Cardano has officially activated the van Rossem hard fork, upgrading its mainnet to Protocol Version 11. The update went live on July 18 at the start of a new epoch, marking another major step in the network’s development.
The upgrade was successfully implemented after weeks of testing, infrastructure preparation, and community voting. It was approved through Cardano’s governance system on July 13, with strong support from delegated representatives (DReps), stake pool operators (SPOs), and the Constitutional Committee.
One of the key goals of the van Rossem upgrade is to improve the efficiency of Plutus, Cardano’s smart contract platform. The update introduces new features and cost model improvements that are expected to make certain smart contract operations cheaper and more efficient. It also includes technical enhancements designed to improve overall network performance.
Unlike previous major upgrades, van Rossem is an intra-era hard fork, meaning Cardano remains in the Conway era while updating important parts of its protocol. The upgrade had already been tested on the Preview and Preprod networks before being deployed to the mainnet.
The hard fork is also an important step toward Cardano’s next major upgrade, known as the Dijkstra era. That future upgrade is expected to introduce Ouroboros Leios, a new version of Cardano’s proof-of-stake system designed to significantly increase transaction throughput while maintaining security and decentralization.
Development of Ouroboros Leios is still ongoing. Cardano’s development teams continue to test and improve the technology, releasing new prototype versions and working on better block processing and certification performance.
Beyond the technical improvements, van Rossem is notable because it is the first hard fork in Cardano’s history to be approved through the network’s on-chain governance system. Instead of relying primarily on core development organizations, the final decision was made through community governance involving DReps, stake pool operators, and the Constitutional Committee.
This milestone reflects Cardano’s broader transition toward decentralized decision-making, where the community plays a larger role in shaping the network’s future. The same governance system has already been used to vote on treasury funding proposals and other ecosystem initiatives.
With the van Rossem upgrade now live, Cardano is running on Protocol Version 11 and continues moving toward its next phase of development. While a final launch date for Ouroboros Leios has not yet been announced, the highly anticipated scaling upgrade is currently expected to arrive later in 2026.
