PRISMA — Original Proposal

Prisma_Cardano_Proposal.pdf

**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

PRISMA

Distributed evidence-generation network

Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee

Product Research Initiatives — Research Grant

Evidence-Based Regional Entry Playbooks for Cardano

Identifying High-Probability Adoption Pathways Across Emerging-Market Ecosystems

A multi-region investigation of use cases, counterparties, infrastructure prerequisites, and adoption signals across emerging-market ecosystems, designed to convert distributed field evidence into decision-ready regional entry strategy.

Tender Cardano Product Committee / Intersect — Product Research Initiatives

Primary RFP RFP 05 — Government and Emerging Markets Entry Strategy (core)

Supporting RFPs RFP 02 — Use Case Landscape and Competitive Positioning (supporting lens); RFP 01 — Customer Segmentation and Profiling (supporting lens)

Submission type Combined submission — RFP 05 primary, RFP 02 and RFP 01 supporting

Proposer Prisma Collective

Primary contact - Email Tobias Fechner — tabs@prisma.events

Date 3 June 2026

Overall Budget ADA 58,000 (Core Scope)

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

1. Cover Letter

3 June 2026

To: Cardano Product Committee

Intersect MBO

product-committee@intersectmbo.org

Dear Members of the Cardano Product Committee,

**PRISMA **submits this proposal in response to the Cardano Product Committee's Research Grant for RFP 05 (Government and Emerging Markets Entry Strategy), with supporting components addressing RFP 01 (Customer Segmentation and Profiling) and RFP 02 (Use Case Landscape and Competitive Positioning). RFP 05 constitutes the primary scope of this submission. RFP 01 and RFP 02 elements are included only where they are directly necessary to inform and complete the RFP 05 decision gates.

PRISMA is a distributed action-learning and field-evidence organisation with existing network relationships, hub partnerships, and operational presence across sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Our core capability is the generation of decision-grade evidence from real-world ecosystems, through Action Learning Journeys, case-study infrastructure, hub-network facilitation, and structured stakeholder engagement.

The central argument of this proposal is that Cardano's government and emerging-market entry challenge is not primarily a geography problem. It is an evidence problem. The ecosystem currently lacks a structured, reproducible method for identifying which regional configurations create credible adoption pathways, what conditions must exist before resources are deployed, and how to distinguish genuine adoption signal from cosmetic engagement.

PRISMA is positioned to address that evidence gap. Through regional screening, primary stakeholder research, regulatory landscape mapping, infrastructure prerequisite assessment, and adoption signal analysis, we will produce decision-ready regional entry playbooks enabling Cardano stakeholders to make evidence-based decisions about where to act, when to act, and under what conditions.

Our involvement in the Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026 (CATS26) alongside Wada — a multi-country hackathon and summit process involving hubs across five African nations, culminating in Nairobi, Kenya — demonstrates active, operational engagement with the Cardano ecosystem at the grassroots level. This relationship, and the broader hub network it represents, provides direct access to the kinds of implementation-level actors and regional intelligence that desk research cannot replicate.

PRISMA proposes a research budget of ADA 58,000 for the core scope, with an optional stretch scope priced separately at ADA 12,000. We believe this represents strong cost efficiency relative to the evidence value delivered, particularly given our existing network access, which substantially reduces the overhead cost of primary research recruitment.

We confirm that the attached document includes all information required under Appendix A of the RFP 05 details, including our methodology, decision gate mapping, regional scope plan, use-case assessment plan, stakeholder access plan, regulatory mapping plan, infrastructure prerequisite plan, adoption signal plan, workplan, timeline, team qualifications, relevant experience, data sources, risk and bias mitigation

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

plan, confidentiality and data handling approach, ethics approach, budget breakdown, and conflicts declaration.

We confirm that we have no actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest beyond those declared in Section 23 of this document.

Respectfully submitted,

Tobias Fechner**- Infrastructure Lead **

PRISMA

www.prisma.events | docs.prisma.events

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

2. Executive Summary

The Cardano Product Committee has identified government and emerging-market entry as one of the most strategically significant — and most under-evidenced — areas in the current portfolio. This proposal addresses that gap.

Cardano's challenge is not simply to identify promising emerging markets. The deeper problem is to establish a repeatable system for discovering, validating, prioritising, and operationalising high-probability adoption opportunities across diverse regional ecosystems. Broad geographic labels such as Africa, Latin America, or East Asia offer limited decision guidance. Adoption opportunities emerge not from geography alone, but from the intersection of stakeholder demand, institutional readiness, regulatory conditions, delivery capacity, infrastructure availability, and local ecosystem dynamics.

This research will produce evidence-based regional entry playbooks for Cardano — decision tools designed to enable the Product Committee and ecosystem stakeholders to distinguish actionable opportunities from cosmetic engagement, prioritise regions based on transparent criteria, and identify the conditions that must be satisfied before ecosystem resources are deployed.

Research Framing

The research is framed around a single master question:

***Which regional ecosystem configurations create the highest-probability pathway for ***

***sustained Cardano adoption, and what evidence thresholds must be satisfied before ***

ecosystem resources are deployed?

This framing deliberately shifts from "which countries should Cardano enter" — a question that typically generates country lists rather than decisions — to "how does Cardano build a structured, evidence-based capability for regional ecosystem development." The distinction is material: the former produces descriptive reports; the latter produces a repeatable intelligence system.

Scope Architecture

The proposal addresses three RFPs with a clear hierarchy of scope:

•​ Primary — RFP 05 (Government and Emerging Markets Entry Strategy): Regional opportunity screening, entry playbooks, regulatory mapping, counterparty intelligence, infrastructure prerequisite assessment, and adoption signal framework. Approximately 70% of research effort. •​ Supporting — RFP 02 (Use Case Landscape): Use-case viability assessment by region, including problem-solution fit, competitive alternatives, and adoption pathway feasibility. Approximately 20% of research effort. •​ Supporting — RFP 01 (Customer Segmentation): Stakeholder segmentation and partner/user archetype analysis where necessary to define counterparty pathways. Approximately 10% of research effort.

Core Frameworks

The research introduces two proprietary analytical frameworks:

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

Regional Adoption Readiness Framework (RARF): A ten-dimension scoring model for comparing candidate regional ecosystem clusters across problem severity, use-case fit, counterparty accessibility, regulatory readiness, infrastructure readiness, stablecoin and settlement readiness, delivery capacity, ecosystem presence, adoption signal strength, and time-to-pilot feasibility. The RARF produces a transparent, auditable prioritisation matrix rather than a narrative ranking.

Cardano Adoption Signal Standard (CASS): A four-tier classification of adoption signals — from verified adoption through strong signals, moderate signals, and weak signals — designed to prevent ecosystem resources from being allocated against cosmetic engagement. CASS directly addresses one of the CPC's explicit concerns: the risk of confusing event attendance, letters of intent, or conference participation with genuine adoption momentum.

Why PRISMA

PRISMA's competitive advantage in this research is not analytical capability alone — it is operational access. PRISMA has existing hub network relationships across sub-Saharan Africa, including direct co-facilitation of the Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026 (CATS26) alongside Wada, which engaged hubs in at least five African nations through a multi-month action-learning process. PRISMA's hub relationships in Accra (Ghana), Nairobi (Kenya), and across the broader sub-Saharan Africa network provide access to the kinds of grassroots practitioners, local implementation actors, and institutional intermediaries that determine whether regional entry opportunities are real or aspirational.

This access reduces the primary research recruitment cost substantially and enables the research to generate evidence from actors that conventional desk-research or remote interviews cannot reach.

Budget and Timeline

The proposed core budget is ADA 58,000. At the current approximate ADA exchange rate, this represents approximately USD 13,300. The budget is lean by design: PRISMA's existing network infrastructure eliminates much of the overhead typically associated with field-access in emerging markets. An optional stretch scope — covering deeper country-level diligence, local-language primary research, and pilot design templates for top-ranked plays — is available for an additional ADA 12,000, priced separately.

The proposed project timeline is 18 weeks from kickoff, structured across six phases: Inception and Research Design, Regional Screening and Desk Research, Primary Research and Field Access, Analysis and Synthesis, Drafting and Review, and Final Delivery.

Expected Outcomes

The Cardano Product Committee and ecosystem stakeholders will receive: a market prioritisation matrix covering at least eight candidate regional clusters; entry playbooks for at least three priority regions; regulatory landscape summaries per priority region; a counterparty and partner access map; an infrastructure prerequisite assessment; the Regional Adoption Readiness Framework and Cardano Adoption Signal Standard as reusable decision tools; a research-to-action roadmap with go/conditional-go/no-go recommendations; and a cross-RFP handoff memo routing relevant findings to adjacent research workstreams.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

3. Understanding of the Brief

3.1 The Decision Problem

The RFP does not ask for a market survey. It asks for a decision architecture. The evidence gap the CPC identifies is not simply that Cardano lacks information about emerging markets — it is that Cardano stakeholders cannot currently distinguish between regional opportunities that warrant action and those that merely appear promising. Without that distinction, ecosystem resources risk flowing toward geographic narratives rather than viable entry plays.

The RFP is explicit about this concern. It warns against treating "LATAM," "Africa," or "East Asia" as coherent markets, against confusing event attendance or letters of intent with adoption signal, and against producing regional recommendations that cannot be connected to reachable counterparties, realistic regulatory pathways, and available delivery capacity. Every one of these failure modes reflects the same underlying problem: evidence that was descriptive rather than decision-grade.

This proposal is designed to produce decision-grade evidence.

3.2 The Eight Decision Gates

The RFP defines eight explicit decision gates that the research must answer. Each gate corresponds to a specific question that Cardano stakeholders need to resolve before committing resources to a regional opportunity. The research design in this proposal is built around those gates, not around a pre-selected country list or a predetermined conclusion.

The eight gates, in summary, are:

•​ Which regions should be prioritised for near-term government and emerging-market entry, based on comparative evidence rather than strategic narrative? •​ Which use cases are credible entry plays in each priority region, and which are aspirational without current evidence of viability? •​ Which counterparties are reachable within a 12–24 month horizon, and what route exists to decision-makers or implementation partners? •​ What does the regulatory landscape look like per priority region, and what dependencies or blockers affect the entry play? •​ What infrastructure prerequisites must be in place before action is credible, including stablecoin liquidity, off-ramp access, identity, privacy, mobile-first design, and delivery capacity? •​ What partner and delivery model is required in each region, and who can build, operate, support, and scale the solution? •​ What constitutes meaningful adoption in each play, and what should not be counted as evidence of progress? •​ Which findings belong in adjacent RFPs or workstreams, and what cross-portfolio handoffs are required to keep scope clean?

The methodology described in Section 6, the workplan in Section 14, and the deliverables in Section 15 are each mapped directly to these eight gates. No section of the research exists except to answer one or more of them.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

3.3 What This Proposal Is Not

This proposal is not a government affairs strategy, a lobbying brief, or a diplomatic engagement plan. It is not a legal advisory document. It does not execute pilots, distribute grants, or represent Cardano in regulatory proceedings. These distinctions are stated explicitly in the RFP and are observed in full throughout this proposal.

The research will produce regulatory landscape summaries that are decision-oriented and appropriately caveated. Where regulatory findings require specialist legal review before action, this proposal will say so clearly.

Similarly, this proposal does not attempt to fully answer RFP 01 or RFP 02. Customer segmentation and use-case landscape analysis are drawn upon only to the extent that they are necessary to answer the RFP 05 decision gates. Findings that more properly belong in those RFPs will be captured in the Cross-RFP Handoff Memo rather than absorbed into an overextended scope here.

3.4 RFP Scope Alignment

The table below summarises how the combined scope is structured across the three RFPs:

RFP Role in This Submission Scope Allocation

RFP 05 — Government & Emerging Markets Entry Strategy

Primary core Regional screening, entry playbooks, regulatory mapping, counterparty mapping, infrastructure prerequisites, adoption signal framework — approximately 70% of research effort

RFP 02 — Use Case Landscape & Competitive Positioning

Supporting lens Use-case viability by region; problem-solution fit; competitive alternatives; adoption pathway feasibility — approximately 20% of research effort

RFP 01 — Customer Segmentation & Profiling

Supporting lens Stakeholder and counterparty segmentation; partner and user archetypes necessary for RFP 05 decision gates — approximately 10% of research effort

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

4. Strategic Context and Problem Definition

4.1 Cardano's Current Moment

Cardano has entered the Voltaire era of its development with on-chain governance now fully operational. The Cardano 2030 vision and the 2026 strategic roadmap reflect an ecosystem that is shifting from protocol construction to adoption and ecosystem development. The CPC's research portfolio is a direct expression of that shift: the questions being asked are no longer primarily technical, they are strategic and commercial.

In that context, government and emerging-market entry is not a peripheral concern. Several of the strongest early signals of Cardano adoption have come from developing-market contexts — agricultural supply chain, humanitarian payment infrastructure, identity, land registry, and mobile-first financial inclusion use cases. These signals have not yet been systematically evaluated, validated, or translated into a sequenced entry strategy.

The risk, as the RFP correctly identifies, is that Cardano continues to engage with "emerging markets" as a strategic aspiration rather than a structured programme. Aspirational language about Africa, Latin America, or Southeast Asia is not the same as a decision about which specific ecosystem cluster should receive attention next, which use case should lead, which partners must be engaged, and what prerequisites must be satisfied before a pilot is credible.

4.2 Why Market-Entry Research Often Fails

Most market-entry research for blockchain networks produces one of two outputs: a country report or a technology narrative. Country reports catalogue national economic indicators, regulatory environments, and sector statistics at a level of generality that is rarely actionable. Technology narratives describe how blockchain could solve land registry, remittance, or identity problems without specifying who must implement the solution, what institutional pathway leads to a funded pilot, or what evidence would confirm that the opportunity is real rather than plausible.

Neither approach answers the questions Cardano actually needs answered. The country-report approach fails because most decision constraints do not operate at the national level — they operate at the level of specific use cases, counterparty relationships, and institutional configurations. The technology-narrative approach fails because it begins from the blockchain and works backwards to a problem, rather than beginning from a problem and testing whether blockchain is the right instrument.

This proposal adopts a different approach. It begins from the question of which regional ecosystem configurations — defined by the intersection of problem severity, stakeholder demand, institutional readiness, regulatory conditions, and delivery capacity — create credible adoption pathways. The research does not begin with a predetermined geography or a predetermined conclusion. It begins with a framework for comparing candidate opportunities and a commitment to testing each hypothesis against primary evidence.

4.3 The Risk of Cosmetic Engagement

The RFP is unambiguous on a concern that has appeared repeatedly in Cardano's emerging-market history: the risk of confusing visibility with adoption. Event attendance, conference panels, letters of intent, informal government interest, and social media engagement are not adoption signals. They are

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

often the precursors to a long period of inactivity. Ecosystem resources allocated on the basis of these signals are frequently wasted.

This proposal treats cosmetic signal identification as a primary research function, not an afterthought. The Cardano Adoption Signal Standard (CASS) described in Section 6 is designed specifically to distinguish the kinds of evidence that justify resource deployment — signed pilot agreements with named implementation owners, funded implementation plans, active delivery partners, recurring usage — from the kinds of engagement that are strategically visible but practically empty.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

5. Proposal Thesis and Institutional Positioning

5.1 Proposal Thesis

The central thesis of this proposal is:

Cardano's government and emerging-market entry challenge is not primarily a question of geography, but of evidence architecture. The research will generate decision-ready regional entry playbooks grounded in primary evidence, a structured evidence-generation framework reusable beyond this research cycle, and a set of decision criteria that allow Cardano stakeholders to distinguish viable entry plays from aspirational narratives — before resources are deployed.

This thesis directly responds to the CPC's evidence-gap statement. It does not assume that the answer is already known. It treats the research as a genuine investigation whose conclusions will be determined by evidence, not confirmed by assumption.

5.2 What PRISMA Is

PRISMA is a distributed action-learning and field-evidence organisation. It is not a consulting firm, market research agency, blockchain advocacy group, or grant distribution mechanism. PRISMA's value lies in a specific and unusual combination: the ability to generate primary evidence from real-world practitioners, grassroots ecosystem actors, hub networks, and institutional intermediaries — and to structure that evidence into decision-useful outputs for larger organisations that cannot easily access those actors directly.

PRISMA's work sits at the intersection of ecosystem development, venture development, evaluation, systems mapping, action learning, and implementation research. This combination makes PRISMA structurally suited to research that requires both fieldwork credibility and analytical rigour — the kind of research the RFP 05 decision gates demand.

5.3 Action Learning Journeys

PRISMA's core methodology is the Action Learning Journey (ALJ). ALJs are structured evidence-generation environments — not workshops, not conferences — in which practitioners, ecosystem actors, venture teams, institutions, and community participants collectively investigate real-world problems through coordinated learning and action.

ALJs produce structured access to implementation realities, stakeholder perspectives, capability gaps, partnership opportunities, adoption barriers, and ecosystem dynamics. They are documented through multi-perspective case studies that convert distributed field knowledge into public evidence. The methodology has been applied across multiple regions and contexts, with case-study outputs published at case.prisma.events.

For this research, ALJs serve a specific function: they provide a structured method for generating primary evidence from grassroots and institutional actors in target regions — access that cannot be replicated through remote interviews or desk research alone.

5.4 Cardano Ecosystem Track Record

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

PRISMA's most recent and directly relevant evidence of Cardano ecosystem engagement is its co-facilitation of the Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026 (CATS26) alongside Wada. This process involved a multi-month action-learning journey engaging hub networks across at least five African nations, running parallel hackathon tracks through local partner hubs, and culminating in a summit in Nairobi, Kenya (February 11–13, 2026). Forty projects emerged from the hackathon process across the continent, with the top five presented at the summit and receiving continued incubation support.

This experience provides PRISMA with direct, verified relationships across a network of Cardano-connected hubs, local builders, ecosystem intermediaries, and community organisations in sub-Saharan Africa. These relationships are not desk-identified — they are operationally tested.

PRISMA has also previously submitted a proposal through the Intersect governance process and has existing Cardano ecosystem familiarity through that engagement.

5.5 Geographic Network Access

PRISMA's existing network access, relevant to this research, includes:

•​ Sub-Saharan Africa: Documented hub relationships in Ghana (Accra), Kenya (Nairobi), and broader sub-Saharan Africa through the CATS26 process and prior ALJ engagements. These provide direct access to grassroots builders, local organisations, and Cardano ecosystem participants. •​ Latin America: Network relationships in Argentina and broader LATAM through existing ecosystem and hub connections. Access to practitioners, community organisers, and ecosystem builders in high-inflation market contexts. •​ Europe: Relationships in Wales and broader European ecosystem networks, including regenerative economy practitioners, academic collaborators, and institutional stakeholders.

These access points are the starting base for the research, not the conclusion. The final geography of this study will be determined by what the evidence supports — not by where PRISMA already has presence.

5.6 PRISMA's Role in This Research

PRISMA is the research and evidence-generation partner for Cardano in this engagement. PRISMA is not the subject of the research. The research is about Cardano's government and emerging-market entry opportunities. PRISMA's methodology, network access, ALJ capability, and case-study infrastructure are the instruments through which that research is conducted. At no point does this proposal propose research into PRISMA's own protocol, technology, or organisational development.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

6. Research Design and Methodology

6.1 Research Design Philosophy

The research follows a structured mixed-method design. It begins with a desk-research phase to establish hypotheses and a screening baseline, proceeds through primary evidence collection to test and revise those hypotheses, and concludes with a synthesis phase that converts tested evidence into decision-ready frameworks and playbooks.

The design is explicitly hypothesis-testing rather than hypothesis-confirming. The research will investigate candidate regional opportunities without assuming in advance that any particular region is the correct answer. Regions, sub-regions, or country clusters that fail to demonstrate evidence-based viability will be recommended for deferral, monitoring, or no-go, not stretched to meet a predetermined conclusion.

The methodology is structured across seven workstreams. These workstreams operate in parallel during the primary research phase rather than sequentially, to ensure that regulatory findings, infrastructure assessments, and counterparty mapping can inform each other in real time.

6.2 Phase Architecture

Phase 1 — Inception and Research Design (Weeks 1–3): Kickoff, workplan alignment, decision gate review, regional candidate list construction, screening criteria finalisation, ALJ design for primary research phase, stakeholder recruitment plan, interview guide development, bias control protocols.

Phase 2 — Regional Screening and Desk Research (Weeks 4–6): Application of the Regional Adoption Readiness Framework to all candidate regional clusters. Initial scores based on publicly available evidence. Production of the preliminary market prioritisation matrix. Identification of priority clusters for deep-dive primary research.

Phase 3 — Primary Research and Field Access (Weeks 7–12): Stakeholder interviews, expert calls, ALJ facilitation in selected hub locations, local partner engagement, regulatory mapping, infrastructure assessment, and counterparty mapping. Minimum of 30–45 primary research interactions across respondent types.

Phase 4 — Analysis and Framework Development (Weeks 13–15): Cross-evidence synthesis, RARF score refinement, CASS classification of identified signals, playbook drafting, regulatory summary drafting, counterparty access register compilation.

Phase 5 — Drafting and Review (Weeks 15–17): Full draft of all core deliverables, CPC review, validation against decision gates, revision of findings where access or evidence constraints require recalibration.

Phase 6 — Final Delivery (Week 18): Final report, executive decision memo, public summary, cross-RFP handoff memo, presentation to CPC.

6.3 Regional Adoption Readiness Framework (RARF)

The RARF is the core analytical tool of this research. It provides a transparent, multi-dimensional scoring model for comparing candidate regional ecosystem clusters. The framework prevents both under-analysis (treating a region as viable without testing the components that determine viability) and over-analysis (spending primary research time on opportunities that fail basic screening criteria).

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

The RARF scores each candidate cluster across ten dimensions on a scale of 1 to 5:

Dimension Evidence Required to Score Output

Problem Severity Acuity of unmet need; available secondary evidence of scale; whether blockchain is the appropriate instrument

Score 1–5

Use-Case Fit Alignment between Cardano capabilities and the dominant problem type in the region; evidence of analogous deployments

Score 1–5

Counterparty Accessibility Reachability of decision-relevant institutional actors within 12–24 months; existing relationships; intermediary routes

Score 1–5

Regulatory Readiness Clarity and permissiveness of the regulatory environment for the candidate use case; absence of blocking constraints

Score 1–5

Infrastructure Readiness Availability of technical prerequisites: mobile penetration, internet access, wallet UX, interoperability, compliance artifacts

Score 1–5

Stablecoin & Settlement Readiness

Availability of stable-value instruments and local settlement rails where required by the candidate use case

Score 1–5

Delivery Capacity Presence of local system integrators, implementation partners, and operational capability to build, support, and scale

Score 1–5

Existing Ecosystem Presence Strength of existing Cardano or Web3 ecosystem presence; community trust; prior engagement signal

Score 1–5

Adoption Signal Strength Existing evidence of genuine momentum vs. cosmetic engagement, classified using the CASS framework

Score 1–5

Time-to-Pilot Feasibility Realistic estimate of time to a signed, funded, measurable pilot given the current state of each dimension

Score 1–5

Initial RARF scores will be produced using desk-research evidence with explicit confidence levels. Scores will be revised after primary research, with changes tracked and explained. The final RARF matrix will show not only the scores but the evidence behind each score and the confidence level attached to it.

The RARF is intentionally designed to be reusable. After this research concludes, Cardano stakeholders can apply the same framework to new candidate regions, updated evidence, or changed conditions without commissioning a new study.

6.4 Cardano Adoption Signal Standard (CASS)

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

The CASS framework defines four tiers of adoption signal, directly addressing the RFP's requirement to distinguish meaningful adoption from cosmetic activity:

Signal Tier Evidence Required Resource Implication

Tier 1 — Verified Adoption

Production deployment; recurring usage; documented workflow integration; measurable economic benefit to end users; institutional dependency on the system

Full ecosystem investment justified

Tier 2 — Strong Signal Signed pilot agreement with named implementation owner; funded implementation plan; active local delivery partner with commitment; regulator or procurement pathway identified

Pilot investment and partner engagement justified

Tier 3 — Moderate Signal Working group or joint committee formed; pilot design underway with budget allocation; regulatory pathway under active review; delivery partner in advanced discussions

Conditional investment: further diligence required before resource commitment

Tier 4 — Weak Signal Event attendance; letters of intent without implementation owner; informal government interest; conference panels; social media engagement; community enthusiasm without institutional validation

No material resource deployment justified. Monitoring only

The CASS classification will be applied to every adoption signal identified during the research. Where a signal has been cited in prior Cardano community discussions, the CASS classification will be stated explicitly — including where prior community reporting has overstated the significance of a signal.

6.5 Primary Research Design

Primary research is required by the RFP and is non-negotiable in this methodology. Desk research alone cannot answer the counterparty accessibility, delivery capacity, and genuine adoption signal questions that the RFP demands.

Primary research will include:

•​ Structured interviews with public-sector stakeholders or former public-sector officials in priority regions (approximately 6–10 respondents) •​ Interviews with regulators, policy experts, local counsel, or compliance professionals (approximately 4–6 respondents) •​ Interviews with humanitarian organisations, multilaterals, NGOs, and implementation intermediaries (approximately 4–6 respondents) •​ Interviews with local technology providers, system integrators, mobile-money operators, banks, agricultural networks, universities, and civic organisations (approximately 8–12 respondents) •​ Interviews and participation through PRISMA's Cardano-connected hub networks (approximately 6–10 respondents) •​ Expert panels or structured workshops where direct government access is not feasible

Total indicative primary research interactions: 30–45 across three or more regional clusters.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

PRISMA will document which respondents were interviewed, referred by another stakeholder, desk-identified, or hypothetical. Confidence levels will be explicitly stated for findings that depend on limited or indirect access.

6.6 Use-Case Assessment Framework

Use-case assessment for each priority region will evaluate:

•​ Problem Severity: Is the problem the use case addresses genuinely acute in this region? Is there evidence of unmet demand from local actors? •​ Cardano Fit: Does the specific use case require properties that Cardano provides — deterministic settlement, transparent public ledger, identity primitives, privacy features — or would a centralised or conventional solution serve equally well? •​ Competitive Alternatives: What alternatives currently exist — both blockchain and non-blockchain — and why or why not would Cardano be preferred? •​ Stakeholder Demand: Have local actors — not Cardano advocates — expressed specific demand for the kind of solution this use case represents? •​ Dependencies: Does the use case require stablecoin liquidity, off-ramp access, privacy, identity infrastructure, delivery partners, or regulatory approval before it is actionable? •​ Adoption Pathway: Is there a concrete pathway from initial pilot to recurring usage, and who owns each step of that pathway?

6.7 Regulatory Mapping Methodology

Regulatory mapping will be conducted at a decision-oriented, landscape level appropriate for informing go/no-go, further diligence, and local counsel recommendations. It is not intended to replace formal legal advice, and this distinction will be clearly stated in all deliverables.

For each priority region, the regulatory mapping will identify:

•​ Relevant regulatory bodies and their posture toward blockchain, digital assets, payments, and data •​ Applicable licensing, permission, or registration requirements for candidate use cases •​ Stablecoin, cryptocurrency, and payment regulatory status •​ Data protection, privacy, and public-chain transparency considerations •​ Public procurement rules and pathways •​ Foreign exchange and capital control implications •​ Uncertainty levels and recommended further diligence actions

6.8 Counterparty Intelligence Framework

The counterparty map for each regional play will distinguish:

•​ Decision Sponsors: The entity with authority to approve or commission a pilot •​ Regulatory / Policy Gatekeepers: The entity whose approval or non-objection is required before a pilot can proceed •​ Procurement Owners: The entity through which a public-sector contract would flow •​ Local Delivery Partners: System integrators, technology providers, or implementation organisations capable of building and operating the solution

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

•​ Distribution and Trust Partners: Organisations — NGOs, cooperatives, community networks — that provide access, trust, and local legitimacy •​ Technical and Compliance Enablers: Banks, payment providers, mobile-money operators, legal counsel, identity-service providers

For each named or archetypal counterparty, the map will state whether the entity was interviewed, has been referred by another stakeholder, was desk-identified, or is hypothetical. This distinction is required to ensure that counterparty maps do not overstate access.

6.9 Bias Controls

The methodology incorporates explicit bias controls at the research design, recruitment, data collection, and analysis stages:

•​ Cardano Insider Optimism: Primary research will actively seek non-Cardano stakeholders, including those who evaluated Cardano and chose alternatives, as validation counterweights. •​ Regional Overgeneralisation: The RARF framework operates at country-cluster level, not continental level, to prevent broad geographic labels from masking intra-regional variation. •​ English-Language Bias: PRISMA's hub network in sub-Saharan Africa includes access to participants in non-English operating environments. Where local-language primary research is required, this will be documented and the limitation noted where full coverage is not possible. •​ Elite and Capital-City Bias: The ALJ methodology deliberately surfaces grassroots and implementation-level actors who are typically absent from capital-city-focused research. This is one of the distinctive advantages of PRISMA's approach. •​ Access Overclaiming: All counterparty access will be classified as Interviewed, Warm Access, Referred, Desk-Identified, or Hypothetical. Findings based on Hypothetical or Desk-Identified sources will be clearly marked with lower confidence levels. •​ Treating Intent as Adoption: The CASS framework is the operational control for this risk. No signal will be classified above its evidence-supported tier.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

7. Decision Gate Mapping

The table below maps each of the eight RFP 05 decision gates to the primary method, evidence source, deliverable, limitation, and decision enabled by this research.

Decision Gate Primary Method

Key Evidence Source

Core Deliverable Decision Enabled

Which regions should Cardano prioritise first?

RARF application; desk screening; stakeholder interviews

Regional market indicators; expert interviews; ecosystem data

Market Prioritisation Matrix

Sequence regional attention and funding; deprioritise or monitor low-scoring clusters

Which use cases are credible entry plays by region?

Use-case viability assessment; operator-level interviews; comparative desk research

Local practitioner interviews; competitive landscape; secondary market data

Use-Case Viability Assessment

Select leading use cases per region; reject unsupported vertical claims

Which counterparties are reachable on 12–24 month horizon?

Counterparty mapping; hub network engagement; stakeholder interviews

Interviewed contacts; PRISMA hub network; desk-identified institutional actors

Counterparty & Partner Access Map

Pursue partner engagement, intermediary strategy, or no-action

What does the regulatory landscape require per region?

Regulatory landscape mapping; policy desk research; local expert calls

Regulatory body publications; policy expert interviews; legal counsel (where accessible)

Regulatory Landscape Summaries

Define regulatory diligence, local counsel needs, go/no-go conditions

What infrastructure prerequisites must be in place?

Infrastructure prerequisite assessment; practitioner interviews

Mobile/digital infrastructure data; payment ecosystem analysis; delivery partner interviews

Infrastructure Prerequisite Assessment

Coordinate with stablecoin, enterprise/RWA, delivery partner, and interoperability workstreams

What partner and delivery model is required?

Partner archetype analysis; local

Local system integrator interviews; hub network

Regional Entry Playbooks (delivery model component)

Define partner recruitment, local capability building, and

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

Decision Gate Primary Method

Key Evidence Source

Core Deliverable Decision Enabled

delivery capacity review

evidence; implementation partner mapping

pilot ownership requirements

What constitutes meaningful adoption vs. cosmetic activity?

CASS classification; adoption signal analysis

Primary research evidence; usage data where available; implementation actor interviews

Adoption Signal Framework (CASS)

Set pilot KPIs, funding triggers, and stop conditions

Which findings should go to adjacent RFPs?

Scope boundary analysis throughout research

Research findings across all workstreams

Cross-RFP Handoff Memo

Keep portfolio scope clean; route non-regional issues to the correct decision owners

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

8. Regional Scope and Prioritisation Plan

8.1 Scope Framing

The research does not begin with a predetermined geography. The final prioritisation of regions, sub-regions, or country clusters will be determined by RARF scores and primary evidence, not by assumption.

The research will begin from PRISMA's existing network access — primarily sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America — and will systematically evaluate those access points against the RARF criteria before determining whether they represent the highest-value research investment for Cardano. Where the evidence supports a different geographic focus, the screening process will surface it.

8.2 Candidate Region Categories

The minimum regional consideration specified in the RFP comprises four categories. PRISMA's screening will cover all four, with initial depth proportional to existing evidence availability and PRISMA's network access:

Region Category Research Purpose PRISMA Access Level

Sub-Saharan Africa / Practical Infrastructure Markets

Agricultural supply chain, identity, public-service delivery, humanitarian payment rails, mobile-first financial inclusion, land registry — contexts where practical infrastructure gaps create genuine demand

High: CATS26 network, Accra ALJ, Nairobi hub relationships, Wada partnership

LATAM / High-Inflation Markets

Stablecoin payments, remittances, merchant adoption, community financial infrastructure — contexts where monetary instability creates demand for stable-value settlement

Medium-High: Argentina and broader LATAM ecosystem relationships

East Asia / Regulatory-Pilot Markets

Government blockchain pilots, enterprise standards, regulatory sandbox pathways, payment infrastructure — contexts where regulatory appetite for innovation creates structured entry opportunities

Medium: Desk-research primary; primary access to be confirmed and supplemented during Phase 1

Applicant-Justified Additional Region

To be confirmed based on Phase 2 screening — may include Middle East / North Africa, South/Southeast Asia, or specific country clusters that score highly on the RARF across multiple dimensions

To be determined during Phase 1 candidate list construction

8.3 Region Selection Logic

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

The following criteria will determine whether a candidate region advances from light screening to deep-dive primary research:

•​ RARF screening score of 3.0 or above on at least six of ten dimensions, based on desk-evidence •​ At least one identifiable, reachable counterparty pathway relevant to the leading use case hypothesis •​ A specific use case that is testable within a 12–24 month horizon •​ Evidence of real problem severity from sources independent of Cardano community reporting •​ No blocking regulatory or infrastructure constraint that cannot be resolved within the research horizon

Regions that fail the screening criteria will be documented in the Market Prioritisation Matrix under Monitor or No-Go recommendations, with explicit reasons. They will not be included in deep-dive primary research. The research budget is allocated proportionally: approximately 60% of primary research time will go to the two highest-scoring regional clusters, with 40% distributed across remaining candidate regions.

8.4 Country-Cluster Logic

Within candidate region categories, the research will work at country-cluster or country level rather than continental level. The RFP explicitly cautions against treating Africa, LATAM, or East Asia as single markets.

Illustrative (not predetermined) country clusters for screening include:

•​ West Africa: Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal — assessing divergent regulatory environments and ecosystem maturity against a shared regional use-case backdrop •​ East Africa: Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda — where mobile money infrastructure and regional regulatory harmonisation may create different prerequisites than West Africa •​ Southern Cone / LATAM: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay — where high-inflation monetary conditions and dollarisation dynamics create a distinct stablecoin and payment use-case context •​ Andean / Pacific LATAM: Colombia, Peru — where agricultural supply chain and financial inclusion use cases may have different evidence profiles than Southern Cone markets

These clusters are illustrative. The actual cluster selection will be confirmed during Phase 1 based on the RARF screening exercise and CPC review.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

9. Use-Case Assessment Plan

9.1 Use-Case Selection Logic

Use cases will be assessed by region rather than globally. The research will not assume that the leading use case in one region is appropriate in another. The use-case assessment will identify which candidate use cases have genuine local problem severity, a credible Cardano fit, reachable counterparties, and a measurable adoption pathway — and which are aspirational without current evidence.

Candidate use cases for screening are drawn directly from the RFP and supplemented by PRISMA's existing ecosystem knowledge:

Use Case Key Assessment Question Primary Evidence Needed

Stablecoin payments & settlement

Where do stable-value instruments, local liquidity, and regulatory acceptance combine to make this use case actionable today rather than aspirational?

Stablecoin availability; off-ramp infrastructure; payment regulation; merchant/user demand signal

Remittances Which corridors have the combination of compliance pathway, off-ramp infrastructure, and user-trust conditions to make Cardano-enabled remittance viable?

Corridor volume data; compliance requirements; mobile money infrastructure; user trust evidence

Humanitarian payment rails Which NGO, multilateral, or government actors have the combination of mandate, compliance pathway, and implementation capacity to run a genuine pilot?

NGO/multilateral interviews; compliance requirements; beneficiary access evidence

Agricultural supply chain Where do farmer identity, market access, traceability demand, and local implementation capacity converge into an actionable pilot opportunity?

Agricultural sector interviews; cooperative/aggregator relationships; identity infrastructure assessment

Land registry / public records Where is there genuine government readiness, a legal enforceability pathway, and procurement access — not just theoretical interest?

Government stakeholder interviews; legal enforceability review; procurement pathway assessment

Identity / credentials Where does user need, public-sector acceptance, and wallet/UX infrastructure combine to make a credential use case viable?

Identity regulation review; public-sector acceptance evidence; wallet/UX infrastructure assessment

Public procurement / transparency

Where do political feasibility, governance context, and institutional willingness intersect — and where do

Governance context assessment; political feasibility review; civil society stakeholder interviews

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

Use Case Key Assessment Question Primary Evidence Needed

political-safety risks outweigh the opportunity?

9.2 Use-Case Screening Protocol

Each use case will be screened against five criteria before being selected for deep-dive analysis. Use cases that fail two or more screening criteria will be documented as deferred or rejected in the Use-Case Viability Assessment deliverable.

•​ Genuine Problem Severity: Evidence from non-Cardano sources that the problem is acute and that current solutions are inadequate •​ Cardano-Specific Advantage: The use case benefits specifically from Cardano's properties, not simply from any digital ledger •​ Reachable Implementation Pathway: A concrete route from interest to funded pilot involving identifiable counterparties •​ Infrastructure Prerequisites Met or Resolvable: The use case does not depend on prerequisites that cannot be satisfied within the research horizon •​ Measurable Adoption Pathway: A specific definition of what constitutes adoption exists, and it is achievable from a pilot

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

10. Stakeholder Access Plan

10.1 Respondent Categories and Access Basis

The table below documents the primary respondent categories, their relevance to the decision gates, and PRISMA's access basis for each:

Respondent Category Decision Gate Relevance Access Basis Indicative Volume

Public-sector officials and former officials in candidate regions

Regional priority, counterparty access, regulatory pathway

CATS26 network; hub network referrals; desk-identified with warm introduction pathway

6–10

Regulators, policy experts, and compliance professionals

Regulatory landscape, licensing requirements, procurement pathways

Hub network referrals; desk-identified with warm introduction pathway; local counsel contacts

4–6

Humanitarian organisations, NGOs, and multilateral intermediaries

Humanitarian use case viability; counterparty access; compliance and delivery requirements

CATS26 participant ecosystem; hub network; desk-identified organisations active in target regions

4–6

Local technology providers, system integrators, and implementation partners

Delivery capacity, infrastructure assessment, implementation model viability

CATS26 hub network; existing Cardano ecosystem relationships; desk-identified regional firms

8–12

Mobile money operators, banks, and payment infrastructure providers

Off-ramp access, stablecoin settlement, financial services regulatory pathway

Hub network referrals; desk-identified operators in priority regions

3–5

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

Respondent Category Decision Gate Relevance Access Basis Indicative Volume

Agricultural networks, cooperatives, and supply-chain actors

Agricultural use-case viability; implementation pathway; farmer identity and trust conditions

Hub network in sub-Saharan Africa; desk-identified sector organisations

3–5

Cardano ecosystem actors active in candidate regions

Existing signal assessment; ecosystem presence scoring; counterparty landscape

Direct PRISMA network; CATS26 participant community; Cardano community referrals

6–10

Total indicative primary research interactions: 34–54. Interactions will be documented in the Counterparty and Partner Access Map, with each contact's access basis and confidence level stated.

10.2 Access Limitations and Fallback Protocols

PRISMA will not overclaim access. Where direct stakeholder access is limited — particularly for senior public-sector officials, central bank regulators, or ministry-level decision-makers — the methodology will:

•​ Use former officials, policy advisers, and regulatory consultants as proxies, with findings labelled accordingly •​ Use structured expert panels to aggregate knowledge where individual interview access is constrained •​ Document access limitations explicitly in the Confidence and Limitations Register •​ Adjust RARF scores and CASS classifications to reflect access limitations in the evidence base

PRISMA will avoid overstating government interest based on indirect evidence. Where a finding depends on desk-identified or hypothetical counterparties, it will be clearly marked with a lower confidence level and recommended for further diligence before resource deployment.

10.3 Managing Insider Bias

PRISMA's primary research will actively seek non-Cardano stakeholders to balance the evidence base. For each priority region, the research will include at least two respondents with no direct Cardano affiliation — including, where possible, individuals who evaluated Cardano and chose an alternative approach. This is a structural control, not an optional enhancement.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

11. Regulatory Mapping Plan

11.1 Approach

Regulatory mapping will be decision-oriented and proportionate. The objective is to identify the regulatory dependencies and blockers that affect whether a specific use case can proceed in a specific region — not to produce a comprehensive legal review.

The regulatory mapping will not constitute legal advice. Where findings indicate that a legal or regulatory pathway requires specialist review before action, this will be stated explicitly. PRISMA is not a legal advisory organisation, and will not represent regulatory findings with a level of certainty beyond what publicly available evidence and expert interview evidence can support.

11.2 Mapping Dimensions

For each priority region and use case, the regulatory landscape summary will address:

•​ Relevant Authorities: Identified regulatory bodies with jurisdiction over the use case, with their current posture toward blockchain, digital assets, and payments •​ Licensing and Approval Requirements: Known licensing, registration, or approval requirements that apply to the candidate use case •​ Stablecoin and Payment Regulations: Applicable regulations governing stablecoin issuance, payment processing, and cross-border transactions •​ Data Protection and Privacy: Data localisation requirements, privacy regulations, and public-chain transparency implications •​ Public Procurement Rules: Procurement framework requirements relevant to public-sector entry plays •​ Uncertainty Classification: A three-tier classification of regulatory certainty — High Certainty (based on enacted legislation or published regulatory guidance), Medium Certainty (based on regulatory posture and expert interpretation), Low Certainty (based on limited information or rapidly changing policy environment) •​ Further Diligence Needed: Explicit statement of where local counsel or specialist review is required before action

11.3 Evidence Sources for Regulatory Mapping

Regulatory mapping evidence will be drawn from: published legislation and regulatory guidance; central bank and financial services authority communications; IMF and World Bank fintech regulatory reports; Chainalysis and other blockchain regulatory trackers; expert interviews with policy professionals and former regulators; and local legal counsel where accessible within budget.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

12. Infrastructure Prerequisite Plan

12.1 Purpose

The infrastructure prerequisite assessment answers a question that is often overlooked in market-entry analysis: not whether the use case is viable in theory, but whether the conditions for execution are in place in practice. An entry play that depends on prerequisites that are missing, uncertain, or dependent on another workstream should not be recommended for immediate resource deployment, regardless of how compelling the theoretical opportunity appears.

12.2 Prerequisite Categories

Each regional entry playbook will include a prerequisite status matrix classifying the following items as Met, Partially Met, Unmet, Unknown, or Dependent on Another Workstream:

Prerequisite Category Assessment Criteria Dependency Route if Unmet

Stablecoin availability and liquidity Presence of a stable-value instrument with sufficient liquidity for the use case transaction volume

RFP 03 — Stablecoin Liquidity workstream

Local off-ramp access Ability for users or institutions to convert on-chain value to local fiat currency

RFP 03 / RFP 08 — Delivery Partner network

Wallet UX and account abstraction Whether non-technical users can access the solution without requiring crypto-native knowledge

Product workstream / UX development

Mobile-first or offline capability Whether the solution can operate on basic mobile devices with intermittent connectivity

Technical product requirements

Privacy and selective disclosure Whether the use case requires privacy primitives not currently available or requires further development

Technical roadmap / RFP 06

Identity and KYC infrastructure Whether identity verification requirements can be met within the local regulatory framework

Local regulatory pathway / identity partner

Local delivery partner capacity Whether an implementer capable of building, deploying, and supporting the solution exists in the region

RFP 08 — Enterprise Delivery Partner Network

Compliance artifacts and SLA documentation

Whether the necessary compliance documentation and service level agreements exist for the institutional or public-sector context

RFP 06 — Enterprise and RWA Readiness Assessment

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

13. Adoption Signal Plan

13.1 CASS Application Protocol

The Cardano Adoption Signal Standard (CASS) introduced in Section 6.4 will be applied consistently across all evidence collected during the research. The following protocol governs how CASS classifications are assigned:

•​ Every adoption signal identified during primary or desk research will be assigned a CASS tier at the time it is recorded •​ Signals that are currently cited in Cardano community discussion will be reviewed and reclassified where the evidence basis does not support the tier implied by prior community reporting •​ Tier 2 and above classifications require at least one primary evidence source — they cannot be assigned based on desk research alone •​ Tier 1 classification requires multiple corroborating primary sources and documentary evidence of recurring usage •​ All CASS classifications will be included in the evidence register with their source, date, and confidence level

13.2 Cosmetic Signal Identification

The research will explicitly identify signals that have been cited as adoption evidence but do not meet CASS Tier 2 or above standards. Where the research finds that a prior community claim about regional progress represents Tier 4 (Weak Signal) evidence, this will be reported clearly, with the basis for the reclassification explained.

This is not a negative assessment of Cardano's regional activities — it is a necessary function of responsible research. Resources should not be deployed based on inflated signal assessments.

13.3 Signal-to-Action Translation

The Research-to-Action Roadmap will translate CASS classifications into action recommendations:

•​ Tier 1 (Verified Adoption): Document and publish as evidence; identify what would scale the opportunity further •​ Tier 2 (Strong Signal): Recommend go or conditional-go; specify conditions and owner •​ Tier 3 (Moderate Signal): Recommend conditional-go with specific dependency resolution required; specify next evidence milestone •​ Tier 4 (Weak Signal): Recommend monitoring; specify what evidence upgrade would justify further investment

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

14. Work Plan and Timeline

14.1 Phase Work Plan

Phase Key Activities Outputs / Checkpoints Weeks

Phase 1: Inception & Design

Kickoff; decision gate alignment; candidate region list; interview guides; screening criteria; bias control protocols; stakeholder recruitment plan; IRB/ethics confirmation

Kickoff Report; Research Design Document; Candidate Region List; Approved Interview Guide

Weeks 1–3

Phase 2: Screening & Desk Research

RARF application to all candidate clusters; regulatory landscape preliminary scan; use-case viability hypothesis construction; counterparty desk mapping; preliminary infrastructure review

Preliminary Market Prioritisation Matrix; Screening Review with CPC; Priority Deep-Dive Selection

Weeks 4–6

Phase 3: Primary Research & Field Access

Stakeholder interviews across all respondent categories; ALJ facilitation in priority hub locations; expert panels; regulatory expert calls; counterparty mapping refinement; infrastructure assessment

Stakeholder Access Check (Week 8); Regulatory & Infrastructure Review (Week 10); Interim Findings Review (Week 12)

Weeks 7–12

Phase 4: Analysis & Framework Development

RARF score revision with primary evidence; CASS classification of all signals; playbook drafting; regulatory summary writing; counterparty access register compilation; use-case viability assessment completion

Internal Analysis Memo; Draft Framework Outputs

Weeks 13–14

Phase 5: Drafting & Review

Full draft of all core deliverables; CPC draft review; validation against decision gates; revision based on review feedback; public summary preparation

Draft Deliverables Review with CPC (Week 16); Revised Draft

Weeks 15–17

Phase 6: Final Delivery

Final report; executive decision memo; cross-RFP handoff

Final Report & Presentation (Week 17–18); Public Summary (Week 18)

Weeks 17–18

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

Phase Key Activities Outputs / Checkpoints Weeks

memo; final presentation to CPC; public summary; evidence register; confidence and limitations register

14.2 Milestone Schedule

Milestone Timing Purpose

Kickoff Week 1 Confirm objectives, decision gates, scope, communication cadence, and confidentiality expectations

Research Design Review End Week 3 Align on RARF criteria, candidate regions, use-case hypotheses, interview guides, and bias controls before fieldwork begins

Regional Screening Review End Week 6 Present preliminary RARF scores; confirm priority deep-dive selections; adjust workplan if screening surfaces unexpected constraints

Stakeholder Access Check End Week 8 Surface any recruitment gaps, access constraints, or regional limitations requiring methodology adaptation

Regulatory & Infrastructure Review End Week 10 Present initial regulatory findings and infrastructure prerequisite assessments; identify where further expert access is needed

Interim Findings Review End Week 12 Test whether evidence is answering the decision gates; adjust playbook structure if regional evidence requires it

Draft Deliverables Review End Week 16 Full draft review: market prioritisation matrix, entry playbooks, regulatory summaries, CASS framework, counterparty map, roadmap

Final Report & Presentation Week 17–18 Present final findings, confidence levels, limitations, decisions enabled, and recommended actions

Public Summary Week 18 Confirm what can be published; deliver non-confidential public summary for Cardano community

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

15. Deliverables

15.1 Core Decision Outputs

Deliverable Format Content Summary

Market Prioritisation Matrix Spreadsheet + narrative summary

At least eight candidate regional clusters scored across ten RARF dimensions, with evidence source, confidence level, and Go / Conditional-Go / Monitor / No-Go recommendation per cluster

Regional Entry Playbooks Document section per priority region (at least three playbooks)

Per region: leading use case, partner archetype, regulatory pathway, infrastructure prerequisites, milestone sequence, key risks, adoption metrics, and action recommendation

Use-Case Viability Assessment Table + narrative analysis Per region: comparison of candidate use cases on problem severity, Cardano fit, alternatives, stakeholder demand, dependencies, and adoption pathway. Rejected use cases documented with reasons

Regulatory Landscape Summaries

Narrative + source appendix per priority region

Decision-oriented summaries identifying relevant bodies, constraints, permissions, uncertainty levels, and where local counsel is required

Counterparty and Partner Access Map

Table / access register Roles, named or archetypal counterparties, access status (interviewed / warm access / referred / desk-identified / hypothetical), confidence level, and recommended next action

Infrastructure Prerequisite Assessment

Prerequisite status matrix Per playbook: stablecoin, off-ramp, wallet UX, mobile/offline, privacy, identity, delivery capacity, compliance artifacts, SLA requirements — each classified as Met / Partially Met / Unmet / Unknown / Dependent on Another Workstream

Cardano Adoption Signal Standard (CASS)

Framework document + classification table

Definitions for four CASS tiers; classification of all identified signals; examples of strong, moderate, weak, and misleading signals by use case; recommendations for funding triggers and stop conditions

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

Deliverable Format Content Summary

Research-to-Action Roadmap Roadmap document + executive memo

Recommended next steps with go/conditional-go/no-go calls, dependencies, owner archetypes, milestone sequence, and risk levels. Distinguishes immediate, medium-term, and dependency-gated opportunities

Executive Decision Memo Short memo (max 8 pages) Top recommendations, rationale, evidence confidence, key tradeoffs, and immediate decisions required by the Product Committee

Cross-RFP Handoff Memo Memo / table Maps findings that belong in RFP 01, 02, 03, 06, 07, 08 or other workstreams; explains why each finding is a handoff; specifies requested action from receiving workstream

15.2 Supporting Research Outputs

In addition to the core decision outputs, the research will produce: methodology appendix; interview guide and respondent screener; anonymised interview notes or summaries where consent is given; regional evidence workbook; regulatory citation appendix; RARF scoring workbook; confidence and limitations register; risk register; data-source inventory; and glossary.

15.3 Public and Community-Facing Outputs

A public summary will be produced, excluding confidential or sensitive findings. It will include: methodology overview; key regional findings; evidence caveats and confidence levels; publishable market prioritisation overview; publishable recommendations; and a description of the RARF and CASS frameworks for community use. The public summary will not expose respondent identities, sensitive government or regulatory views, or commercially sensitive partner information.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

16. Team Qualifications and Structure

16.1 Team Architecture

The research will be conducted by a team of five to seven specialists drawn from PRISMA's core organisation and its regional network. The team structure reflects the multi-disciplinary requirements of this research: ecosystem intelligence, regional fieldwork, regulatory analysis, action-learning facilitation, and decision-synthesis.

Role Name Relevant Experience

Research Lead / Principal Investigator

Tobias Fechner(Core Team)

Responsible for research design, methodology, quality control, CPC relationship, and final deliverables.

Regional Intelligence Coordinator — Sub-Saharan Africa

Mercy Fordwoo (Netowrk-WADA Hub Network)

Responsible for African primary research, hub network facilitation, CATS26 network engagement, and regional screening. Direct operational experience across sub-Saharan Africa.

Regional Intelligence Coordinator — Latin America

Delfina Terrado

Kaehler** (Core Team) **

Responsible for LATAM primary research, stakeholder engagement in candidate LATAM clusters, and regional screening. Operational experience in high-inflation market contexts.

Regulatory and Policy Analyst

Alfred Itodole** **

**(Network-Protocol **

**Working Group) **​

**&**​

Ekow Harding **(Network-Mentor) **

Responsible for supporting regulatory landscape mapping, policy desk research, and expert interview co-ordination with regulatory professionals.

ALJ Facilitator / Stakeholder Engagement Lead

Vir Regner** (Core **

**Team) **

Responsible for facilitating Action Learning Journey engagements in priority hub locations, structuring primary research interactions, and ensuring evidence-generation quality. Background in facilitation, evaluation, and participatory research.

Analysis and Synthesis Lead

Emerald Akhaumere** **

**(Netowrk-Protocol **

**Working Group) **

Responsible for RARF scoring, CASS classification, cross-evidence synthesis, and framework development.

Ecosystem Research Associate

Abdulbasit Adigun (Devbasrahtop)

Abdulrahman** **

Supporting role for desk research, evidence registry management, interview scheduling, and documentation.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

Role Name Relevant Experience

**(Network-Protocol **

**Working Group)**​

**&**​

Abdulrahman Umar** **

**(Network-Mentor) **

**Note: These are few of the Core team and Networks. **PRISMA confirms that the organisational capacity to fill all roles exists within its current team and network. (linkedin Links are embedded in their names above)

16.2 Team Capabilities

Collectively, the team brings the following capabilities directly relevant to this research:

•​ Direct operational engagement with the Cardano ecosystem in sub-Saharan Africa (CATS26 partnership with Wada; Accra and Nairobi hub relationships) •​ Action Learning Journey design and facilitation in multiple regional and cultural contexts (Recorded Sessions Playlist on Youtube) •​ Case-study production and publication infrastructure (docs.prisma.events ; case.prisma.events) •​ Hub network relationships across Ghana, Kenya, Argentina, Wales, and broader regions •​ Regulatory research and policy landscape mapping in emerging-market contexts •​ Stakeholder interview design and facilitation in sensitive institutional contexts •​ Evidence synthesis and decision-framework development •​ Familiarity with Cardano's governance structure, ecosystem context, and adjacent research workstreams

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

17. Relevant Experience and Prior Work

17.1 Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026 (CATS26)

PRISMA's most directly relevant prior work is its partnership with Wada in delivering the Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026. This was not a single event but a multi-month, structured, action-learning process involving:

•​ Hub networks across at least five African nations — each local hub operating as a participant community and evidence-generation environment •​ A parallel hackathon track through which 40 projects emerged from locally-grounded problem statements and Cardano tooling •​ An intensive process of enrolment, problem-statement development, team formation, and hub-based development preceding the summit •​ A summit in Nairobi, Kenya (February 11–13, 2026) at which the top five projects were presented, with the winning teams receiving three to six months of incubation support

The CATS26 process provides PRISMA with a validated, operational understanding of how Cardano adoption actually functions at the grassroots level in African markets — including what infrastructure is available, what barriers practitioners encounter, what institutional relationships exist, and how communities engage with blockchain technology outside of a marketing or conference context. This understanding is directly relevant to the primary research design for this proposal.

The case study for CATS26 is published at case.prisma.events and represents PRISMA's case-study infrastructure in practice.

17.2 Accra Action Learning Journey

PRISMA has documented an Action Learning Journey conducted in Accra, Ghana, involving multi-stakeholder participation, hub-based facilitation, and structured evidence generation. This represents an operational demonstration of the ALJ methodology in a West African context — the same methodology proposed for primary research access in this study.

17.3 Cardano Ecosystem Engagement History

PRISMA has previously engaged with the Cardano ecosystem through the Intersect governance process, submitting a proposal that is currently under consideration. This engagement demonstrates PRISMA's familiarity with Cardano's governance structure, community dynamics, and the evidence expectations of the ecosystem's institutional stakeholders.

17.4 Hub Network Infrastructure

PRISMA's hub network infrastructure — which supports event organisation, learning facilitation, team-building, and case-study production — is documented at docs.prisma.events. This infrastructure is directly reusable for primary research access in the candidate regions included in this study.

17.5 Methodology Transparency

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

PRISMA's Action Learning Journey methodology, evaluation processes, case-study publication infrastructure, and facilitation patterns are publicly documented and available for review. This transparency is deliberate: PRISMA builds its credibility on methodology legibility, not on proprietary process opacity.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

18. Data Sources

18.1 Primary Sources

•​ Structured stakeholder interviews (30–45 respondents across categories detailed in Section 10) •​ PRISMA hub network engagements and Action Learning Journey facilitation in priority regions •​ Expert panels where direct institutional access is constrained •​ Workshop sessions with local practitioners in priority regional clusters •​ CATS26 participant and hub network ecosystem intelligence

18.2 Desk Research and Secondary Sources

•​ IMF Regional Economic Outlook reports and country assessments relevant to priority regions •​ World Bank Doing Business indicators, financial inclusion data, and development reports •​ GSMA Mobile Economy reports for sub-Saharan Africa and other priority regions •​ Central bank and financial services regulatory publications in priority regions •​ Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index and regional blockchain reports •​ UNCDF and GIZ financial inclusion ecosystem assessments •​ IFAD agricultural market and supply-chain reports relevant to candidate use cases •​ Cardano Foundation and Input Output Research published materials relevant to regional adoption •​ Publicly available records from prior Cardano ecosystem engagements in priority regions •​ Peer ecosystem case studies: Ethereum-based and Stellar-based public-sector and humanitarian deployments as benchmarks

18.3 Evidence Governance

Every major factual claim in the final report will be traceable to a source, interview, dataset, or explicitly identified research-team judgment. Sources will be categorised by type (primary interview, public secondary, proprietary/restricted, or team judgment) and by confidence level (High, Medium, Low). Sources that are proprietary, paid, incomplete, or require validation will be explicitly marked.

PRISMA will not invent statistics, manufacture counterparty access, or present findings with a confidence level that the evidence does not support.

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**PRISMA: **Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee ​ RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

19. Risk and Bias Mitigation Plan

Risk / Bias Type Description Control Measure

Cardano insider optimism Over-weighting evidence from Cardano community members who have a reputational or financial interest in positive findings

Minimum of two non-Cardano respondents per priority region; negative-case evidence actively sought; CASS classification applied regardless of source affiliation

Regional overgeneralisation Treating continental-level labels as analytically coherent markets

RARF operates at country-cluster level; findings documented at sub-national specificity where evidence supports it

English-language bias Under-representing actors who operate in non-English environments

PRISMA hub network includes non-English operating contexts; limitations documented; local facilitators engaged where language access constraints exist

Elite and capital-city bias Over-representing urban, capital-city, or institutionally visible actors at the expense of implementation-level practitioners

ALJ methodology explicitly surfaces grassroots and implementation-level actors; evidence from different actor levels cross-checked

Government access overclaiming

Representing desk-identified or referral-based government contacts as confirmed access

All counterparty access classified using the five-tier access status system; findings based on unconfirmed access marked with lower confidence

Partner self-promotion Local partners over-reporting the strength of their institutional relationships or the depth of adoption signals

Partner claims corroborated with independent evidence; CASS classification applied to evidence regardless of source

Regulatory overclaiming Presenting uncertain or evolving regulatory situations with greater certainty than the evidence supports

Three-tier regulatory certainty classification applied; uncertain findings clearly labelled; local counsel recommended where clarity is insufficient

Treating intent as adoption Classifying letters of intent, expressed interest, or informal engagement as adoption signal

CASS framework is the structural control; no finding above Tier 3 can be based on expressed interest alone

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Risk / Bias Type Description Control Measure

Scope creep Absorbing adjacent RFP scopes (stablecoin liquidity, enterprise readiness, delivery partner design) into this proposal

Cross-RFP handoff memo is a mandatory deliverable; scope discipline reviewed at each checkpoint; findings that belong in adjacent workstreams are routed there, not stretched here

Political and institutional sensitivity

Exposing respondents to institutional risk by publishing sensitive government or regulatory views

Data handling protocols (Section 20); explicit consent management; separation of public and confidential findings

The final report will include a Limitations section that explicitly states what the research can and cannot support, where confidence is Low, and where further diligence is required before action.

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20. Confidentiality and Data Handling Approach

20.1 Consent and Attribution

All primary research participants will be informed in advance of the purpose of the research, who commissioned it, how their responses will be used, and the expected output formats. Each participant will be asked to confirm their preferred attribution status before any interaction is recorded: attributable, anonymised, or fully confidential.

No recording will be made without explicit prior consent. Where consent is given for recording, recordings will be stored in encrypted format and access will be limited to the core research team.

20.2 Data Classification

Research outputs will be classified into four data categories:

•​ Public Findings: Suitable for community publication without modification. Included in the public summary. •​ CPC-Only Findings: Suitable for the Product Committee and Intersect governance purposes, but not for public publication. Includes commercially sensitive counterparty information, sensitive government views, and preliminary findings that require further validation before public release. •​ Confidential Raw Data: Interview notes, transcripts, and raw evidence. Not to be published in any form. Retained securely by PRISMA for the duration of the project and deleted according to the agreed retention schedule. •​ Restricted / Proprietary Data: Paid or third-party datasets used to inform findings. CPC can inspect methodology and findings derived from these sources, but the underlying data cannot be published unless separately licensed.

20.3 Storage and Access Controls

All raw data will be stored in encrypted, access-controlled cloud storage with access limited to named members of the research team. Recordings and transcripts will be deleted within 12 months of project completion, or immediately following final report delivery where respondents request earlier deletion.

20.4 Publication Boundaries

The public summary will include methodology overview, key findings, publishable recommendations, and evidence caveats. It will not expose: respondent identities (unless explicit public attribution consent was obtained); sensitive government or regulatory views; commercially sensitive partner or implementation details; security-sensitive information; or findings that would put respondents at institutional, regulatory, or political risk.

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21. Ethics Approach

This research involves primary interactions with human participants, including public-sector officials, practitioners in sensitive institutional contexts, and community members in developing-market environments. The following minimum safeguards will apply throughout:

•​ All participants will be informed of the research purpose, commissioning organisation, intended outputs, and distribution channels before any interaction •​ Participation is voluntary; participants may withdraw consent at any time without affecting their relationship with PRISMA or the Cardano ecosystem •​ Where participants are in institutional contexts where expressing views on blockchain or digital assets could create professional or regulatory risk, PRISMA will explicitly offer fully anonymous participation and will not push for attribution against participant preferences •​ PRISMA will not mislead participants about the purpose or audience of the research, the likely use of their contributions, or the confidentiality treatment of their responses •​ Extra care will be applied in public-sector, humanitarian, and community contexts where institutional or political risk is more acute •​ Where community or beneficiary-level participants are included in any component of the research, PRISMA will ensure that their participation does not create economic, social, or safety risks •​ No personally identifiable information beyond what is required for research contact management will be collected or stored

PRISMA will prepare a research ethics brief before fieldwork begins, aligned to broadly accepted principles of responsible research practice. This brief will be shared with the CPC at the Research Design Review checkpoint.

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22. Budget Breakdown and Narrative

22.1 Budget Summary

The proposed core budget is ADA 58,000. At the current approximate ADA exchange rate of USD 0.23, this represents approximately USD 13,340. Given that ADA price may fluctuate between approval and project completion, all budget items are denominated in ADA and are not conditional on exchange rate.

PRISMA's budget is lean relative to the scope of work because PRISMA's existing network infrastructure substantially reduces the recruitment and access overhead typically associated with multi-region primary research. PRISMA is not building a field presence from scratch in these regions — it is activating an existing one.

22.2 Core Budget Breakdown

Budget Category ADA (Core Scope) Approx. USD Rationale

Project Management & Coordination 7,000 ~$1,610 Research lead time across 18 weeks; CPC checkpoint management; workplan administration; reporting

Regional Screening & Desk Research 6,500 ~$1,495 RARF application to 8+ regional clusters; secondary source review; preliminary counterparty mapping; use-case hypothesis construction

Primary Research — Interviews & Expert Calls

16,000 ~$3,680 Scheduling, preparation, and facilitation of 30–45 structured interviews and expert calls across three regional clusters and five respondent categories

Regional Network Access & Hub Coordination

8,500 ~$1,955 Coordination costs for hub network activation in sub-Saharan Africa

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Budget Category ADA (Core Scope) Approx. USD Rationale

and LATAM; local facilitator engagement; hub logistics; ALJ facilitation design for primary research contexts

Regulatory & Compliance Landscape Research

4,500 ~$1,035 Regulatory desk research across 3–4 priority regions; policy expert calls; local counsel consultation where accessible; regulatory summary drafting

Validation & Cross-Checking Sessions 4,000 ~$920 CPC checkpoint facilitation; internal validation sessions; draft review cycles; respondent fact-check where required

Synthesis, Analysis & Framework Development

5,500 ~$1,265 RARF score refinement; CASS classification; counterparty access register; cross-evidence synthesis; playbook architecture

Report Writing, Documentation & Deliverables

4,000 ~$920 All core decision outputs; supporting appendices; evidence register; limitations register; public summary production

Ethics & Data Governance Infrastructure

1,500 ~$345 Consent management; data storage and access controls; ethics brief preparation; deletion protocols

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Budget Category ADA (Core Scope) Approx. USD Rationale

Contingency (~8.6%) 5,000 ~$1,150 Access constraints requiring alternative recruitment; unexpected regulatory complexity; additional primary research interactions required for confidence improvement

TOTAL CORE SCOPE 58,000 ADA ~$13,340

22.3 Optional Stretch Scope — ADA 12,000

The following stretch-scope items are available at an additional ADA 12,000, priced separately. None are required for the core deliverables:

Stretch Scope Item ADA Description

Deeper country-level diligence for one priority market

4,000 Additional primary research and regulatory depth for the highest-scoring regional cluster

Local-language primary research in one region 3,000 Translation support and local-language facilitation for one priority region where English-language coverage is insufficient

Pilot design templates for top-ranked plays 3,000 Structured pilot design templates for the two highest-scoring entry plays, specifying pilot scope, owner requirements, success metrics, and timeline

Monitoring dashboard specification 2,000 Specification for a lightweight monitoring framework allowing CPC to track adoption signal progress in priority regions after the research concludes

TOTAL OPTIONAL STRETCH SCOPE 12,000 ADA ~$2,760

22.4 Budget Defence

The budget is structured to maximise evidence value per ADA spent. The largest single line — ADA 16,000 for primary research — reflects the non-negotiable reality that desk research alone cannot

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answer the counterparty accessibility, delivery capacity, and genuine adoption signal questions that the RFP demands. Without this investment, the research would produce a descriptive market report, not a decision architecture.

The regional network access line — ADA 8,500 — reflects real costs that a conventional research firm would face at a much higher level, given that they would need to build regional access from scratch. PRISMA's existing hub relationships reduce this substantially; this line covers the coordination, facilitation, and logistics of activating an existing network, not building a new one.

The contingency line — ADA 5,000 — is explicitly for two scenarios: first, if access constraints require alternative recruitment strategies (adding respondent categories to compensate for inaccessible institutional actors); and second, if preliminary findings identify a regional opportunity with unusually high strategic value that warrants additional primary research for improved confidence. It will not be deployed without CPC visibility and agreement.

23 MILESTONE-BASED PAYMENT SCHEDULE (If Applicable)

23.1 Overview

The ADA 58,000 core budget is released across five milestones tied to verified deliverable submission and CPC acknowledgement of completion. No milestone payment is conditional on the research producing favourable or predetermined findings — the verification criteria are procedural and evidence-based, not outcome-based. The contingency allocation (ADA 5,000) sits within Milestone 3 and Milestone 4.

Funding release follows a front-light, back-weighted structure. The first two milestones together represent approximately 27% of total budget, covering design and screening work that must be completed before significant fieldwork spend is incurred. The largest single release — Milestone 3 — covers the primary research phase, where travel, hub coordination, and facilitation costs are concentrated. Milestones 4 and 5 cover synthesis and delivery, where team time is the primary cost.

23.2 Milestone Payment Table

Milesto

ne

Name Timing Work Completed Deliverables Submitted to CPC

**Verification **

Criteria

ADA Released

M1 Project Inception and Research Design

Kickoff payment (upon contract signature / project start)

Kickoff-meeting; decision gate alignment with CPC; candidate region list constructed; RARF scoring criteria finalised; ALJ design for primary research phase confirmed;

Kickoff-Report; Research Design Document (including RARF criteria, candidate region list, use-case hypotheses, interview guide, bias controls, ethics brief);

CPC confirms receipt and approval of Research Design Document and ethics brief; kickoff meeting completed;

7,000 ADA

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interview guides drafted and approved; bias control protocols documented; stakeholder recruitment plan submitted; ethics brief prepared

Stakeholder Recruitment Plan

candidate region list mutually agreed

M2 Regional Screening and Desk Research Complete

End of Week 6

RARF applied to minimum eight candidate regional clusters using desk-research evidence; preliminary confidence levels assigned per dimension; use-case viability hypotheses constructed per candidate cluster; counterparty landscape desk-mapped; preliminary regulatory scan conducted for top-scoring clusters; priority deep-dive regions identified and confirmed with CPC

Preliminary Market Prioritisation Matrix (RARF scores for all candidate clusters, with evidence source and confidence level per dimension); Preliminary Use-Case Hypothesis Register; Regional Screening Review presentation to CPC; confirmed priority deep-dive region list

CPC screening review meeting completed; priority deep-dive regions confirmed in writing; Preliminary Market Prioritisation Matrix accepted as basis for Phase 3

9,000 ADA

M3 Primary Research Substanti ally Complete

End of Week 12

Minimum 30 primary research interactions completed across documented respondent categories; ALJ facilitation completed in at least one hub location; regulatory expert calls conducted for minimum two priority regions; counterparty mapping advanced from desk-identified to interview-confirmed or warm-access status for at least three counterparty archetypes per priority region; infrastructure prerequisite assessment data collected; interim findings reviewed with CPC

Stakeholder Access Register (all interactions documented with respondent category, access basis, and date); Interim Findings Review memo (summarising hypothesis status — confirmed, revised, or rejected — per priority region and use case); Regulatory and Infrastructure Interim Review memo; updated RARF scores with primary-evidence revisions tracked

CPC Interim Findings Review meeting completed; minimum 30 interactions confirmed in Stakeholder Access Register; CPC acknowledges interim findings memo; any required methodology adjustments agreed

22,000 ADA

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M4 Full Draft Deliverabl es Submitte d

End of Week 16

Cross-evidence synthesis complete; RARF scores finalised with all primary evidence incorporated; CASS classifications applied to all identified adoption signals; all core decision outputs drafted; CPC draft review completed; revision brief received; revised drafts incorporating CPC feedback prepared

Full draft of all ten core decision outputs (Market Prioritisation Matrix; Regional Entry Playbooks — minimum three; Use-Case Viability Assessment; Regulatory Landscape Summaries; Counterparty and Partner Access Map; Infrastructure Prerequisite Assessment; CASS Framework document and classification table; Research-to-Action Roadmap; Executive Decision Memo; Cross-RFP Handoff Memo); Confidence and Limitations Register draft

CPC draft review meeting completed; CPC provides written revision brief; PRISMA confirms receipt of revision brief and timeline for final delivery

12,000 ADA

M5 Final Delivery and Public Summary

End of Week 18

All revisions from CPC review incorporated; final versions of all core deliverables produced; public summary written, reviewed, and cleared for publication; cross-RFP handoff memo finalised; final presentation to CPC delivered; evidence register finalised and archived

Final versions of all ten core decision outputs; Confidence and Limitations Register (final); Evidence Register and Data-Source Inventory; Risk Register; RARF and CASS frameworks as standalone reusable documents; Public Summary (non-confidential); Final presentation delivered to CPC

CPC confirms receipt of all final deliverables; final presentation completed; CPC issues written confirmation of project completion; public summary cleared for publication

8,000 ADA

TOTAL 58,000 ADA

23.3 Milestone Narrative

**Milestone 1 — ADA 7,000 **

The first milestone covers the design and governance infrastructure of the project. Nothing in the research is irreversible at this stage; the budget is used for team time in research design, not for field commitments. The Kickoff Report confirms that the team, the CPC, and the project structure are aligned before any significant resource is deployed. The Research Design Document — particularly the RARF

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criteria, the candidate region list, and the bias control protocols — must be reviewed and approved by the CPC before Phase 2 begins. This checkpoint prevents misaligned fieldwork from proceeding at scale.

The ethics brief, also required for M1 completion, establishes the consent management, data classification, and respondent protection protocols before any primary research interaction occurs. This is not procedural overhead — it is a substantive protection for participants in public-sector and community contexts.

**Milestone 2 — ADA 9,000 **

The second milestone produces the first substantive analytical output: the Preliminary Market Prioritisation Matrix. This matrix is the foundation on which the primary research agenda is built. It determines which regional clusters receive deep-dive primary research investment and which are monitored or rejected on desk-evidence grounds. The CPC reviews and confirms the priority deep-dive list before Phase 3 fieldwork is committed.

This is the most cost-efficient checkpoint in the research: if the desk screening reveals that a candidate region the CPC expected to prioritise does not meet the RARF threshold, that finding is surfaced before primary research resources are deployed against it, not after. The milestone payment reflects the significant analytical effort required to apply the RARF rigorously across eight or more candidate clusters, but it protects the CPC from downstream evidence problems by requiring sign-off before fieldwork proceeds.

**Milestone 3 — ADA 22,000 **

The third milestone is the largest single release because it covers the period of highest operational cost: the primary research phase. Hub coordination, facilitation, travel logistics, and the time required to conduct, document, and begin analysing thirty or more structured primary research interactions are concentrated here. The regional network access and primary research budget lines — ADA 16,000 and ADA 8,500 respectively — are substantially consumed in this phase.

The verification standard for this milestone is procedural and documented: minimum thirty interactions confirmed in the Stakeholder Access Register, CPC Interim Findings Review completed, and methodology adjustments agreed if the evidence requires them. The milestone is not conditional on the findings being positive or confirmatory — it is conditional on the research being conducted at the standard the methodology requires.

The ADA 5,000 contingency allocation is housed within this milestone period. If the Interim Findings Review identifies that a priority region requires additional primary research interactions to achieve sufficient confidence for a playbook recommendation, the contingency may be activated at this stage, with CPC agreement documented before deployment.

**Milestone 4 — ADA 12,000 **

The fourth milestone covers the analytical and drafting phase. The full suite of ten core decision outputs is submitted in draft form. This is the point at which the CPC can review the full substance of the research findings before final delivery — identifying any areas where findings require additional justification, where confidence levels need to be adjusted, or where the scope of a playbook section needs revision. The revision brief produced at this checkpoint governs the final delivery in Milestone 5.

This two-stage delivery structure — draft review followed by final delivery — is standard practice in institutional research commissioning. It prevents a situation in which the CPC receives a final report that

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it cannot meaningfully influence, and it ensures that the final deliverables genuinely serve the CPC's decision-making needs rather than being technically complete but practically misaligned.

**Milestone 5 — ADA 8,000 **

The final milestone covers the delivery of revised final outputs, the public summary, the final presentation, and the archiving of the evidence register and supporting documentation. Payment is released upon CPC's written confirmation of project completion — a straightforward procedural confirmation that the agreed deliverables have been received and that the public summary has been cleared.

The back-weighting of this milestone reflects standard grant practice: holding a meaningful final payment against confirmed completion creates accountability without being punitive. ADA 8,000 represents approximately 14% of total budget held at the final gate — sufficient to ensure completion without creating cash-flow conditions that would prevent PRISMA from resourcing the work adequately in earlier phases.

23.4 Milestone Payment Summary

Milestone % of Total

ADA Primary Trigger

M1 — Inception and Design 12.1% 7,000 CPC approves Research Design Document and ethics brief

M2 — Screening Complete 15.5% 9,000 CPC confirms priority deep-dive regions from Preliminary Matrix

M3 — Primary Research Substantially Complete

37.9% 22,000 CPC completes Interim Findings Review; 30+ interactions confirmed

M4 — Full Draft Submitted 20.7% 12,000 CPC provides written revision brief following draft review

M5 — Final Delivery 13.8% 8,000 CPC issues written project completion confirmation

TOTAL 100% 58,000 ADA

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24. Conflicts of Interest Declaration

PRISMA declares the following actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest relevant to this proposal:

24.1 Cardano Ecosystem Engagement

PRISMA has previously engaged with the Cardano ecosystem, awarded proposal in Project Catalyst, a submission to the ongoing Intersect Treasury process. This prior engagement creates a potential perception of institutional bias toward positive findings about Cardano's regional opportunities. PRISMA will manage this conflict through the bias controls described in Section 19, including: active recruitment of non-Cardano respondents for every priority region; transparent CASS classification regardless of source affiliation; and an explicit statement in the final report's limitations section that the research team has a prior relationship with the Cardano ecosystem.

24.2 Wada Partnership

PRISMA's co-facilitation role with Wada in CATS26 creates a relationship with an organisation that is an active participant in the Cardano ecosystem in Africa. Where Wada-connected actors are included in primary research, their contributions will be documented with their affiliation noted and will be corroborated with independent evidence before being used to support findings. PRISMA will not represent Wada's views as independent evidence.

24.3 Financial Exposure

PRISMA does hold ADA, Cardano-linked tokens, or financial instruments but it would not create a direct financial interest in the outcome of this research beyond the grant itself.

24.4 No Advisory or Governance Roles

PRISMA does not currently hold advisory roles, governance positions, or board seats at Cardano Foundation, Input Output Global, Emurgo, Intersect, or other core Cardano governance organisations that would create a structural conflict of interest in this research.

24.5 No Peer-Chain Conflicts

PRISMA does not currently hold paid relationships with competing blockchain ecosystems (Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, etc.) that would create an incentive to produce findings unfavourable to Cardano.

24.6 Subcontractor Conflicts

Where subcontractors or local facilitators are engaged, their affiliations will be disclosed to the CPC before engagement. Any subcontractor with material Cardano ecosystem relationships will be managed under the same conflict controls as the core team.

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25. Conclusion

The Cardano Product Committee has identified a genuine and consequential evidence gap. The ecosystem needs to move from broad regional aspirations to specific, testable, evidence-based entry plays — plays that specify who must be engaged, what prerequisites must be in place, what would constitute genuine adoption, and what would justify the deployment of ecosystem resources.

This proposal offers a disciplined, evidence-first response to that challenge. PRISMA brings to this research something that most prospective research teams cannot: genuine, operational access to the grassroots and institutional actors in the regions this research must examine. That access — built through years of action-learning engagement, hub-network relationships, and direct co-facilitation of the Cardano Africa Tech Summit — is not a marketing claim. It is documented in public case studies, demonstrated through PRISMA's track record, and verifiable against the organisations named in this proposal.

The research this proposal describes is not a market survey. It is a decision-architecture exercise designed to produce the specific outputs the CPC needs: a prioritised regional matrix grounded in transparent criteria; playbooks that specify what each entry play actually requires; a counterparty map that distinguishes verified access from desk-identified hypotheticals; and an adoption signal standard that prevents ecosystem resources from flowing toward engagement that looks promising but proves empty.

The budget is lean because PRISMA's existing infrastructure makes it so. The timeline is realistic because the methodology demands it. The scope is disciplined because the brief requires it.

PRISMA is ready to begin work upon award. We welcome questions from the evaluation panel and are available to participate in any clarification process the CPC requires.

Respectfully submitted,

Tobias Fechner**- Infrastructure Lead @PRISMA **

www.prisma.events | docs.prisma.events | case.prisma.events

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Appendix: Submission Checklist Confirmation (RFP 05 Appendix A)

PRISMA confirms that the following items required by RFP 05 Appendix A are included in this submission:

Checklist Item Included? Location in Document

Cover letter ✓ Yes Section 1

Understanding of the brief ✓ Yes Section 3

Proposed methodology ✓ Yes Section 6

Decision gate mapping ✓ Yes Section 7

Regional scope and prioritization plan ✓ Yes Section 8

Use-case assessment plan ✓ Yes Section 9

Stakeholder access plan ✓ Yes Section 10

Regulatory mapping plan ✓ Yes Section 11

Infrastructure prerequisite plan ✓ Yes Section 12

Adoption signal plan ✓ Yes Section 13

Workplan ✓ Yes Section 14

Team qualifications ✓ Yes Section 16

Relevant experience ✓ Yes Section 17

Data sources ✓ Yes Section 18

Risk and bias mitigation plan ✓ Yes Section 19

Confidentiality and data handling approach ✓ Yes Section 20

Ethics approach ✓ Yes Section 21

Timeline ✓ Yes Section 14

Budget breakdown ✓ Yes Section 22

Conflicts declaration ✓ Yes Section 24

Prior work examples ✓ Yes Section 17

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Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee

Product Research Initiatives — Research Grant

Evidence-Based Regional Entry Playbooks for Cardano

Identifying High-Probability Adoption Pathways Across Emerging-Market Ecosystems

A multi-region investigation of use cases, counterparts, infrastructure prerequisites, and adoption signals across emerging-market ecosystems, designed to convert distributed field evidence into decision-ready regional entry strategy.

| :--- | :--- | | Tender | Cardano Product Committee / Intersect — Product Research Initiatives | | Primary RFP | RFP 05 — Government and Emerging Markets Entry Strategy (core) | | Supporting RFPs | RFP 02 — Use Case Landscape and Competitive Positioning (supporting lens); RFP 01 — Customer Segmentation and Profiling (supporting lens) | | Submission type | Combined submission — RFP 05 primary, RFP 02 and RFP 01 supporting | | Proposer | Prisma Collective | | Primary contact - Email | Tobias Fechner — tabs@prisma.events | | Date | 3 June 2026 | | Overall Budget | ADA 58,000 (Core Scope) |

1. Cover Letter

3 June 2026

To: Cardano Product Committee Intersect MBO product-committee@intersectmbo.org

Dear Members of the Cardano Product Committee,

PRISMA submits this proposal in response to the Cardano Product Committee's Research Grant for RFP 05 (Government and Emerging Markets Entry Strategy), with supporting components addressing RFP 01 (Customer Segmentation and Profiling) and RFP 02 (Use Case Landscape and Competitive Positioning). RFP 05 constitutes the primary scope of this submission. RFP 01 and RFP 02 elements are included only where they are directly necessary to inform and complete the RFP 05 decision gates.

PRISMA is a distributed action-learning organisation with existing network relationships, hub partnerships, and operational presence across sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Our core capability is the generation of decision-grade evidence from real-world ecosystems, through Action Learning Journeys, case-study infrastructure, hub-network facilitation, and structured stakeholder engagement.

The central argument of this proposal is that Cardano's government and emerging-market entry challenge is not primarily a geography problem. It is an evidence problem. The ecosystem currently lacks a structured, reproducible method for identifying which regional configurations create credible adoption pathways, what conditions must exist before resources are deployed, and how to distinguish genuine adoption signal from cosmetic engagement.

PRISMA is positioned to address that evidence gap. Through regional screening, primary stakeholder research, regulatory landscape mapping, infrastructure prerequisite assessment, and adoption signal analysis, we will produce decision-ready engagement playbooks enabling Cardano stakeholders to make evidence-based decisions about where to act, when to act, and under what conditions.

Our involvement in the Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026 (CATS26) alongside WADA — a multi-country hackathon and summit process involving hubs across five African nations, culminating in Nairobi, Kenya — demonstrates active, operational engagement with the Cardano ecosystem at the grassroots level. This relationship, and the broader hub network it represents, provides direct access to the kinds of implementation-level actors and regional intelligence that research cannot replicate.

PRISMA proposes a research budget of ADA 58,000 for the core scope, with an optional stretch price presented at ADA 12,000. We believe this represents strong cost efficiency relative to the evidence value delivered, particularly given our existing network access, which substantially reduces the overhead cost of primary research recruitment.

We confirm that the attached document includes all information required under Appendix A of the RFP 05 details, including our methodology, decision gate mapping, regional scope plan, use-case assessment plan, stakeholder access plan, regulatory mapping plan, infrastructure prerequisite plan, adoption signal plan, workplan, timeline, team qualifications, relevant experience, data sources, risk and bias mitigation

plan, confidentiality and data handling approach, ethics approach, budget breakdown, and conflicts declaration. We confirm that we have no actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest beyond those declared in Section 23 of this document.

Respectfully submitted,

Tobias Fechner- Infrastructure Lead PRISMA www.prisma.events | docs.prisma.events

2. Executive Summary

The Cardano Product Committee has identified government and emerging-market entry as one of the most strategically significant — and most under-evidenced — areas in the current portfolio. This proposal addresses that gap.

Cardano's challenge is not simply to identify promising emerging markets. The deeper problem is to establish a repeatable system for discovering, validating, prioritising, and operationalising high-probability adoption opportunities across diverse regional ecosystems. Broad geographic labels such as Africa, Latin America, or East Asia offer limited decision guidance. Adoption opportunities emerge not from geography alone, but from the intersection of stakeholder demand, institutional readiness, regulatory conditions, delivery capacity, infrastructure availability, and local ecosystem dynamics.

This research will produce evidence-based regional entry playbooks for Cardano — decision tools designed to enable the Product Committee and ecosystem stakeholders to distinguish actionable opportunities from cosmetic engagement, prioritise regions based on transparent criteria, and identify the conditions that must be satisfied before ecosystem resources are deployed.

Research Framing

The research is framed around a single master question:

Which regional ecosystem configurations create the highest-probability pathway for sustained Cardano adoption, and what evidence thresholds must be satisfied before ecosystem resources are deployed?

This framing deliberately shifts from "which countries should Cardano enter" — a question that typically generates country lists rather than decisions — to "how does Cardano build a structured, evidence-based capability for regional ecosystem development." The distinction is material: the former produces descriptive reports; the latter produces a repeatable intelligence system.

Scope Architecture

The proposal addresses three RFPs with a clear hierarchy of scope:

• Primary — RFP 05 (Government and Emerging Markets Entry Strategy): Regional opportunity screening, entry playbooks, regulatory mapping, counterparty intelligence, infrastructure prerequisite assessment, and adoption signal framework. Approximately 70% of research effort.
• Supporting — RFP 02 (Use case Landscape): Use-case viability assessment by region, including problem-solution fit, competitive alternatives, and adoption pathway feasibility. Approximately 20% of research effort.
• Supporting — RFP 01 (Customer Segmentation): Stakeholder engagement and partner/user archetype analysis where necessary to define counterparty pathways. Approximately 10% of research effort.

Core Frameworks

The research introduces two proprietary analytical frameworks:

Regional Adoption Readiness Framework (RARF): A ten-dimension scoring model for comparing candidate regional ecosystems across problem severity, use-case fit, counterparty accessibility, regulatory readiness, infrastructure readiness, stablecoin and settlement readiness, delivery capacity, ecosystem presence, adoption signal, and time-to-pilot feasibility. The RARF produces a transparent, auditable prioritisation matrix rather than a narrative ranking.

Cardano Adoption Signal Standard (CASS): A four-tier classification of adoption signals — from verified adoption through strong signals, moderate signals, and weak signals —

3. Understanding of the Brief

3.1 The Decision Problem

The RFP does not ask for a market survey. It asks for a decision architecture. The evidence gap the CPC identifies is not simply that Cardano lacks information about emerging markets — it is that Cardano stakeholders cannot currently distinguish between regional opportunities that warrant action and those that merely appear promising. Without that distinction, ecosystem resources risk flowing toward geographic narratives rather than viable entry plays.

The RFP is explicit about this. It warns against treating "LATAM", "Africa", or "East Asia" as coherent magnets, causing confusing event attendance or letters of intent with adoption signal, and against producing recommendations that cannot be connected to reachable counterparties, realistic regulatory pathways, and available delivery capacity. Every one of these failure modes reflects the same underlying problem: evidence that was descriptive rather than decision-grade.

This proposal is designed to produce decision-grade evidence.

3.2 The Eight Decision Gates

The RFP defines eight explicit decision gates that the research must answer. Each gate corresponds to a specific question that Cardano stakeholders need to resolve before committing resources to a regional opportunity. The research design in this proposal is built around these gates, not around a pre-selected country list or a predetermined conclusion.

The eight gates, in summary, are:

• Which regions should be prioritised for near-term government and emerging-market entry, based on comparative evidence rather than strategic narrative?
• Which use cases are credible entry plays in each priority region, and which are aspirational without current evidence of viability?
• Which counterparties are reachable within a 12–24 month horizon, and what route exists to decision-makers or implementation partners?
• What does the regulatory landscape look like per priority region, and what dependencies or blockers affect the entry play?
• What infrastructure prerequisites must be in place before action is credible, including stablecoin liquidity, off-ramp access, identity, privacy, mobile-first design, and delivery capacity?
• What partner and delivery model is required in each region, and who can build, operate, support, and scale the solution?
• What constitutes meaningful adoption in each play, and what should not be counted as evidence of progress?
• Which findings belong in adjacent RFPs or workstreams, and what cross-portfolio handoffs are required to keep scope clean?

The methodology mapped in Section 6, the workplan in Section 14, and the deliverables in Section 15 are each mapped directly to these eight gates. No section of the research exists to answer one or more of them.

3.3 What This Proposal Is Not

This proposal is not a government affairs strategy, a lobbying brief, or a diplomatic engagement plan. It is not a legal advisory document. It does not execute pilots, distribute grants, or represent Cardano in regulatory proceedings. These distinctions are stated explicitly in the RFP and are observed in full throughout this proposal.

The research will produce regulatory landscapes summaries that are decision-oriented and appropriately caveated. Where regulatory findings require specialist legal review before action, this proposal will say so clearly.

Similarly, this proposal does not attempt to fully answer RFP 01 or RFP 02. Customer segmentation and use-case landscape analysis are drawn upon to the extent that they are necessary to answer the RFP 05 decision gates. Findings that more properly belong in those RFPs will be captured in the Cross-RFP Handoff Memo rather than absorbed into an overextended scope here.

3.4 RFP Scope Alignment

The table below summarises how the combined scope is structured across the three RFPs:

RFP	Role in This Submission	Scope Allocation
RFP 05 — Government & Emerging Markets Entry Strategy	Primary core	Regional screening, entry playbooks, regulatory mapping, counterparty mapping, infrastructure prerequisites, adoption signal framework — approximately 70% of research effort
RFP 02 — Use Case Landscape & Competitive Positioning	Supporting lens	Use-case viability by region; problem-solution fit; competitive alternatives; adoption pathway feasibility — approximately 20% of research effort
RFP 01 — Customer Segmentation & Profiling	Supporting lens	Stakeholder and counterparty segmentation; partner and user archetypes necessary for RFP 05 decision gates — approximately 10% of research effort

PRISMA: Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

PRISMA's most recent and directly relevant evidence of Cardano ecosystem engagement is its co-facilitation of the Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026 (CATS26) alongside Wada. This process involved a multi-month action-learning journey engaging hub networks at least five African nations, running parallel hackathon tracks through local partner hubs, and culminating in a summit in Nairobi, Kenya (February 11-13, 2026). Forty projects emerged from the hackathon across the continent, with the top five presented at the summit and receiving continued incubation support.

This experience provides PRISMA with direct, verified relationships across a network of Cardano-connected hubs, local builders, ecosystem community, and community organisations in sub-Saharan Africa. These relationships are not desk-identified — they are operationally tested.

PRISMA has also previously submitted a proposal through the Intersect governance process and has existing Cardano ecosystem familiarity through that engagement.

5.5 Geographic Network Access

PRISMA's existing network access, relevant to this research, includes:

• Sub-Saharan Africa: Documented hub relationships in Ghana (Accra), Kenya (Nairobi), and broader sub-Saharan Africa through the CATS26 process and prior ALJ engagements. These provide direct access to grassroots builders, local organisations, and Cardano ecosystem participants.
• Latin America: Network relationships in Argentina and broader LATAM through existing ecosystem and hub connections. Access to practitioners, community organisers, and ecosystem builders in high-inflation market contexts.
• Europe: Relationships in Wales and broader European ecosystem networks, including regenerative economy practitioners, academic collaborators, and institutional stakeholders.

These access points are the starting base for the research, not the conclusion. The final geography of this study will be determined by what the evidence supports — not by where PRISMA already has presence.

5.6 PRISMA's Role in Research

PRISMA is the research and evidence-generation partner for Cardano in this engagement. PRISMA is not the subject of the research. The research is about Cardano's government and emerging-market entry opportunities. PRISMA's methodology, network access, ALJ capability, and case-study infrastructure are the instruments through which research is conducted. At no point does this proposal propose research into PRISMA's own protocol, technology, or organisational development.

6. Research Design and Methodology

6.1 Research Design Philosophy

The research follows a structured mixed-design method. It begins with a desk-research phase to establish hypotheses and a screening baseline, proceeds through primary evidence collection to test and revise those hypotheses, and concludes with a synthesis phase that converts tested evidence into decision-ready frameworks and playbooks.

The design is explicitly hypothesis-testing rather than hypothesis-confirming. The research will investigate candidate region opportunities without assuming in advance that any particular region is the correct answer. Regions, sub-regions, or country clusters that fail to demonstrate evidence-based viability will be recommended for deferral, monitoring, or no-go, not stretched to meet a predetermined conclusion.

The methodology is structured across seven workstreams. These workstreams operate in parallel during the primary research phase rather than sequentially, to ensure that regulatory findings, infrastructure assessments, and counterparty mapping can inform each other in real time.

6.2 Phase Architecture

1. Phase 1 – Inception and Research (Weeks 1–3): Kickoff, workplan alignment, decision gate review, regional candidate list construction, screening criteria finalisation, ALJ design for primary research phase, stakeholder recruitment plan, interview guide development, bias control protocols.
2. Phase 2 – Regional Screening and Desk Research (Weeks 4–6): Application of the Regional Adoption Readiness Framework to all candidate regions. Initial scores based on publicly available evidence. Production of the preliminary market prioritisation matrix. Identification of priority clusters for deep-dive primary research.
3. Phase 3 – Primary Research and Field Access (Weeks 7–12): Stakeholder interviews, expert calls, ALJ facilitation in selected hub locations, local partner engagement, regulatory mapping, infrastructure assessment, and counterparty mapping. Minimisation of 30–45 primary research interactions across respondent types.
4. Phase 4 – Analysis and Framework Development (Weeks 13–15): Cross-evidence synthesis, RARF score refinement, CASI classification of identified signals, playbook drafting, regulatory summary drafting, counterparty register compilation.
5. Phase 5 – Drafting and Review (Weeks 15–17): Full draft of all core deliverables, CPC review, validation against decision gates, revisions of findings where access or evidence constraints require recalibration.
6. Phase 6 – Final Delivery (Week 18): Final report, executive decision memo, public summary, cross-RFP handout memo, presentation to CPC.

6.3 Regional Adoption Readiness Framework (RARF)

The RARF is the core analytical tool of this research. It provides a transparent, multi-dimensional scoring model for comparing candidate regional ecosystem clusters. The framework prevents both under-analysis (treating a region as viable without testing the components that determine viability) and over-analysis (spending primary research time on opportunities that fail basic screening criteria).

The RARF scores each candidate cluster across ten dimensions on a scale of 1 to 5:

Dimension	Evidence Required to Score	Output
Problem Severity	Acuity of unmet need; available secondary evidence of scale; whether blockchain is the appropriate instrument	Score 1–5
Use-Case Fit	Alignment between Cardano capabilities and the dominant problem type in the region; evidence of analogous deployments	Score 1–5
Counterparty Accessibility	Reachability of decision-relevant institutional actors within 12–24 months; existing relationships; intermediary routes	Score 1–5
Regulatory Readiness	Clarity and permissiveness of the regulatory environment for the candidate use case; absence of blocking constraints	Score 1–5
Infrastructure Readiness	Availability of technical prerequisites: mobile penetration, internet access, wallet UX, interoperability, compliance artifacts	Score 1–5
Stablecoin & Settlement Readiness	Availability of stable-value instruments and local settlement rails required by the candidate use case	Score 1–5
Delivery Capacity	Presence of local system integrators, implementation partners, and operational capability to build, support, and scale	Score 1–5
Existing Ecosystem Presence	Strength of existing Cardano or Web3 ecosystem presence; community trust; prior engagement signal	Score 1–5
Adoption Signal Strength	Existing evidence of genuine momentum vs. cosmetic engagement, classified using the CASS framework	Score 1–5
Time-to-Pilot Feasibility	Realistic estimate of time to a signed, funded, measurable pilot given the current state of each dimension	Score 1–5

Initial RARF scores will be produced using desk-research evidence with explicit confidence levels. Scores will be revised after primary research, with changes tracked and explained. The final RARF matrix will show not only the scores but the evidence behind each score and the confidence level attached to it.

The RARF is intentionally designed to be reusable. After this research concludes, Cardano stakeholders can apply the same framework to new candidate regions, updated evidence, or changed conditions without commissioning a new study.

6.4 Cardano Adoption Signal Standard (CASS)

PRISMA: Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

PRISMA will document which respondents were interviewed, referred by another stakeholder, desk-identified, or hypothetical. Confidence levels will be explicitly stated for findings that depend on limited or indirect access.

6.6 Use-Case Assessment Framework

Use-case assessment for each priority region will evaluate:

• Problem Severity: Is the problem the use case addresses genuinely acute in this region? Is there evidence of unmet demand from local actors?
• Cardano Fit: Does the specific use case require properties that Cardano provides — deterministic settlement, private ledger, identity primitives, privacy features — or would a centralised or conventional solution serve equally well?
• Competitive Alternatives: What alternatives currently exist — both blockchain and non-blockchain — and why or why not Cardano be preferred?
• Stakeholder Demand: Have local actors — not Cardano advocates — expressed specific demand for the kind of solution this use case represents?
• Dependencies: Does the use case require stablecoin liquidity, off-ramp access, identity infrastructure, delivery partners, or regulatory approval before it is actionable?
• Adoption Pathway: Is there a concrete pathway from initial pilot to recurring usage, and who owns each step of that pathway?

6.7 Regulatory Mapping Methodology

Regulatory mapping will be conducted at a decision-oriented, landscape level appropriate for informing go/no-go, further diligence, and local counsel recommendations. It is not intended to replace formal legal advice, and this distinction will be clearly stated in all deliverables.

For each priority region, the regulatory mapping will identify:

• Relevant regulatory bodies and their posture toward blockchain, digital assets, payments, and data
• Applicable licensing, permission, or registration requirements for candidate use cases
• Stablecoin, cryptocurrency, and payment regulatory status
• Data protection, privacy, and public-chain transparency considerations
• Public procurement rules and pathways
• Foreign exchange and capital control implications
• Uncertainty levels and recommended further diligence actions

6.8 Counterparty Intelligence Framework

The counterparty map for each regional plan will distinguish:

• Decision Sponsors: The entity with authority to approve or commission a pilot
• Regulator / Policy Gatekeepers: The entity whose approval or non-objection is required before a pilot can proceed
• Procurement Owners: The entity through which a public-sector contract would flow
• Local Delivery Partners: System integrators, technology providers, or implementation organisations capable of building and operating the solution

PRISMA: Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee | RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

• Distribution and Trust Partners: Organisations — NGOs, cooperatives, community networks — that provide access, trust, and local legitimacy
• Technical and Compliance Enablers: Banks, payment providers, mobile-money operators, legal counsel, identity-service providers

For each named or archetypal counterpart, the map will state whether the entity was interviewed, was referred by another stakeholder, was desk-identified, or is hypothetical. This distinction is required to ensure that counterparty maps do not overstate access.

6.9 Bias Controls

The methodology incorporates explicit bias controls at the research design, recruitment, data collection, and analysis stages:

• Cardano Insider Optimism: Primary research will actively seek non-Cardano stakeholders, including those who evaluated Cardano and chose alternatives, as validation counterweights.
• Regional Overgeneralisation: The RARF framework operates at country-cluster level, not continental level, to prevent broad geographic labels from masking intra-regional variation.
• English-Language Bias: PRISMA's hub network in sub-Saharan Africa includes access to participants in non-English operating environments. Where local-language primary research is required, this will be documented and the limitation noted where full coverage is not possible.
• Elite and Capital-City Bias: The ALJ methodology deliberately surfaces grassroots and implementation-level actors who are typically absent from capital-city-focused research. This is one of the distinctive advantages of PRISMA.
• Access Overclaiming: All counterparty access will be classified as Interviewed, Warm Access, Referred, Desk-Identified, or Hypothetical. Findings based on Hypothetical or Desk-Identified sources will be clearly marked with lower confidence levels.
• Treating Intent as Adoption: The CASS framework is the operational control for this risk. No signal will be classified above its evidence-supported tier.

7. Decision Gate Mapping

The table below maps each of the eight RFP 05 decision gates to the primary method, evidence source, deliverable, limitation, and decision enabled by this research.

Decision Gate	Primary Method	Key Evidence Source	Core Deliverable	Decision Enabled
Which regions should Cardano prioritise first?	RARP application; desk screening; stakeholder interviews	Regional market indicators; expert interviews; ecosystem data	Market Prioritisation Matrix	Sequence regional attention and funding; deprioritise or monitor low-scoring clusters
Which use cases are credible entry plays by region?	Use-case viability assessment; operator-level interviews; comparative desk research	Local practitioner interviews; competitive landscape; secondary market data	Use-Case Viability Assessment	Select leading use cases per region; reject unsupported vertical claims
Which counterparties are reachable on 12-24 month horizon?	Counterparty mapping; hub network engagement; stakeholder interviews	Interviewed contacts; PRISMA hub network; desk-identified institutional actors	Counterparty & Partner Access Map	Pursue partner engagement, intermediary strategy, or no-action
What does the regulatory landscape require per region?	Regulatory landscape mapping; policy desk research; local expert calls	Regulatory body publications; policy expert interviews; legal counsel (where accessible)	Regulatory Landscape Summaries	Define regulatory diligence, local counsel needs, go/no-go conditions
What infrastructure prerequisites must be in place?	Infrastructure prerequisite assessment; practitioner interviews	Mobile/digital infrastructure data; payment ecosystem analysis; delivery partner interviews	Infrastructure Prerequisite Assessment	Coordinate with stablecoin, enterprise/RWA, delivery partner, and interoperability workstreams
What partner and delivery model is required?	Partner archetype analysis; local	Local system integrator interviews; hub network	Regional Entry Playbooks (delivery model component)	Define partner recruitment, local capability building, and

PRISMA: Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

Decision Gate	Primary Method	Key Evidence Source	Core Deliverable	Decision Enabled
	delivery capacity review	evidence; implementation partner mapping		pilot ownership requirements
What constitutes meaningful adoption vs. cosmetic activity?	CASS classification; adoption signal	Primary research evidence; usage data where available; implementation actor interviews	Adoption Signal (CASS)	Set pilot KPIs, funding triggers, and stop conditions
Which findings should go to adjacent RFPs?	Scope boundary analysis throughout research	Research findings across all workstreams	Cross-RFP Handoff Memo	Keep portfolio scope clean; route non-regional issues to the correct decision owners

8. Regional Scope and Prioritisation Plan

8.1 Scope Framing

The research does not begin with a predetermined geography. The final prioritisation of regions, sub-regions, or country clusters will be determined by RARF scores and primary evidence, not by assumption.

The research will begin from PRISMA's existing network access — primarily Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America — and will systematically evaluate those access points against the RARF criteria before determining whether they represent the highest-value research investment for Cardano. Where the evidence supports a different geographic focus, the screening process will surface it.

8.2 Candidate Region Categories

The minimum regional consideration in the RFP comprises four categories. PRISMA's screening will cover all four, with initial depth proportional to existing evidence availability and PRISMA's network access:

Region Category	Research Purpose	PRISMA Access Level
Sub-Saharan Africa / Practical Infrastructure Markets	Agricultural supply chain, identity, public-service delivery, humanitarian payment rails, mobile-first financial inclusion, land registry — contexts where practical infrastructure gaps create genuine demand	High: CATS26 network, Accra ALJ, Nairobi hub relationships, Wada partnership
LATAM / High-Inflation Markets	Stablecoin payments, remittances, merchant adoption, community financial infrastructure — contexts where monetary instability creates demand for stable-value settlement	Medium: High: Argentina and broader LATAM ecosystem relationships
East Asia / Regulatory-Pilot Markets	Government blockchain pilots, enterprise standards, regulatory sandbox pathways, payment infrastructure — contexts where regulatory appetite for innovation creates structured entry opportunities	Medium: Desk-research primary; primary access to be confirmed and supplemented during Phase 1
Applicant-Justified Additional Region	To be confirmed based on Phase 2 screening — may include Middle East / North Africa, South/Southeast Asia, or specific country clusters that score high on the RARF across multiple dimensions	To be determined during Phase 1 candidate list construction

8.3 Region Selection Logic

The following criteria will determine whether a candidate region advances from light screening to deep-dive primary research:

• RARF screening score of 3.0 or above on at least six of ten dimensions, based on desk-evidence
• At least one identifiable, reachable counterpart pathway relevant to the leading use case hypothesis
• A specific use case that is testable within a 12–24 month horizon
• Evidence of real problem severity from sources independent of Cardano community reporting
• No blocking regulatory or infrastructure constraint that cannot be resolved within the research horizon

Regions that fail the screening criteria will be documented in the Market Prioritisation Matrix under Monitor or No-Go recommendations, with explicit reasons. They will not be included in deep-dive primary research. The research budget is allocated proportionally: approximately 60% of primary research time will go to the two highest-scoring regional clusters, with 40% distributed across remaining candidate regions.

8.4 Country-Cluster Logic

Within candidate region categories, the research will work at country-cluster or country level rather than continental level. The RFP explicitly cautions against treating Africa, LATAM, or East Asia as single markets.

Illustrative (not predetermined) country clusters for screening include:

• West Africa: Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal — assessing divergent regulatory environments and ecosystem maturity against a shared regional use-case backdrop
• East Africa: Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda — where mobile money infrastructure and regional regulatory harmonisation may create different prerequisites than West Africa
• Southern Cone / LATAM: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay — where high-inflation monetary conditions and dollarisation dynamics create a distinct stablecoin and payment use-case context
• Andean / Pacific LATAM: Colombia, Peru — where agricultural supply chain and financial inclusion use cases may have different evidence profiles than Southern Cone markets

These clusters are illustrative. The actual cluster selection will be confirmed during Phase 1 based on the RARF screening exercise and CPC review.

9. Use-Case Assessment Plan

9.1 Use-Case Selection Logic

Use cases will be assessed by region rather than globally. The research will not assume that the leading use case in one region is appropriate in another. The use-case assessment will identify which candidate use cases have genuine local problem severity, a credible Cardano fit, reachable counterpart, and a measurable adoption pathway — and which are aspirational without current evidence.

Candidate use cases for screening are drawn directly from the RFP and supplemented by PRISMA's existing knowledge:

Use Case	Key Assessment Question	Primary Evidence Needed
Stablecoin payments & settlement	Where do stable-value instruments, local liquidity, and regulatory acceptance combine to make this use case actionable today rather than aspirational?	Stablecoin availability; off-ramp infrastructure; payment regulation; merchant/user demand signal
Remittances	Which corridors have the combination of compliance pathway, off-ramp infrastructure, and user-trust conditions to make Cardano-enabled remittance viable?	Corridor volume data; compliance requirements; mobile money infrastructure; user trust evidence
Humanitarian payment rails	Which NGO, multilateral, or government actors have the combination of mandate, compliance pathway, and implementation capacity to run a genuine pilot?	NGO/multilateral interviews; compliance requirements; beneficiary access evidence
Agricultural supply chain	Where do farmer identity, market access, traceability demand, and local implementation capacity converge into an actionable pilot opportunity?	Agricultural sector interviews; cooperative/aggregator relationships; identity infrastructure assessment
Land registry / public records	Where is there genuine government readiness, a legal enforceability pathway, and procurement access — not just theoretical interest?	Government stakeholder interviews; legal enforceability review; procurement pathway assessment
Identity / credentials	Where does user acceptance, and wallet/UX infrastructure combine to make a credential use case viable?	Identity regulation review; public-sector acceptance evidence; wallet/UX infrastructure assessment
Public procurement / transparency	Where do political feasibility, governance context, and institutional willingness intersect — and where do	Governance context assessment; political feasibility review; civil society stakeholder interviews

Use Case	Key Assessment Question	Primary Evidence Needed
	political-safety risks outweigh the opportunity?

9.2 Use-Case Screening Protocol

Each use case will be screened against five criteria before being selected for deep-dive analysis. Use cases that fail two or more screening criteria will be documented as deferred or rejected in the Use-Case Viability Assessment deliverable.

• Genuine Problem Severity: Evidence from non-Cardano sources that the problem is acute and that current solutions are inadequate
• Cardano-Specific Advantage: The use case benefits specifically from Cardano's properties, not simply from any digital ledger
• Reachable Implementation Pathway: A concrete route from interest to funded pilot involving identifiable counterparties
• Infrastructure Prerequisites Met or Resolvable: The use case does not depend on prerequisites that cannot be satisfied within the research horizon
• Measurable Adoption Pathway: A specific definition of what constitutes adoption exists, and it is achievable from a pilot

10. Stakeholder Access Plan

10.1 Respondent Categories and Access Basis

The table below documents the primary respondent categories, their relevance to the decision gates, and PRISMA's access basis for each:

Respondent Category	Decision Gate Relevance	Access Basis	Indicative Volume
Public-sector officials and former officials in candidate regions	Regional priority, counterparty access, regulatory pathway	CATS26 network; hub network referrals; desk-identified with warm introduction pathway	6–10
Regulators, policy experts, and compliance professionals	Regulatory landscape, licensing requirements, procurement pathways	Hub network referrals; desk-identified with warm introduction pathway; local counsel contacts	4–6
Humanitarian organisations, NGOs, and multilateral intermediaries	Humanitarian use case viability; counterparty access; compliance and delivery requirements	CATS26 participant ecosystem; hub network; desk-identified organisations active in target regions	4–6
Local technology providers, system integrators, and implementation partners	Delivery capacity, infrastructure assessment, implementation model viability	CATS26 hub network; existing Cardano ecosystem relationships; desk-identified regional firms	8–12
Mobile money operators, banks, and payment infrastructure providers	Off-ramp access, stablecoin settlement, financial services regulatory pathway	Hub network referrals; desk-identified operators in priority regions	3–5

Respondent Category	Decision Gate Relevance	Access Basis	Indicative Volume
Agricultural networks, cooperatives, and supply-chain actors	Agricultural use-case validity; implementation pathway; farmer identity and trust conditions	Hub network in sub-Saharan Africa; desk-identified sector organisations	3-5
Cardano ecosystem actors active in candidate regions	Existing signal assessment; ecosystem presence scoring; counterparty landscape	Direct PRISMA network; CATS26 participant community; Cardano community referrals	6-10

Total indicative primary research interactions: 34-54. Interactions will be documented in the Counterparty and Partner Access Map, with each contact's access basis and confidence level stated.

10.2 Access Limitations and Fallback Protocols

PRISMA will not overclaim access. Where direct stakeholder access is limited — particularly for senior public-sector officials, central bank regulators, or ministry-level decision-makers — the methodology will:

• Use former officials, policy advisers, and regulatory consultants as proxies, with findings labelled accordingly
• Use structured expert panels to aggregate knowledge where individual interview access is constrained
• Document access limitations explicitly in the Confidence and Limitations Register
• Adjust RARF scores and CASS classifications to reflect access limitations in the evidence base

PRISMA will avoid overstating government interest based on indirect evidence. Where a finding depends on desk-identified or hypothetical counterparties, it will be clearly marked with a lower confidence level and recommended for further diligence before resource deployment.

10.3 Managing Insider Bias

PRISMA's primary research will actively seek non-Cardano stakeholders to balance the evidence base. For each priority region, the research will include at least two respondents with no direct Cardano affiliation — including, where possible, individuals who evaluated Cardano and chose an alternative approach. This is a structural control, not an optional enhancement.

11. Regulatory Mapping Plan

11.1 Approach

Regulatory mapping will be decision-oriented and proportionate. The objective is to identify the regulatory dependencies and blockers that affect whether a specific use case can proceed in a specific region — not to produce a comprehensive legal review.

The regulatory mapping will not constitute legal advice. Where findings indicate that a legal or regulatory pathway requires specialist review before action, this will be stated explicitly. PRISMA is not a legal advisory organisation, and will not represent regulatory findings with a level of certainty beyond what publicly available evidence and expert interview evidence can support.

11.2 Mapping Dimensions

• Relevant Authorities: Identified regulatory bodies with jurisdiction over the use case, with their current posture toward blockchain, digital assets, and payments
• Licensing and Approval Requirements: Known licensing, registration, or approval requirements that apply to the candidate use case
• Stablecoin and Payment Regulations: Applicable regulations governing stablecoin issuance, payment processing, and cross-border transactions
• Data Protection and Privacy: Data localisation requirements, privacy regulations, and public-chain transparency implications
• Public Procurement Rules: Procurement framework requirements relevant to public-sector entry plays
• Uncertainty Classification: A three-tier classification of regulatory certainty — High Certainty (based on enacted legislation or published regulatory guidance), Medium Certainty (based on regulatory posture and expert interpreted), Low Certainty (based on limited information or rapidly changing policy environment)
• Further Diligence Needed: Explicit statement of where local counsel or specialist review is required before action

11.3 Evidence Sources for Regulatory Mapping

Regulatory mapping evidence will be drawn from: published legislation and regulatory guidance; central bank and financial services authority communications; IMF and World Bank fintech regulatory reports; Chainalysis and other blockchain regulatory trackers; expert interviews with policy professionals and former regulators; and local legal counsel were accessible within budget.

12. Infrastructure Prerequisite Plan

12.1 Purpose

The infrastructure prerequisite assessment answers a question that is often overlooked in market-entry analysis: not whether the use case is viable in theory, but whether the conditions for execution are in place. An entry play that depends on prerequisites that are missing, uncertain, or dependent on another workstream should not be recommended for immediate resource deployment, regardless of how compelling the theoretical opportunity appears.

12.2 Prerequisite Categories

Each regional entry playbook will include a pre-requisite status matrix classifying the following items as Met, Partially Met, Unmet, Unknown, or Dependent on Another Workstream:

Prerequisite Category	Assessment Criteria	Dependency Route if Unmet
Stablecoin availability and liquidity	Presence of a stable-value instrument with sufficient liquidity for the use case transaction volume	RFP 03 — Stablecoin Liquidity workstream
Local off-ramp access	Ability for users or institutions to convert on-chain value to local fiat currency	RFP 03 / RFP 08 — Delivery Partner network
Wallet UX and account abstraction	Whether non-technical users can access the solution without requiring crypto-native knowledge	Product workstream / UX development
Mobile-first or offline capability	Whether the solution can operate on basic mobile devices with intermittent connectivity	Technical product requirements
Privacy and selective disclosure	Whether the use case requires privacy primitives not currently available or requires further development	Technical roadmap / RFP 06
Identity and KYC infrastructure	Whether identity verification requirements can be met within the local regulatory framework	Local regulatory pathway / identity partner
Local delivery partner capacity	Whether an implementer capable of building, deploying, and supporting the solution exists in the region	RFP 08 — Enterprise Delivery Partner Network
Compliance artifacts and SLA documentation	Whether the necessary compliance documentation and service level agreements exist for the institutional or public-sector context	RFP 06 — Enterprise and RWA Readiness Assessment

13. Adoption Signal Plan

13.1 CASS Application Protocol

The Cardano Adoption Signal Standard (CASS) introduced in Section 6.4 will be applied consistently across all evidence collected during the research. The following protocol governs how CASS classifications are assigned:

• Every adoption signal identified during primary or desk research will be assigned a CASS tier at the time it is recorded
• Signals that are currently cited in Cardano community discussion will be reviewed and reclassified where the evidence basis does not support the tier implied by community reporting
• Tier 2 and above classifications require at least one primary evidence source — they cannot be assigned based on desk research alone
• Tier 1 classification requires multiple corroborating primary sources and documentary evidence of recurring usage
• All CASS classifications will be included in the evidence register with their source, date, and confidence level

13.2 Cosmetic Signal Identification

The research will explicitly identify signals that have been cited as adoption evidence but do not meet CASS Tier 2 or above standards. Where the research finds that a prior community claim about regional progress represents Tier 4 (Weak Signal) evidence, this will be reported clearly, with the basis for the reclassification explained.

This is not a negative assessment of Cardano's regional activities — it is a necessary function of responsible research. Resources should not be deployed based on inflated signal assessments.

13.3 Signal-to-Action Translation

The Research-to-Action Roadmap will translate CASS classifications into action recommendations:

• Tier 1 (Verified Adoption): Document and publish as evidence; identify what would scale the opportunity further
• Tier 2 (Strong Signal): Recommend go or conditional-go; specify conditions and owner
• Tier 3 (Moderate Signal): Recommend conditional-go with specific dependency resolution required; specify next evidence milestone
• Tier 4 (Weak Signal): Recommend monitoring; specify what evidence upgrade would justify further investment

14. Work Plan and Timeline

14.1 Phase Work Plan

Phase	Key Activities	Outputs / Checkpoints	Weeks
Phase 1: Inception & Design	Kickoff; decision gate alignment; candidate region list; interview guides; screening criteria; bias control protocols; stakeholder recruitment plan; IRB/ethics confirmation	Kickoff Report; Research Design Document; Candidate Region List; Approved Interview Guide	Weeks 1–3
Phase 2: Screening & Desk Research	RARP application to all candidate clusters; regulatory landscape preliminary scan; use-case viability hypothesis construction; counterparty desk mapping; preliminary infrastructure review	Preliminary Market Prioritisation Matrix; Screening Review with CPC; Priority Deep-Dive Selection	Weeks 4–6
Phase 3: Primary Research & Field Access	Stakeholder interviews across all respondent categories; ALJ facilitation in priority hub locations; expert calls; regulatory expert calls; counterparty mapping refinement; infrastructure assessment	Stakeholder Access Check (Week 8); Regulatory & Infrastructure Review (Week 10); Interim Findings Review (Week 12)	Weeks 7–12
Phase 4: Analysis & Framework Development	RARP score revision with primary evidence; CASS classification of all signals; playbook drafting; regulatory summary writing; counterparty access registration completion; use-case viability assessment completion	Internal Analysis Memo; Draft Framework Outputs	Weeks 13–14
Phase 5: Drafting & Review	Full draft of all deliverables; CPC draft review; validation against decision gates; revision based on review feedback; public summary preparation	Draft Deliverables Review with CPC (Week 16); Revised Draft	Weeks 15–17
Phase 6: Final Delivery	Final report; executive decision memo; cross-RFP handoff	Final Report & Presentation (Week 17–18); Public Summary (Week 18)	Weeks 17–18

Phase	Key Activities	Outputs / Checkpoints	Weeks
	memo; final presentation to CPC; public summary; evidence register; confidence and limitations register

14.2 Milestone Schedule

Milestone	Timing	Purpose
Kickoff	Week 1	Confirm objectives, decision gates, scope, communication cadence, and confidentiality expectations
Research Design Review	End Week 3	Align on RARF criteria, candidate regions, use-case hypotheses, interview guides, and bias controls before fieldwork begins
Regional Screening Review	End Week 6	Present preliminary RARF scores; confirm priority deep-dive selections; adjust workplan if screening surprises unexpected constraints
Stakeholder Access Check	End Week 8	Surface any recruitment gaps, access constraints, or regional limitations requiring methodology adaptation
Regulatory & Infrastructure Review	End Week 10	Present initial regulatory findings and infrastructure prerequisite assessments; identify where further expert advice is needed
Interim Findings Review	End Week 12	Test whether evidence is answering the decision gates; adjust playbook structure if regional evidence requires it
Draft Deliverables Review	End Week 16	Full draft review: market prioritisation matrix, entry playbooks, regulatory summaries, CASS framework, counterparty map, roadmap
Final Report & Presentation	Week 17–18	Present final findings, confidence levels, limitations, decisions enabled, and recommended actions
Public Summary	Week 18	Confirm what can be published; deliver non-confidential public summary for Cardano community

15. Deliverables

15.1 Core Decision Outputs

Deliverable	Format	Content Summary
Market Prioritisation Matrix	Spreadsheet + narrative summary	At least eight candidate regional clusters scored across ten RAAF dimensions, with evidence source, confidence level, and Go / Conditional-Go / Monitor / No-Go recommendation per cluster
Regional Entry Playbooks	Document section per priority region (at least three playbooks)	Per region: leading use case, partner archetype, regulatory pathway, infrastructure prerequisites, milestone sequence, key key risks, adoption metrics, and action recommendation
Use-Case Viability Assessment	Table + narrative analysis	Per region: comparison of candidate use cases on problem severity, Cardano fit, alternatives, stakeholder demand, dependencies, and adoption pathway. Rejected use cases documented with reasons
Regulatory Landscape Summaries	Narrative + source appendix per priority region	Decision-oriented summaries identifying relevant bodies, constraints, permissions, uncertainty levels, and where local counsel is required
Counterparty and Partner Access Map	Table / access register	Roles, named or archetypal counterparties, access status (interviewed / warm access / referred / desk-identified / hypothetical), confidence level, and recommended next action
Infrastructure Prerequisite Assessment	Prerequisite status matrix	Per by playbook: stablecoin, off-ramp, wallet UI, mobile/offline, privacy, identity, delivery capacity, compliance artifacts, SLA requirements — each classified as Met / Partially Met / Unmet / Unknown / Dependent on Another Workstream
Cardano Adoption Signal Standard (CASS)	Framework document + classification table	Definitions for four CASS tiers; classification of all identified signals, examples of strong, moderate, weak, and misleading signals by use case; recommendations for funding triggers and stop conditions

PRISMA: Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

Deliverable	Format	Content Summary
Research-to-Action Roadmap	Roadmap document + executive memo	Recommended next steps with go/conditional-go/no calls dependencies, owner archetypes, milestone sequence, and risk levels. Distinguishes immediate, medium-term, and dependency-gated opportunities
Executive Decision Memo	Short memo (max 8 pages)	Top recommendations, rationale, evidence confidence, key tradeoffs, and immediate decisions required by the Product Committee
Cross-RFP Handoff Memo	Memo / table	Maps findings that belong in RFP 01, 02, 03, 06, 07, 08 or other workstreams; specifies requested action from receiving workstream

15.2 Supporting Research Outputs

In addition to the core decision outputs, the research will produce: methodology appendix; interview guide and respondent screener; anonymised interview notes or summaries where consent is given; regional evidence workbook; regulatory citation appendix; RARF scoring workbook; confidence and limitations register; risk register; data-source inventory; and glossary.

15.3 Public and Community-Facing Outputs

A public summary will be produced, excluding confidential or sensitive findings. It will include: methodology overview; key regional findings; evidence caveats and confidence levels; publishable market prioritisation overview; publishable recommendations; and a description of the RARF and CASS frameworks for community use. The public summary will not expose respondent identities, sensitive government or regulatory views, or commercially sensitive partner information.

16. Team Qualifications and Structure

16.1 Team Architecture

The research will be conducted by a team of five to seven specialists drawn from PRISMA's core organisation and its regional network. The team structure reflects the multi-disciplinary requirements of this research: ecosystem intelligence, regional fieldwork, regulatory analysis, action-learning facilitation, and decision-synthesis.

Role	Name	Relevant Experience
Research Lead / Principal Investigator	Tobias Fechner (Core Team)	Responsible for research design, methodology, quality control, CPC relationship, and final deliverables.
Regional Coordinator — Sub-Saharan Africa	Mercy Fordwo (Netwok-WADA Hub Network)	Responsible for African primacy research, hub network facilitation, CATS26 network engagement, and regional screening. Direct operational experience across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Regional Intelligence Coordinator — Latin America	Delfina Terrado Kaehler (Core Team)	Responsible for LATAM primacy research, stakeholder engagement in candidate LATAM clusters, and regional screening. Operational experience in high-inflation market contexts.
Regulatory and Policy Analyst	Alfred Itodole (Network-Protocol Working Group) & Ekow Harding (Network-Mentor)	Responsible for supporting regulatory landscape mapping, policy desk research, and expert interview co-ordination with regulatory professionals.
ALJ Facilitator / Stakeholder Engagement Lead	Vir Regner (Core Team)	Responsible for facilitating Action Learning Journey engagements in priority hub locations, structuring primary research interactions, and ensuring evidence-generation quality. Background in facilitation, evaluation, and participatory research.
Analysis and Synthesis Lead	Emerald Akhaumere (Netwok-Protocol Working Group)	Responsible for RARP scoring, CASS classification, cross-evidence synthesis, and framework development.
Ecosystem Research Associate	Abdulbasit Adigun (Devbasrahtop) Abdulrahman	Supporting role for desk research, evidence registry management, interview scheduling, and documentation.

Role	Name	Relevant Experience
	(Network-Protocol Working Group) & Abdulrahman Umar (Network-Mentor)

Note: These are few of the Core team and Networks. PRISMA confirms that the organisational capacity to fill all roles exists within its current team and network. (linkedin Links are embedded in their names above)

16.2 Team Capabilities

Collectively, the team brings the following capabilities directly relevant to this research:

• Direct operational engagement with the Cardano ecosystem in sub-Saharan Africa (CATS26 partnership with Wada; Accra and Nairobi hub relationships)
• Action Learning Journey design and facilitation in multiple regional and cultural contexts (Recorded Sessions Playlist on Youtube)
• Case-study production and publication (docs.prisma.events ; case.prisma.events)
• Hub network relationships across Ghana, Kenya, Argentina, Wales, and broader regions
• Regulatory research and policy landscape mapping in emerging-market contexts
• Stakeholder interview design and facilitation in sensitive institutional contexts
• Evidence synthesis and decision-framework development
• Familiarity with Cardano's governance structure, ecosystem context, and adjacent research workstreams

17. Relevant Experience and Prior Work

17.1 Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026 (CATS26)

PRISMA's most directly relevant prior work is its partnership with Wada in delivering the Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026. This was not a single event but a multi-month, structured, action-learning process involving:

• Hub networks at least five African nations — each local hub operating as a participant community and evidence-generation environment
• A parallel hackathon track which 40 projects emerged from locally-grounded problem statements and Cardano tooling
• An intensive process of enrolment, problem-statement development, team formation, and hub-based development preceding the summit
• A summit in Nairobi, Kenya (February 11-13, 2026) at which the top five projects were presented, with the winning teams receiving three to six months of incubation support

The CATS26 process provides PRISMA with a validated, operational understanding of how Cardano adoption actually functions at the grassroots level in African markets — including what infrastructure is available, what institutional relationships exist, and how communities engage with blockchain technology outside of a marketing or conference context. The case study for CATS26 is published at case.prisma.events and represents PRISMA's case-study infrastructure in practice.

17.2 Accra Action Learning Journey

PRISMA has documented an Action Learning Journey conducted in Accra, Ghana, involving multi-stakeholder participation, hub-based facilitation, and structured evidence generation. This represents an operational demonstration of the ALI methodology in a West African context — the same methodology proposed for primary research access in this study.

17.3 Cardano Ecosystem Engagement History

PRISMA has previously engaged with the Cardano ecosystem through the Intersect governance process, submitting a proposal that is currently under consideration. This engagement demonstrates PRISMA's familiarity with Cardano's governance structure, community dynamics, and the evidence expectations of the ecosystem's institutional stakeholders.

17.4 Hub Network Infrastructure

PRISMA's hub network infrastructure — which supports event organisation, learning facilitation, team-building, and case-study production — is documented at docs.prisma.events. This infrastructure is directly reusable for primary research access in the candidate regions included in this study.

17.5 Methodology Transparency

PRISMA's Action Learning Journey methodology, evaluation processes, case-study publication infrastructure, and facilitation patterns are publicly documented and available for review. This transparency is deliberate: PRISMA builds its credibility on methodology legibility, not on proprietary process opacity.

18. Data Sources

18.1 Primary Sources

• Structured stakeholder interviews (30–45 respondents across categories detailed in Section 10)
• PRISMA hub network engagements and Action Learning Journey facilitation in priority regions
• Expert panels where direct institutional access is constrained
• Workshop sessions with local practitioners in priority regional clusters
• CATS26 participant and hub network ecosystem intelligence

18.2 Desk Research and Secondary Sources

• IMF Regional Economic Outlook reports and country assessments relevant to priority regions
• World Bank Doing Business indicators, financial inclusion data, and development reports
• GSMA Mobile Economy reports for sub-Saharan Africa and other priority regions
• Central bank and financial services regulatory publications in priority regions
• Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index and regional blockchain reports
• UNCDF and GI2 financial inclusion ecosystem assessments
• IFAD agricultural market and supply-chain reports relevant to candidate use cases
• Cardano Foundation and Input Output Research published materials relevant to regional adoption
• Publicly available records from prior Cardano ecosystem engagements in priority regions
• Peer ecosystem case studies: Ethereum-based and Stellar-based public-sector and humanitarian deployments as benchmarks

18.3 Evidence Governance

Every major factual claim in the final report will be traceable to a source, interview, dataset, or explicitly identified research-team judgment. Sources will be categorised by type (primary interview, public secondary, proprietary/restricted, or team judgment) and by confidence level (High, Medium, Low). Sources that are proprietary, paid, incomplete, or require validation will be explicitly marked.

PRISMA will not invent statistics, manufacture counterpart access, or present findings with a confidence level that the evidence does not support.

19. Risk and Bias Mitigation Plan

Risk / Bias Type	Description	Control Measure
Cardano insider optimism	Over-weighting evidence from Cardano community members who have a reputational or financial interest in positive findings	Minimum of two non-Cardano respondents per priority region; negative-case evidence actively sought; CASS classification applied regardless of source affiliation
Regional overgeneralisation	Treating continental-level labels as analytically coherent masses	RARF operates at country-cluster level; findings documented at sub-national specificity where evidence supports it
English-language bias	Under-representing actors who operate in non-English environments	PRISMA hub network includes non-English operating contexts; limitations documented; local facilitators engaged where language access constraints exist
Elite and capital-city bias	Over-representing urban, capital-city, or institutionally visible actors at the expense of implementation-level practitioners	ALJ methodology explicitly surfaces grassroots and implementation-level actors; evidence from different actor levels cross-checked
Government access overclaiming	Representing desk-identified or referral-based government contacts as confirmed access	All counterparty access classified using the five-tier access status system; findings based on unconfirmed access marked with lower confidence
Partner self-promotion	Local partners over-reporting the strength of their institutional relationships or the depth of adoption signals	Partner claims corroborated with independent evidence; CASS classification applied to evidence regardless of source
Regulatory overclaiming	Presenting uncertain or evolving regulatory situations with greater certainty than the evidence supports	Three-tier regulatory certainty classification applied; uncertain findings clearly labelled; local counsel recommended where clarity is insufficient
Treating intent as adoption	Classifying letters of intent, expressed interest, or informal engagement as adoption signal	CASS framework is the structural control; no being based on expressed interest alone

PRISMA: Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)

Risk / Bias Type	Description	Control Measure
Scope creep	Absorbing adjacent RFP scopes (stablecoin liquidity, enterprise readiness, delivery partner design) into this proposal	Cross-RFP handoff memo is a mandatory deliverable; scope discipline reviewed at each checkpoint; findings that belong in adjacent workstreams are routed there, not stretched there
Political and institutional sensitivity	Exposing respondents to institutional risk by publishing sensitive government or regulatory views	Data handling protocols (Section 20); explicit consent management; separation of public and confidential findings

The final report will include a Limitations section that explicitly states what the research can and cannot support, where confidence is Low, and where further diligence is required before action.

20. Confidentiality and Data Handling Approach

20.1 Consent and Attribution

All primary research participants will be informed in advance of the purpose of the research, who commissioned it, how their responses will be used, and the expected output formats. Each participant will be asked to confirm their preferred attribution status before any interaction is recorded: attributable, anonymised, or fully confidential.

No recording will be made without explicit prior consent. Where consent is given for recording, recordings will be stored in encrypted format and access will be limited to the core research team.

20.2 Data Classification

Research outputs will be classified into four data categories:

• Public Findings: Suitable for community publication without modification. Included in the public summary.
• CPC-Only Findings: Suitable for the Product Committee and Interest governance purposes, but not for public publication. Includes commercially sensitive counterparty information, sensitive government views, and preliminary findings that require further validation before public release.
• Confidential Raw Data: Interview notes, transcripts, and raw evidence. Not to be published in any form. Retained securely by PRISMA for the duration of the project and deleted according to the agreed retention schedule.
• Restricted / Proprietary Data: Paid or third-party datasets used to inform findings. CPC can inspect methodology and findings derived from these sources, but the underlying data cannot be published unless separately licensed.

20.3 Storage and Access Controls

All raw data will be stored in encrypted, access-controlled cloud storage with access limited to named members of the research team. Recordings and transcripts will be deleted within 12 months of project completion, or immediately following final report delivery where respondents request earlier deletion.

20.4 Publication Boundaries

The public summary will include methodology overview, key findings, publishable recommendations, and evidence caveats. It will not expose: respondent identities (unless explicit public attribution consent was obtained); sensitive government or regulatory views; commercially sensitive or implementation details; security-sensitive information; or findings that would put respondents at institutional, regulatory, and political risk.

21. Ethics Approach

This research involves primary interactions with human participants, including public-sector officials, practitioners in sensitive institutional contexts, and community members in developing-market environments. The following minimum safeguards will apply throughout:

• All participants will be informed of the research purpose, commissioning organisation, intended outputs, and distribution channels before any interaction
• Participation is voluntary; participants may withdraw consent at any time without affecting their relationship with PRISMA or the Cardano ecosystem
• Where participants are in institutional contexts where expressing views on blockchain or digital assets could create professional or regulatory risk, PRISMA will explicitly offer fully anonymous participation and will not push for attribution against participant preferences
• PRISMA will not mislead participants about the purpose or audience of the research, the likely use of their contributions, or the confidentiality treatment of their responses
• Extra care will be applied in public-sector, humanitarian, and community contexts where institutional or political risk is more acute
• Where community or beneficiary-level participants are included in any component of the research, PRISMA will ensure that their participation does not create economic, social, or safety risks
• No personally identifiable information beyond what is required for research contact management will be collected or stored

PRISMA will prepare a research ethics brief before fieldwork begins, aligned to broadly accepted principles of responsible research practice. This brief will be shared with the CPC at the Research Design Review checkpoint.

22. Budget Breakdown and Narrative

22.1 Budget Summary

The proposed core budget is ADA 58,000. At the current approximate ADA exchange rate of USD 0.23, this represents approximately USD 13,340. Given that ADA price may fluctuate between approval and project completion, all budget items are denominated in ADA and are not conditional on exchange rate.

PRISMA's budget is lean relative to the scope of work because PRISMA's existing network infrastructure substantially reduces the recruitment and access overhead typically associated with multi-region primary research. PRISMA is not building a field presence from scratch in these regions — it is activating an existing one.

22.2 Core Budget Breakdown

Budget Category	ADA (Core Scope)	Approx. USD	Rationale
Project Management & Coordination	7,000	~$1,610	Research lead time across 18 weeks; CPC checkpoint management; workplan administration; reporting
Regional Screening & Desk Research	6,500	~$1,495	RARF application to 8+ regional clusters; secondary source review; preliminary counterparty mapping; use-case hypothesis construction
Primary Research — Interviews & Expert Calls	16,000	~$3,680	Scheduling, preparation, and facilitation of 30–45 structured interviews and expert calls across three regional clusters and five respondent categories
Regional Network Access & Hub Coordination	8,500	~$1,955	Coordination costs for hub network activation in sub-Saharan Africa

Budget Category	ADA (Core Scope)	Approx. USD	Rationale
			and LATAM; local facilitator engagement; hub logistics; ALJ facilitation design for primary research contexts
Regulatory & Compliance Landscape Research	4,500	~$1,035	Regulatory desk research across 3–4 priority regions; policy expert calls; local counsel consultation where accessible; regulatory summary drafting
Validation & Cross-Checking Sessions	4,000	~$920	CPC checkpoint facilitation; internal validation sessions; draft review cycles; respondent fact-check where required
Synthesis, Analysis & Framework Development	5,500	~$1,265	RARF score refinement; CASS classification; counterparty access register; cross-evidence synthesis; playbook architecture
Report Writing, Documentation & Deliverables	4,000	~$920	All core decision outputs; supporting appendices; evidence register; limitations register; public summary production
Ethics & Data Governance Infrastructure	1,500	~$345	Consent management; data storage and access controls; ethics brief preparation; deletion protocols

Budget Category	ADA (Core Scope)	Approx. USD	Rationale
Contingency (~8.6%)	5,000	~$1,150	Access constraints requiring alternative recruitment; unexpected regulatory complexity; additional primary research interactions required for confidence improvement
TOTAL CORE SCOPE	58,000 ADA	~$13,340

22.3 Optional Stretch Scope — ADA 12,000

The following stretch-scope items are available at an additional ADA 12,000, priced separately. None are required for the core deliverables:

Stretch Item	ADA	Description
Deeper country-level diligence for a priority market	4,000	Additional primary research and regulatory depth for the highest-scoring regional cluster
Local-language primary research in one region	3,000	Translation support and local-language facilitation for one priority region where English-language coverage is insufficient
Pilot design templates for top-ranked plays	3,000	Structured pilot design templates for the two highest-scoring entry plays, specifying pilot scope, owner requirements, success metrics, and timeline
Monitoring dashboard specification	2,000	Specification for a lightweight monitoring framework allowing CPC to track adoption signal progress in priority regions after the research concludes
TOTAL OPTIONAL STRETCH SCOPE	12,000 ADA	~$2,760

22.4 Budget Defence

The budget is structured to maximise evidence value per ADA spent. The largest single line — ADA 16,000 for primary research — reflects the non-negotiable reality that desk research alone cannot

answer the counterparty accessibility, delivery capacity, and genuine adoption signal questions that the RFP demands. Without this investment, the research would produce a descriptive market report, not a decision architecture.

The regional network access line — ADA 8,500 — reflects real costs that a conventional research firm would face at a much higher level, given that they would need to build regional access from scratch. PRISMA's existing hub relationships reduce this substantially; this line covers the coordination, facilitation, and logistics of activating an existing network, not building a new one.

The contingency line — ADA 5,000 — is explicitly for two scenarios: first, if access constraints require alternative recruitment strategies (adding respondent compensates for inaccessible institutional actors); and second, if preliminary findings identify a regional opportunity with unusually high strategic value that warrants additional primary research for improved confidence. It will not be deployed without CPC visibility and agreement.

23 MILESTONE-BASED PAYMENT SCHEDULE (If Applicable)

23.1 Overview

The ADA 58,000 core budget is released across five milestones tied to verified deliverable submission and CPC acknowledgement of completion. No milestone payment is conditional on the research producing favourable or predetermined findings — the verification criteria are procedural and evidence-based, not outcome-based. The contingency allowance (ADA 5,000) sits within Milestone 3 and Milestone 4.

Funding follows a front-light, back-weighted structure. The first two milestones together represent approximately 27% of total budget, covering design and screening work that must be completed before significant fieldwork is incurred. The largest single release — Milestone 3 — covers the primary research phase, where travel, hub coordination, and facilitation costs are concentrated. Milestones 4 and 5 cover synthesis and delivery, where team time is the primary cost.

23.2 Milestone Payment Table

Milestone	Name	Timing	Work Completed	Deliverables Submitted to CPC	Verification Criteria	ADA Released
M1	Project Inception and Research Design	Kickoff payment (upon contract signature / project project start)	Kickoff-meeting; decision gate alignment with CPC; candidate region list constructed; RARC scoring criteria finalised; design for primary research confirmed;	Kickoff-Report; Research Design Document (including RARC candidate region list, use-case hypotheses, interview guide, bias controls, ethics brief);	CPC confirms receipt and approval of Research Design Document and ethics brief; kickoff meeting completed;	7,000 ADA

criteria, the candidate region list, and the bias control protocols — must be reviewed and approved by the CPC before Phase 2 begins. This checkpoint prevents misaligned fieldwork from proceeding at scale.

The ethics brief, also required for M1 completion, establishes the consent management, data classification, and respondent protection protocols before any primary research interaction occurs. This is not procedural overhead — it is a substantive protection for participants in public-sector and community contexts.

Milestone 2 — ADA 9,000

The second milestone produces the first substantive analytical output: the Preliminary Market Prioritisation Matrix. This matrix is the foundation on which the primary research agenda is built. It determines which regional clusters receive deep-dive primary research investment and which are monitored or rejected on desk-evidence grounds. The CPC reviews and confirms the priority deep-dive list before Phase 3 fieldwork is committed.

This is the most cost-efficient checkpoint in the research: if the desk screening reveals that a candidate region the CPC expected to prioritise does not meet the RARR threshold, that finding is surfaced before primary research resources are deployed against it, and no matter what. The milestone payment reflects the significant analytical effort required to apply the RARR rigorously across eight or more candidate clusters, but it protects the CPC from downstream evidence problems by requiring sign-off before fieldwork proceeds.

Milestone 3 — ADA 22,000

The third milestone is the largest single release because it covers the period of highest operational cost: the primary research phase. Hub coordination, facilitation, travel logistics, and the time required to conduct, document, and begin analysing thirty or more structured primary research interactions are concentrated here. The regional network access and primary research budget lines — ADA 16,000 and ADA 8,500 respectively — are substantially consumed in this phase.

The verification standard for this milestone is procedural and documented: minimum thirty interactions confirmed in the Stakeholder Access Register, CPC Interim Findings Review completed, and methodology adjustments agreed if the evidence requires them. The milestone is not conditional on the findings being positive or confirmatory — it is conditional on the research being conducted at the standard the methodology requires.

The ADA 5,000 contingency allocation is housed within this milestone. If the Interim Findings Review identifies that a priority region requires additional primary research interactions to achieve sufficient confidence for a playbook recommendation, the contingency may be activated at this stage, with CPC agreement documented before deployment.

Milestone 4 — ADA 12,000

The fourth milestone covers the analytical and drafting phase. The full suite of ten core decision outputs is submitted in draft form. This is the point at which the CPC can review the full substance of the research findings before final delivery — identifying any areas where findings require additional justification, where confidence levels need to be adjusted, or where the scope of a playbook section needs revision. The revision brief produced at this checkpoint governs the final delivery in Milestone 5.

This two-stage delivery structure — draft review followed by final delivery — is standard practice in institutional research commissioning. It prevents a situation in which the CPC receives a final report that

it cannot meaningfully influence, and it ensures that the final deliverables genuinely serve the CPC's decision-making needs rather than being technically complete but rather misaligned.

Milestone 5 — ADA 8,000

The final milestone covers the delivery of revised final outputs, the public summary, the final presentation, and the archiving of the evidence register and supporting documentation. Payment is released upon CPC's written confirmation of project completion — a straightforward procedural confirmation that the agreed deliverables have been received and that the public summary has been cleared.

The back-weighting of this milestone reflects standard grant practice: holding a meaningful final payment against confirmed completion creates accountability without being punitive. ADA 8,000 represents approximately 14% of total budget held at the final gate — sufficient to ensure completion without creating cash-flow conditions that would prevent PRISMA from resourcing the work adequately in earlier phases.

23.4 Milestone Payment Summary

Milestone	% of Total	ADA	Primary Trigger
M1 — Inception and Design	12.1%	7,000	CPC approves Research Design Document and ethics brief
M2 — Screening Complete	15.5%	9,000	CPC confirms priority deep-dive regions from Preliminary Matrix
M3 — Primary Research Substantially Complete	37.9%	22,000	CPC completes Interim Findings Review; 30+ interactions confirmed
M4 — Full Draft Submitted	20.7%	12,000	CPC provides written revision brief following draft review
M5 — Final Delivery	13.8%	8,000	CPC issues written project completion confirmation
TOTAL	100%	58,000 ADA

24. Conflicts of Interest Declaration

PRISMA declares the following actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest relevant to this proposal:

24.1 Cardano Ecosystem Engagement

PRISMA has previously engaged with the Cardano ecosystem, awarded proposal in Project Catalyst, a submission to the ongoing Intersect Treasury process. This prior engagement creates a potential perception of institutional bias towards positive findings about Cardano's regional opportunities. PRISMA will manage this conflict through the bias controls described in Section 19, including: active recruitment of non-Cardano respondents for every priority region; transparent CASS classification regardless of source affiliation; and an explicit statement in the final report's limitations section that the research team has a prior relationship with the Cardano ecosystem.

24.2 Wada Partnership

PRISMA's co-facilitation role with Wada in CATS26 creates a relationship with an organisation that is an active participant in the Cardano ecosystem in Africa. Where Wada-connected actors are included in primary research, their contributions will be documented with their affiliation noted and will be corroborated with independent evidence before being used to support findings. PRISMA will not represent Wada's views as independent evidence.

24.3 Financial Exposure

PRISMA does hold ADA, Cardano-linked tokens, or financial instruments but it would not create a direct financial interest in the outcome of this research beyond the grant itself.

24.4 No Advisory or Governance Roles

PRISMA does not currently hold advisory roles, governance positions, or board seats at Cardano Foundation, Input Output Global, Intersect, or other Cardano governance organisations that would create a structural conflict of interest in this research.

24.5 No Peer-Chain Conflicts

PRISMA does not currently hold paid relationships with competing blockchain ecosystems (Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, etc.) that would create an incentive to produce findings unfavourable to Cardano.

24.6 Subcontractor Conflicts

Where subcontractors or local facilitators are engaged, their affiliations will be disclosed to the CPC before engagement. Any subcontractor with material Cardano ecosystem relationships will be managed under the same conflict controls as the core team.

25. Conclusion

The Cardano Product Committee has identified a genuine and consequential evidence gap. The ecosystem needs to move from broad regional aspirations to specific, testable, evidence-based entry plays — that plays that must be engaged, what prerequisites must be in place, what would constitute adoption agreement, and what would justify the deployment of ecosystem resources.

This proposal offers a disciplined, evidence-first response to that challenge. PRISMA brings to this research something that most prospective research teams cannot: genuine, operational access to the grassroots and institutional actors in the regions this research must examine. That access — built through years of action-learning engagement, hub-network relationships, and direct co-facilitation of the Cardano Africa Tech Summit — is not a marketing claim. It is documented in public case studies, demonstrated through PRISMA's track record, and verifiable against the organisations named in this proposal.

The research proposal describes is not a market survey. It is a decision-architecture exercise designed to produce the CPC needs: a prioritised regional matrix grounded in transparent criteria; playbooks that specify what each entry play actually requires; a counterparty map that distinguishes verified access from desk-identified hypotheticals; and an adoption signal standard that prevents ecosystem resources from flowing toward engagement that looks promising but proves empty.

The budget is lean because PRISMA's existing infrastructure makes it so. The timeline is realistic because the methodology demands it. The scope is disciplined because the brief requires it.

PRISMA is ready to begin work upon award. We welcome questions from the evaluation panel and are available to participate in any clarification process the CPC requires.

Respectfully submitted,

Tobias Fechner- Infrastructure Lead @PRISMA

www.prisma.events | docs.prisma.events | case.prisma.events

Appendix: Submission Checklist Confirmation (RFP 05 Appendix A)

PRISMA confirms that the following items required by RFP 05 Appendix A are included in this submission:

Checklist Item	Included?	Location in Document
Cover letter	✓ Yes	Section 1
Understanding of the brief	✓ Yes	Section 3
Proposed methodology	✓ Yes	Section 6
Decision gate mapping	✓ Yes	Section 7
Regional scope and prioritization plan	✓ Yes	Section 8
Use-case assessment plan	✓ Yes	Section 9
Stakeholder access plan	✓ Yes	Section 10
Regulatory mapping plan	✓ Yes	Section 11
Infrastructure prerequisite plan	✓ Yes	Section 12
Adoption signal plan	✓ Yes	Section 13
Workplan	✓ Yes	Section 14
Team qualifications	✓ Yes	Section 16
Relevant experience	✓ Yes	Section 17
Data sources	✓ Yes	Section 18
Risk and bias mitigation plan	✓ Yes	Section 19
Confidentiality and data handling approach	✓ Yes	Section 20
Ethics approach	✓ Yes	Section 21
Timeline	✓ Yes	Section 14
Budget breakdown	✓ Yes	Section 22
Conflicts declaration	✓ Yes	Section 24
Prior work examples	✓ Yes	Section 17

PRISMA: Proposal to the Cardano Product Committee RFP 05 (core), RFP 02 & RFP 01 (supporting)