Overview
Intersect is a membership organization that coordinates the work of keeping Cardano running: maintaining the core software, agreeing what gets built next, and administering how the network's shared funds are spent1. Anyone can join at a free level, and paying members get a vote on those decisions2. Intersect describes itself as an aggregation and coordination point, giving the many companies and individuals who work on Cardano one place to settle priorities3.
The organization is incorporated in Wyoming as a mutual benefit nonprofit, a legal form built around its members, and its governing board is occupied and administered by those members on a one-member-one-vote basis3. Intersect also hosts the public code repository behind cardano-node, the core software a machine runs to take part in the Cardano network4.
Key Features
- A free way in, and a paid way to vote. Joining at the free Associate level opens working groups, town halls, and the open-source repositories. Paid levels add voting rights at the annual member meeting, full committee participation, and eligibility to apply for grants2.
- Committees that shape what gets proposed. Intersect's standing committees cover the technical roadmap, the annual budget, and support for Cardano's governance bodies, and they evaluate community-prepared proposals such as parameter updates and hard forks, the coordinated network-wide upgrades that change how Cardano runs5.
- Somewhere to cast a governance vote. GovTool is an open-source tool, owned and maintained by the Cardano community through Intersect, where ADA holders read governance actions, hand their voting power to a delegated representative (DRep), register to vote directly, or submit a proposal on-chain6.
- Community custody of the core code. Intersect stewards the public repositories for Cardano's node software, the Ouroboros networking and consensus layers, and Plutus, the toolkit for writing Cardano smart contracts7.
- Contracts and reporting for treasury-funded work. When the Cardano treasury awards funding to a vendor, Intersect's administration service manages the vendor contract and keeps the reporting transparent to the wider community8.
What to Expect
The site is written for two different visitors. If you are weighing up joining, the membership, committees, and grants pages set out what each level gets you and what committees exist25. If you came to understand Cardano's governance rather than Intersect itself, the governance section is an explainer aimed at newcomers, walking through the four roles that decide things on-chain: ADA holders, delegated representatives, stake pool operators, and the Constitutional Committee9.
Deeper material sits on a separate knowledge base covering membership, how Intersect's voting events work, budget administration, and the bylaws10. A news feed on the main site carries updates from committees and working groups.
Developers have the most to dig into. The IntersectMBO organization on GitHub holds the repositories the network actually runs on, including the node software itself, with its issue tracker open to the public4. Reading the code and filing an issue take no membership at all. Voting on what happens to it next is what a paid membership adds2.
