Cardano completes the first fully on-chain governance hard fork in its network history

According to Odaily, Cardano activated the Van Rossem hard fork on July 18, 2026, at 21:44:51 UTC, upgrading the network to protocol version 11 with no downtime reported. This upgrade, part of changes within the Conway ledger era, aims to lower Plutus smart contract operational costs, enhance ledger security, and introduce new encryption tools.

Van Rossem includes five Cardano Improvement Proposals, covering BLS12-381 multi-scalar multiplication, on-chain array types, multi-asset value handling optimizations, accelerated list operations, and a built-in modular exponentiation function. Staking pools are now prohibited from reusing the same verifiable random function key network-wide; each pool must hold a unique key bound to its identity.

This upgrade was completed through Cardano's on-chain governance process, with proposals and activation driven by on-chain voting. Delegates approved the proposal with a support rate of 77.63%, stake pool operators with 52.7%, and the Constitutional Committee's vote result was 6-0-0-1.

Wallets holding between 100,000 and 100 million ADA have increased their total balance to the highest level since 2023, now controlling over one quarter of ADA's circulating supply. Cardano will next advance Ouroboros Leios and plans to achieve a goal of over 1,000 transactions per second during testing in 2026.