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Odaily Odaily News The Cardano network completed the Van Rossem hard fork upgrade on July 18, upgrading the mainnet protocol version to 11 (Protocol Version 11). This upgrade not only brings smart contract performance optimizations but also marks the first time Cardano has completed a protocol upgrade led by its community governance system, rather than being directly driven by the founding team.Previously, Cardano hard forks were mainly coordinated by core organizations such as the engineering firm Input Output (IOG), which is responsible for development. In contrast, the Van Rossem upgrade was fully facilitated through Cardano's on-chain governance system for proposal, discussion, and voting, becoming the first major upgrade autonomously approved by network participants since Cardano entered the Voltaire governance era.According to on-chain data, the Cardano mainnet upgraded from version 10 in epoch 643 to version 11 in epoch 644, officially activating on July 18 at 21:44 UTC. The upgrade received final approval on July 13, requiring consensus from the representative bodies, the Constitutional Committee, and stake pool operators.Among them, DReps (Delegated Representatives), who vote on behalf of ADA holders in governance, approved the proposal with a 78.97% support rate, exceeding the 60% requirement; all seven members of the Cardano Constitutional Committee confirmed the upgrade complies with constitutional requirements; and stake pool operators, responsible for running the network's infrastructure, approved the upgrade with a 53.02% support rate.The Van Rossem upgrade primarily includes technical improvements such as optimizing the Plutus smart contract platform, reducing smart contract execution costs, and enhancing ledger validation rules. This upgrade also paves the way for the future Dijkstra-era hard fork and the Ouroboros Leios scaling solution.Ouroboros Leios aims to enhance the processing capacity of Cardano’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. It is expected to launch in 2026, potentially significantly increasing the network's transaction throughput while maintaining security.For ordinary ADA users, this upgrade does not bring significant operational changes; wallets do not need updating, and transfer methods and fees remain the same. However, in the long run, Plutus optimizations could lower the operational costs of decentralized applications (DeFi, NFTs, etc.), providing lower-cost infrastructure for ecosystem development.Cardano stated that the greatest significance of Van Rossem is not merely the technical upgrade, but the shift in governance model—the future direction of the network will be determined by community votes, rather than being entirely controlled by the founding team. This means ADA holders now truly possess governance rights to participate in protocol evolution for the first time. (CoinDesk)
: Cardano development company Input Output will transfer control of key blockchain components such as the Haskell node, Plutus platform, and Daedalus wallet to external professional teams starting in August, as part of a multi-year decentralization advancement plan. Independent companies such as Se7en Labs and Teragone will be responsible for certain core infrastructures. At least three versions of Cardano will be maintained in Haskell, Rust, and Go languages, under community supervision and formal specification management. Cardano currently faces relatively weak network activity and a significant decline in the price of its ADA token. Founder Charles Hoskinson characterizes this restructuring and related ecosystem setbacks as necessary "growing pains" in the process of moving towards full decentralization.
According to CoinDesk, Input Output, the core development company behind Cardano, has submitted nine funding proposals totaling $46.8 million to the community treasury for fiscal year 2026—a sharp reduction of approximately 52% compared to last year’s $97.5 million—marking its first step toward gradually reducing reliance on community funds. The nine proposals center on two key initiatives: First, the Leios consensus upgrade, expected to boost Cardano’s transaction throughput by 10x to 65x and target over 1,000 transactions per second (TPS); testing is scheduled for June, with full deployment planned by year-end. Second, Pogun—a Bitcoin DeFi system enabling Bitcoin holders to borrow and earn yield via Cardano without entrusting assets to centralized custodians; its lending functionality is slated for public release in Q2. Voting is being conducted by roughly 1,000 democratically elected representatives (DReps), with ballots closing on May 24. The outcome will test whether the Cardano community now views Input Output as just another ordinary funding applicant. Meanwhile, Cardano’s newly launched stablecoin USDCx has achieved a circulating supply of 14.6 million tokens within weeks of launch, and the network’s total value locked (TVL) has risen from $137.5 million to $142.7 million.