Cardano activates van Rossem hard fork

Summary

Cardano has activated its van Rossem hard fork, upgrading the Cardano mainnet to protocol version 11 as of epoch 644. This upgrade is designed to reduce smart contract execution costs and prepare the network for a significant future scalability enhancement known as Ouroboros Leios. The transition from Protocol Version 10 to Version 11 was confirmed by onchain data from Cardanoscan and detailed in a weekly report by Input Output, the engineering firm behind Cardano.

The van Rossem hard fork includes improvements to Plutus, Cardano’s smart contract language, and updates to its Plutus Cost Model. Additionally, it establishes the foundation for the next network upgrade called the Dijkstra era hard fork, which will introduce Ouroboros Leios. Ouroboros Leios is a proposed scaling solution for Cardano’s proof-of-stake consensus protocol, aiming to significantly increase transactions per second without sacrificing security, with an anticipated launch in late 2026.

Why it matters

Notably, van Rossem represents the first governance-driven hard fork in Cardano’s history. Previous upgrades were directly coordinated by Input Output, whereas this upgrade arose through Cardano’s governance mechanisms. This shift marks a milestone in the project’s decentralization progress. The information comes from Cointelegraph’s coverage based on official updates and onchain data, with encouragement for readers to verify independently.