Categories

1. Infrastructure Platform
   Recognizing the platforms and services that form the backbone of Cardano — from middleware to wallets and APIs. This award goes to projects that enable builders and make Cardano data easily accessible.

2. Impactful SPO
   Celebrating stake pool operators who go beyond block production and contribute to decentralization, education, social impact, or community development while maintaining operational excellence.
   

3. Impactful Native Asset
   Awarded to the token — fungible or non-fungible — that captured the community’s imagination and generated significant on-chain activity. A category to honor a meme coin, governance token, utility token, or NFT project that created both cultural and economic impact.
   

4. Developer & Tooling Excellence
   For projects and teams building developer frameworks, SDKs, libraries, and tools that make building on Cardano easier, faster, and more powerful. This category highlights the builders who empower other builders.
   

5. Governance Champion
   Recognizing individuals or teams who have advanced Cardano’s governance and championed decentralized decision-making, from CIP authors and creators of DRep tooling to Intersect contributors and Catalyst leaders.
   

6. Ambassadors & Education
   Celebrating ambassadors, educators and thought leaders who produce high-quality, accessible content that drives adoption and literacy in the Cardano ecosystem.
   

7. DEX
   Awarded to the decentralized exchange that led the way in liquidity, UX, innovation, and transaction volume on Cardano. This category celebrates protocols that make decentralized token trading accessible and efficient.
   

8. Lending Protocol
   Recognizing the lending and borrowing platforms that enable capital efficiency, unlock DeFi utility, and drive sustainable on-chain activity while also delivering safety.
   

9. Aggregator
   For platforms that unify liquidity, data, or services across Cardano DeFi, helping users find the best swaps, yields, or execution paths, and providing both efficiency and a great user experience.
   

10. Stablecoin
    Celebrating the stablecoin protocol or project that has driven adoption, liquidity, and real-world use cases on Cardano. This includes algorithmic, collateral-backed, and fiat-backed stablecoins.
    

11. Tools & Analytics
    Awarded to platforms providing data, dashboards, explorers, or monitoring tools that help users and developers make informed decisions. From DeFi dashboards to chain indexers, this category celebrates clarity and transparency.
    

12. Other dApps
    A wildcard category for impactful Cardano DApps outside DeFi, DEX, lending, or stablecoin categories. Includes applications such as gaming, metaverse, identity, or niche uses.

Shortlisting Selection Criteria

The Cardano Community is encouraged to nominate candidates for the Cardano Summit Awards. Nominees will be shortlisted based on the shortlisting selection criteria below, whereafter voting will open on Cardano Ballot for the Community to select the winners. Nominees will have to meet the category and shortlist selection category in order to be eligible to move forward.

• Innovation

• Case Study Applications & Adoption

• Community Involvement & Wider Collaboration

• Longevity

• Technical Excellence 

• Transparency & Ethics

Timeline