Cardano Foundation research finds big reserves don’t guarantee proof-of-stake security

A massive token reserve looks like the ultimate safety net for a proof-of-stake blockchain. New research from the Cardano ecosystem suggests that the net may have holes in it. A paper presented at the 8th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2026) argues that a large stockpile of native tokens is not enough, on its own, to guarantee a network’s long-term security. What the paper actually found The research is titled “Reserve Depletion and Security Runway in Proof-of-Stake Systems.” It was co-authored by Paolo Penna of Input Output Global (IOG) and Manvir Schneider of the Cardano Foundation. The Cardano Foundation presented the work at AFT 2026, held in London from October 6-9, 2026. The paper appears in the LIPIcs proceedings, dated October 2, 2026. The central contribution is something the authors describe as a state-dependent reserve threshold. Think of it as a dividing line whose position moves depending on the current conditions of the network. Above or below that line, a proof-of-stake system lands in one of three distinct security conditions: Complete failure: the network cannot sustain adequate security, regardless of how things play out. Reserve-dependent s...