MLabs: Open-Sourcing FeesaSwap as Live Fee Abstraction Infrastructure on Cardano
MLabs LTD
ID: 69f8b983e8a58900f4a05a06
Cardano’s 2030 vision is to make it the most secure, reliable, and censorship-resistant blockchain for mission-critical applications that can power the economies and societies of today and tomorrow. A practical barrier to that goal is that every Cardano transaction still requires ADA for fees. For users whose first touchpoint is a stablecoin, bridged asset, game token, RWA token, or other native asset, needing to acquire ADA first creates onboarding friction, exchange/KYC detours, failed transactions, and lost conversions. FeesaSwap is MLabs’ live Cardano mainnet fee-abstraction infrastructure (https://www.feesaswap.io/). It enables users to pay transaction fees in supported non-ADA tokens while ADA and collateral are sourced behind the scenes. This proposal will open-source the FeesaSwap IP while hardening the protocol backend so that Cardano wallets, dApps, auditors, infrastructure providers, and builders can inspect, integrate, reuse, and extend a working implementation of ADA-less transaction infrastructure. The proposal will make FeesaSwap’s relevant smart contract, off-chain, documentation, and integration components publicly available under an open-source license, while improving the reliability and usability needed for broader ecosystem adoption. The outcome is not merely a standalone product, but reusable public infrastructure for Cardano fee abstraction. This proposal directly supports Cardano’s 2030 strategy by addressing several top-level KPIs, including monthly transactions, monthly active users, and annual protocol revenue. Namely, it accomplishes this by reducing friction for monthly active users, increasing the likelihood of successful submitted transactions, improving DeFi and payments UX, and helping make Cardano usage more “invisible” for end users. Open-sourcing FeesaSwap also strengthens developer experience by giving the ecosystem a transparent, production-informed reference implementation for supported-token fee payments.
Scorecard
How this score works
Each criterion is worth between 1 and 4 points. The score is the points earned out of the points on criteria that have been answered — shown as a percentage. Green is 75% or higher, Amber is 50–74%, and Red is below 50%.
Some criteria are checked automatically against the proposal data (open source, doxxed team, treasury return clauses, etc.). Others are human-judgment calls — value for money, public good, whether the deliverables are realistic. Those stay blank until a DRep ticks them.
Criteria can also be marked Not applicablewhen they don't fit the proposal — for example, "open source" doesn't apply to a DAO governance proposal with no software output. Those are excluded from the score entirely, neither helping nor hurting.
Green requires 80% coverage. If less than 80% of the applicable criteria (by points) have been answered, the verdict stays at Amber — "pending review" — even when every answered criterion passes. This proposal's coverage is currently 68% (13 of 19 applicable criteria answered).
Vote intent
Export & audit
↓ Download scorecard.mdRaw payload · Treasury (false) / Admin (intersect)
{
"_meta": {
"schema_version": "1.2.0",
"proposal_id": "69f8b983e8a58900f4a05a06",
"proposal_title": "MLabs: Open-Sourcing FeesaSwap as Live Fee Abstraction Infrastructure on Cardano",
"proposer": "MLabs LTD",
"filename": "hydra-mlabs-feesaswap-open-source.json",
"processed_date": "2026-05-11",
"title": "MLabs: Open-Sourcing FeesaSwap as Live Fee Abstraction Infrastructure on Cardano"
},
"ask": {
"ada_amount": 686660,
"usd_amount": 123599,
"ada_usd_rate_assumed": 0.18,
"usd_peg_vs_market": "conservative",
"duration_months": 12,
"milestone_payments_disclosed": true,
"milestone_schedule_disclosed": "amounts_only",
"milestone_notes": "6 milestones with explicit deliverables and acceptance criteria; durations in weeks (4-6 each). Per-milestone ADA amounts not broken out — single line item of 666,660 ADA for engineering hours."
},
"identity": {
"doxxed": true,
"doxxed_notes": "MLabs LTD is a registered company with extensive public Cardano dev track record (Plutarch, CTL, cardano.nix, YTxP, etc.)."
},
"metadata": {
"open_source": "yes",
"has_prior_delivery": true,
"prior_delivery_notes": "FeesaSwap is live on Cardano mainnet with CertiK audit completed. MLabs has delivered prior Catalyst proposals (FeesaSwap Fund 12 #1200157 100K ADA, Fund 13 #1300142 499,693 ADA) and 2025 treasury commitments on track.",
"admin_model": "intersect",
"admin_notes": "Intersect administers with 3% fee (20,000 ADA); MLabs has suggested independent reviewers but final selection by Intersect.",
"duplicate_of_existing_solution": {
"value": "no",
"confidence": "high",
"set_by": "ai"
}
},
"treasury_return": {
"has_return_clause": false,
"treasury_favourability": "weak",
"return_notes": "Proposer answered 'No' on returning unused funds to Treasury."
},
"relationships": {
"competes_with": []
},
"ecosystem_demand": {
"evidence_level": "weak",
"evidence_level_confidence": "medium",
"evidence_level_set_by": "ai",
"active_users_known": false,
"active_users_examples": [],
"developer_demand_signals": [
"FeesaSwap is already live on mainnet — production usage data not cited in proposal",
"Fee abstraction is recognized UX pattern in other ecosystems (paymasters, gas abstraction)",
"Cardano 2030 strategy A.2 'Invisible technology' identifies fee abstraction as adoption lever"
],
"adoption_risk_notes": "Proposal asserts wallets/dApps would benefit from open-source fee abstraction but does not name committed integrators. No wallet or dApp partnership letters cited. Mainnet usage volume/active users for live FeesaSwap product not disclosed. Demand for the OSS release specifically (vs the live proprietary product) is asserted but not evidenced with integrator commitments."
},
"incumbents": {
"has_existing_solution": "no",
"has_existing_solution_confidence": "medium",
"has_existing_solution_set_by": "ai",
"existing_solutions": [
{
"name": "FeesaSwap (proprietary, MLabs)",
"url": "https://www.feesaswap.io/",
"status": "shipped",
"overlap": "full",
"notes": "The existing solution IS the proposer's own product — proposal is to open-source it. No competing Cardano fee-abstraction infrastructure cited."
}
],
"differentiation_claim": "Open-sourcing and hardening the live MLabs-built FeesaSwap product; making it available as reusable public infrastructure under open-source license.",
"differentiation_credibility": "high"
},
"risk_flags": {
"aggressive_peg": false,
"self_administered_no_oversight": false,
"incumbent_already_delivering": false,
"no_evidence_of_demand": true,
"competes_with_in_batch": false,
"concentration_risk": false
},
"id": "hydra-mlabs-feesaswap-open-source",
"source": {
"hydra_id": "69f8b983e8a58900f4a05a06",
"channels": [
"hydra"
]
}
}