Overview
The Cardano Constitution is the rulebook for how Cardano's community makes big decisions about the network. It spells out who gets to vote, what they can vote on, and the limits that keep everyone playing fair. ADA holders can vote directly or pick someone to vote for them.
The Cardano Foundation publishes the text, and the community ratified it through on-chain voting. The Cardano Constitution puts three voting bodies in charge of every decision. DReps are people elected to vote on behalf of ADA holders. Stake pool operators are the people who run the computers that validate transactions. The Constitutional Committee is a small elected group that checks every proposed change against the rulebook1. Two of those three bodies must approve any change before it goes through2. The full text lives on a decentralized file storage network, so no single company controls the copy.
Key Features
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Three voting bodies, not one. DReps, stake pool operators, and the Constitutional Committee each get a say, with different approval levels for different types of votes1.
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Anyone can pick someone to vote for them. ADA holders can delegate to a DRep, register as one themselves, or vote directly on proposals2.
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Guardrails on what governance can change. A built-in set of limits protects the network from votes that would break security or sustainability. If the on-chain guardrails differ from the written ones, the on-chain version wins1.
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Seven kinds of votes. The Cardano Constitution covers things like network upgrades, tweaks to settings like fees, spending from the community treasury, and informational votes3.
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Open access for everyone. The full text sits on decentralized storage with version history. Anyone can verify the copy they are reading is the real one1.
What to Expect
The cardano.org/constitution page is a clean, easy-to-scan layout. You get the full text by article, a table showing every ratified version, and the guardrails appendix. The page reads in English, German, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Spanish.
If you want to do more than read, GovTool is where you actually pick a DRep, register as one, or submit a proposal. Intersect handles the wider governance infrastructure and posts updates about amendments and committee elections.
The Cardano Constitution is a reference document, not an app. It tells you the rules behind every governance vote on Cardano. Anyone exploring governance guides will find this is the document every other governance resource points back to4.
