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blockfrost

Blockfrost

Decentralized data infrastructure that scales with Cardano.

The initiative details

The team behind the initiative

The opportunity

As Cardano scales with Leios, the cost of indexing the entire blockchain dataset will grow. At projected throughput levels, a single full-chain indexer could face terabytes of monthly growth and infrastructure costs that multiply year over year.

Blockfrost already serves approximately 90% of all free-tier API traffic on Cardano, making it the de facto data access layer for a significant portion of the ecosystem's builders and applications. The question is not whether this infrastructure matters. It is how to make it sustainable, decentralized, and ready for the scale that Leios will bring.

The Initiative

blockfrost

Blockfrost

This proposal has two components:

Project Cayley

A next-generation indexing architecture that introduces decentralized slice indexing. Instead of requiring every data provider to index the entire blockchain, Cayley empowers SPOs and node operators of all sizes to participate in data-serving infrastructure by indexing only the slices they need. Its modular, multi-chain architecture extends to Bitcoin and other ecosystems, positioning Cardano infrastructure as a unified data layer across blockchains.

Operational subsidy

Funding for the continued operation of Blockfrost's community free tier, which has been provided at no cost to developers since day one. This covers the engineering team required for 24/7 incident response, ongoing maintenance, developer support, and the underlying infrastructure costs needed to maintain a 99.9% uptime commitment.

Treasury ask: ₳7,916,667

Who is building

This initiative is delivered by the Blockfrost team.

"We have absorbed the cost of free-tier infrastructure for years because we believe open access to blockchain data is a public good. This proposal asks the treasury to share that responsibility, while we build the decentralized architecture that makes the question of 'who pays' irrelevant."
Beatrice AnihiriBlockfrost community manager
"What Cayley brings to IceBreakers is the ability to matter. Instead of every node looking the same and competing on uptime alone, we each get to run something tuned to real demand. That's good for operators, good for builders querying us, and good for the chain."
Ken-Erik ØlmheimNode Operator

Expected outcomes

  • Mandoline indexer with initial Cardano support shipped as an MVP release (Q2 2026).
  • GraphQL API layer exposing indexed Cardano data to consumers (Q3 2026).
  • Multi-chain extension to Bitcoin alongside Cardano (Q4 2026).
  • 99.9% uptime maintained for the community free tier throughout the delivery period.

Ecosystem Impact

Blockfrost directly supports MAU by keeping developer access to Cardano data free and frictionless. Project Cayley drives Reliability and Scalability by decentralizing data infrastructure and ensuring it can keep pace with L1 throughput increases under Leios.

The multi-chain architecture also supports Revenue/Adoption by positioning Cardano's data infrastructure as a cross-chain utility, attracting developers from outside the ecosystem.

Governance links

Formal treasury proposal

The on-chain submission, read the full proposal text and rationale.

View the formal proposal

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