Tx3 by TxPipe: Open API Layer for Cardano's dApp Protocols
TxPipe
ID: 69fc5a8785ddd26899aaf208
This proposal requests 1,308,000 ADA (plus a 327,000 ADA contingency reserve) over 12 months to deliver an open, standardized interface across Cardano's leading on-chain protocols, so any developer or AI agent can discover, integrate, and compose them through a single consistent surface. Today, there is no common interface mechanism across the ecosystem. Every integrator is forced to relearn each protocol from scratch, and rebuild the same understanding independently. This raises the cost of every integration, locks users into official frontends that may not survive a downturn, and makes cross-protocol composability impractical. This problem is about to get worse. The next wave of on-chain activity will come from AI agents executing workflows autonomously — but blockchain is uniquely susceptible to AI slop: a hallucinated transaction on-chain can move real assets irreversibly. For Cardano to capture agent-driven activity, its protocols need to be discoverable, understandable, and executable by agents through a shared interface layer — one where agents express intents that users can audit before signing, while the underlying transactions remain deterministic. Tx3 is the framework that solves this. Each protocol is described once with a verified interface definition, from which the framework produces documentation, auto-generated SDKs in multiple languages, and live JSON-RPC endpoints. This proposal extends the framework with the agent layer: agent-first documentation, protocol skills packaging operations, and an MCP server that lets agents discover and call any published protocol directly. Through Catalyst Fund 14, TxPipe has already put the developer layer into production with 5 protocols live on [tx3.land](https://tx3.land/). This proposal funds 12 additional onboardings (3 per quarter) with full developer and agent coverage, and the development of the MCP server and skill framework as shared infrastructure for all protocols on [tx3.land](https://tx3.land/).
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). The auto-calculated band would have been Green, but coverage is below the threshold so the verdict is shown as Amber to flag that judgment criteria are still pending.
Vote intent
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{
"_meta": {
"schema_version": "1.2.0",
"filename": "hydra-tx3-txpipe-open-api-layer.json",
"ingested_at": "2026-05-11",
"source": "Cardano Budget Process 2026 - Hydra/Ekklesia",
"proposal_id": "69fc5a8785ddd26899aaf208",
"title": "Tx3 by TxPipe: Open API Layer for Cardano's dApp Protocols",
"proposer": "TxPipe"
},
"proposal": {
"id": "69fc5a8785ddd26899aaf208",
"title": "Tx3 by TxPipe: Open API Layer for Cardano's dApp Protocols",
"proposer": "TxPipe",
"submitted_at": "2026-05-08T01:10:00Z"
},
"ask": {
"total_ada": 1684050,
"total_usd": 421013,
"proposer_ada_rate_usd": 0.25,
"duration_months": 12,
"usd_peg_vs_market": "neutral",
"usd_peg_vs_market_set_by": "ai",
"milestone_payments_disclosed": true,
"milestone_schedule_disclosed": "amounts_only",
"milestone_schedule_disclosed_set_by": "ai",
"admin_fee_ada": 49050,
"contingency_reserve_ada": 327000
},
"identity": {
"doxxed": true,
"doxxed_set_by": "ai",
"applicant_type": "company",
"named_leads": [
"Santiago Carmuega (TxPipe founder, Tx3 lead architect)"
]
},
"metadata": {
"open_source": "yes",
"open_source_set_by": "ai",
"open_source_notes": "All TxPipe public repositories are Apache 2.0 licensed. Tx3 itself is open source.",
"has_prior_delivery": true,
"has_prior_delivery_set_by": "ai",
"prior_delivery_notes": "TxPipe delivered 30 Catalyst proposals (24 complete, 6 in progress on schedule). 2025 Intersect-administered open-source maintenance for Pallas, Dolos, UTxO RPC on schedule. Catalyst Fund 14 'API Layer for Cardano Protocols using Tx3' currently in final report milestone with 5 protocols live on tx3.land (Strike Finance, Indigo Protocol, VyFinance, Bodega Market, Fluid Tokens).",
"admin_model": "intersect",
"admin_model_set_by": "ai",
"duplicate_of_existing_solution": {
"value": "no",
"confidence": "high",
"set_by": "ai"
}
},
"treasury_return": {
"has_return_clause": true,
"return_clause_set_by": "ai",
"treasury_favourability": "moderate",
"treasury_favourability_set_by": "ai",
"return_mechanism_notes": "Contingency reserve of 327,000 ADA calculated against $0.20 low-bound rate. Unused contingency returned at project close, evaluated milestone-by-milestone against $0.25 proposal rate vs actual market price."
},
"relationships": {
"competes_with": [],
"related_proposals": [
"hydra-govexe-traceability-public-projects-argentina"
],
"notes": "Same proposer (TxPipe) as GOV.EXE proposal in same budget round; scopes are distinct (this is dApp interface tooling; GOV.EXE is govtech pilot)."
},
"ecosystem_demand": {
"evidence_level": "moderate",
"evidence_level_confidence": "medium",
"evidence_level_set_by": "ai",
"active_users_known": true,
"active_users_examples": [
{
"name": "Strike Finance",
"kind": "integrator",
"url": null
},
{
"name": "Indigo Protocol",
"kind": "integrator",
"url": null
},
{
"name": "VyFinance",
"kind": "integrator",
"url": null
},
{
"name": "Bodega Market",
"kind": "integrator",
"url": null
},
{
"name": "Fluid Tokens",
"kind": "integrator",
"url": null
}
],
"developer_demand_signals": [
"Catalyst Fund 14 already shipped 5 protocols live on tx3.land",
"GitHub stars: Tx3 (68), Pallas (199), Oura (288), Dolos (129)",
"Pallas used as a dependency by Aiken, Lucid, Mithril, Amaru"
],
"adoption_risk_notes": "Five named integrators are already live from Catalyst Fund 14 work, which is real adoption evidence — though this is integrator-side, not end-user demand. The 12 additional onboardings proposed are not pre-committed by named protocols; selection is supply-side ('TVL, active users, ecosystem footprint'). The agent/MCP layer is speculative — relies on the AI-agent thesis playing out. The 'tx3.land becomes the standard interface' positioning has no committed adopters beyond the existing 5; competing approaches (e.g. direct protocol SDKs, Mesh, Lucid) exist but are not framed as competitors in the proposal."
},
"incumbents": {
"has_existing_solution": "partial",
"has_existing_solution_confidence": "medium",
"has_existing_solution_set_by": "ai",
"existing_solutions": [
{
"name": "Mesh SDK",
"url": null,
"status": "shipped",
"overlap": "partial",
"notes": "Existing Cardano SDK approach with broad adoption; offers transaction-building primitives in TypeScript. Tx3 differentiates by being a DSL-based interface layer per protocol with multi-language codegen, not a single-language SDK."
},
{
"name": "Lucid / Lucid Evolution",
"url": null,
"status": "shipped",
"overlap": "partial",
"notes": "Existing TypeScript transaction-building library; serves overlapping developer need though at a lower abstraction layer than per-protocol RPC interfaces."
},
{
"name": "Per-protocol official SDKs",
"url": null,
"status": "shipped",
"overlap": "partial",
"notes": "Most major Cardano dApps (Minswap, Indigo, etc) ship their own integration libraries. Tx3 aims to standardise across these rather than replace them."
}
],
"differentiation_claim": "Tx3 positions itself as a protocol-agnostic interface layer with verified Tx3 definitions, auto-generated SDKs in 6 languages, MCP tools for AI agents, and Skills bundles — a different abstraction layer than transaction-building libraries. The agent-first positioning (MCP, plugins for Cursor/Codex/Claude Code/OpenCode) is genuinely novel in the Cardano context.",
"differentiation_credibility": "high"
},
"risk_flags": {
"aggressive_peg": false,
"self_administered_no_oversight": false,
"incumbent_already_delivering": false,
"no_evidence_of_demand": false,
"competes_with_in_batch": false,
"concentration_risk": false
},
"notes": {
"ai_review_notes": "Strong proposer (TxPipe is established Cardano infra). Catalyst Fund 14 baseline (5 protocols live) is real evidence the approach works. Concise budget (1.68M ADA total) relative to scope. Risks: (1) the agent-readiness thesis is bet-the-roadmap — if AI-agent on-chain activity doesn't materialise as predicted, the MCP/Skills work is lower-value than pitched; (2) protocol onboarding requires cooperation from the dApps themselves; proposal lists 12 onboardings as Q1-Q4 deliverables without naming specific protocols, so there is execution risk on selection; (3) the public TRP infrastructure becomes a TxPipe-operated dependency, which is a mild concentration concern though mitigated by the open-source self-hostable design. Third-party assurance via Blink Labs is in place. Overall a credible follow-on to Fund 14 work."
},
"id": "hydra-tx3-txpipe-open-api-layer",
"source": {
"hydra_id": "69fc5a8785ddd26899aaf208",
"channels": [
"hydra"
]
}
}