Overview
DAVEgov Top Spenders is a free leaderboard that shows which DReps voted to approve the most ADA in treasury withdrawals. DReps, or delegated representatives, are people and groups that ADA holders hand their governance votes to, a bit like choosing a proxy to vote on your behalf. For the 50 DReps with the most voting power, the page lets a holder see how readily the representative they picked says yes to spending from the network's shared treasury1.
The leaderboard is one page of DAVEgov, a Cardano governance analytics site built by the operator of the DAVE stake pool1, who is also a DRep2 and launched the leaderboard in May 2026 "purely for awareness"3. It measures each DRep's votes against the Net Change Limit, a cap set under Cardano's constitution on how much ADA the treasury can pay out over a defined period4. Intersect's budget committee describes that cap as a fiscal guardrail, not a spending target5. The Cardano Foundation lists DAVEgov among the governance projects on its voting tool, describing it as data analysis and visualization focused on DRep activity6.
Key Features
- Two spending totals on each entry. Prepared spend adds up every treasury withdrawal a DRep voted yes on, whether or not it passed, while ratified spend counts only proposals that were approved and count against the Net Change Limit1.
- Choose which number sets the ranking. A toggle switches the list between prepared and ratified spend, and the other figure stays visible on each entry so the two can be compared side by side1.
- Spending broken out by budget period. A year selector moves between Net Change Limit periods, including the 2025 period that ran from April 11, 2025 to February 8, 20267.
- See what has left the treasury. A "withdrawn so far" figure shows the approved amount already paid out, separate from funds still waiting for release or for milestone-based payments1.
- Method explained on the page. A "How this leaderboard is built" section explains why resubmitted proposals can be counted twice in prepared spend and names known cases, such as Project Pebble resubmitted as Gerolamo1.
What to Expect
The page opens on a heading about Cardano's biggest DRep yes-voters on treasury withdrawals, a note on which budget period is shown and a year selector, followed by a "How this leaderboard is built" section. The leaderboard covers the 50 DReps with the most voting power, since a DRep with no voting power cannot change whether a proposal passes1.
ADA holders whose DRep is on the list can use the page to check whether that DRep tends to back large treasury requests. From the main DAVEgov site, anyone can search for a DRep by on-chain name or ID, or connect a wallet to jump straight to their own DRep8,9. Each DRep page works like a DRep explorer, listing the treasury withdrawals that DRep voted yes on, how often they vote, and how often they posted a written reason for a vote10. DAVEgov states that it is "Read-only" and that it never requests signing or spending permissions8.
Researchers and builders get the method in the open. The figures come from Koios, a public data service for Cardano, and Ogmios, a bridge that lets software read data from a Cardano node1,11,12. The leaderboard also names a public API endpoint, a web address other software can query, with a setting to widen the list beyond 50 DReps1. Readers who spot another resubmitted proposal that skews the totals are invited to report it1.
