Cardano's First On-Chain Governed Hard Fork Goes Live

Cardano enacted the Van Rossem hard fork on July 18

Cardano completed its Van Rossem hard fork on July 18, 2026, at 21:44:51 UTC. The network advanced to protocol version 11 at the epoch boundary. Intersect, the organisation coordinating the Hard Fork Working Group, reported no downtime during the transition. A hard fork changes the network's core rules and requires all nodes to run compatible software at the same point. Node operators had to upgrade their software before the switch to stay in sync with the mainnet.

On-chain voting governed the upgrade for the first time

The upgrade marked Cardano's first hard fork governed entirely by on-chain voting, rather than centralised coordination from Input Output. Input Output built much of the network's original codebase. Under the new process, the community's governance bodies approved the change directly on the blockchain. The shift moved the decision to token holders and to the pool operators who secure the network. It followed Cardano's move to community governance under the Conway ledger era. The decision to proceed rested with those bodies, not with a single company.

Governance bodies cleared the required approval thresholds

Cardano ratified the hard fork on July 13, 2026, at the epoch boundary. Delegated representatives, known as DReps, voted 77.63% in favour, above the 60% threshold. Stake pool operators approved it with 52.7% support, just past the 51% requirement. The Constitutional Committee voted six in favour, none against, with one abstention. The result cleared both the delegate and operator thresholds set by Cardano's rules. Enactment of protocol version 11 followed five days later.

The upgrade lowers smart contract costs and adds primitives

Van Rossem is an intra-era change inside Cardano's Conway ledger era, so it does not replace the governance structure. The upgrade lowers the cost of running Plutus smart contracts, the network's contract platform. It also adds cryptographic tools for developers, including BLS12-381 multi-scalar multiplication, native array types, and modular exponentiation. These functions give developers cheaper and more flexible ways to build applications on Cardano. Stake pool operators can no longer reuse Verifiable Random Function keys across the network, a change that tightens ledger security. The upgrade keeps existing applications running while expanding what new contracts can do.

Testnets ran the upgrade before the mainnet launch

The upgrade followed a staged rollout across Cardano's test networks. The Preview testnet hard forked to protocol version 11 on May 8, 2026. The Preprod testnet enacted its hard fork on June 10, 2026, after ratification on June 5. Developers then submitted the mainnet hard fork initiation action on June 16, 2026. Input Output, the Cardano Foundation, Emurgo, Midnight, and Ensurable Systems contributed to the release. Intersect also hosted compatible versions of the Ogmios and Kupo tools, so connected services could reach the upgraded network. A separate Plutus Cost Model parameter update preceded the hard fork on the mainnet. Delegated representatives ratified that update on June 13, 2026, and it took effect on June 18, 2026.

ADA traded near 16 cents at the time of publication

ADA, Cardano's native token, traded at $0.16 at the time of publication, down 1.2% over the past 24 hours (CoinPaprika, 20 July 2026). The token gained 2.4% over the previous seven days. Trading volume over the past 24 hours reached about $148 million. Its market value stood near $6.4 billion, ranking ADA among the 20 largest cryptocurrencies.

Primary source: Source ↗