits Milestone 2, sharing Cardano governance datasets and visualizations.

Author: The Beyond MVG team

Summary:

• The Beyond MVG team has successfully submitted Milestone 2: Collect and Aggregate Governance Insights to Intersect.

• We are releasing all gathered non-sensitive data, including survey aggregates, workshop summaries, and a one-year on-chain data analysis.

• This milestone reinforces our collaborative data narrative, bridging human feedback with technical blockchain evidence.

The full Milestone 2 submission can be tracked via the Intersect Treasury Contract dashboard.

Gathered data and public assets

The Beyond Minimum Viable Governance (MVG) project is about developing a framework for measuring governance, taking the first measurement, analyzing and interpreting the data, and developing recommendations to improve governance. The project team has gathered on-chain data and community sentiment. The following non-sensitive datasets are publicly available:

• Aggregated Survey Data (CSV/Web): High-level results from over 25 DReps, 10 SPOs, and other key stakeholders.

• On-Chain Visualizations: Charts and brief observations detailing Cardano's on-chain governance trends and behaviors from Epoch 537 to 609.

Data privacy and withheld information

While the project is committed to open-sourcing its work, the protection of our participants' privacy is paramount. Raw recorded interview data and full transcripts will not be published to ensure that community leaders can provide candid feedback without the risk of personal or professional exposure.

The data narrative

Data was gathered for 1 year following governance features going live (epochs 537 - 609). The findings capture a unique ‘startup period’ when all governance roles were new, capturing the process of a maturing ecosystem ultimately characterized by steadily expanding participation and high trust from those engaged. Cardano's governance model shows early signs of holding a broader voting power distribution when benchmarked against other large DAOs. The data also shows a slowly rising voting power inequality, reinforced as one of the top community concerns alongside continued challenges to participation and negative impacts from uncompensated DReps and Constitutional Committee members.

Key data points:

• Maturing Participation: We observed a 190% surge in unique stake addresses delegating to DReps.

• High System Trust: Sentiment for ‘No Confidence’ remains extremely low at <1%.

• Distributed Power: Cardano's Gini coefficient is 0.93, showing broader voting power distribution than other large DAOs (averaging 0.97). A Gini coefficient of 0 means perfect equality - all voters have the same power, and a coefficient of 1 means perfect inequality, where only one DRep holds all the power. A Gini coefficient as low as 0.8 is not usually seen in the industry.

• Rising Concerns: Early trends reinforce community concerns about DRep power inequality. The number of DReps needed to pass a vote has declined.

• Barriers to Participation: Beyond power concentration, the most dominant themes from open-ended survey, interview, and workshop responses highlight negative impacts from information fragmentation, unclear communication, and uncompensated DReps and Constitutional Committee (CC) members.

By merging these human stories with data from the Cardano ledger, we ensure the findings and future recommendations are grounded in both community concerns and objective reality. 

Timeline of activities: project roadmap - current status

• Milestone 1: Establish Foundation — COMPLETE

• Milestone 2: Collect & Aggregate Insights — SUBMITTED.

  • Community Workshops: Held a series of high-engagement sessions on Jan 27, 29, 31, and Feb 18, 2026, to capture community experiences.

  • On-Chain Correlation: Gathered data for all governance framework metrics over a one-year period to validate anecdotal feedback and identify additional trends.

  • Available Evidence:

• Community Sentiment Data: Summary of Workshops, Survey and Interview data.

• On-Chain Data Visuals: M3- On Chain Visuals Epoch 537 - 609.

• Updated Framework Documents: State of Governance Measurement Framework and Governance Metrics Manual.

• Updated Report Outline: State of Governance Report Outline.

• Milestone 3: Analyze Data & Identify Priorities — IN PROGRESS.

  • Immediate Focus: The team is currently drafting the first version of the "State of Governance" report, which will inform final recommendations for improving Cardano's governance.

  • Action-Oriented Transition: Following the draft, the work will transition into guiding practical improvements, such as designing better governance tooling, refining processes, or developing new proposals based on the gathered data.

• Milestone 4: Develop Actionable Recommendations — UPCOMING

  • Looking Ahead: The team will host collaborative workshops in April 2026 to discuss and refine top recommendations for improving Cardano’s governance based on the Milestone 3 analysis.

Get involved

We’ve made the project’s progress open and accessible to the Cardano community. You can engage with or contribute to the project in several ways:

• Explore and review: Access all published materials, including our research frameworks and the updated report outline.

• Participate directly: Respond to active surveys, join upcoming workshops, or catch up on findings from previous sessions.

• Follow our progress: Stay up to date as new outputs and data analyses are published throughout the project lifecycle.

All relevant links, documents, and participation forms are available in one central location, here.

Disclaimer: Project timelines and deliverables are subject to change based on community feedback and technical feasibility.