Cardano completes the “Van Rossem” hard fork, with the upgrade led by community voting for the first time

PANews, July 20—According to CoinDesk, the Cardano mainnet completed the “Van Rossem” hard fork on July 18, with the protocol version upgraded to 11. The upgrade primarily reduces smart contract execution costs and lays the groundwork for subsequent scaling solutions. For the first time, this upgrade was proposed, discussed, and approved entirely through an on-chain governance process by the community, rather than being directly led by the founding development company Input Output. On-chain data shows that the voting support rate represented by vote approval is about 78.97%. All seven members of the constitutional committee have unanimously determined that the proposal complies with the 《Cardano Constitution》. Around 53.02% of node operators voted in favor, and more than 93% of block production staking has already been running the updated nodes. The upgrade provides technical and procedural preparation for Ouroboros Leios, the scaling plan scheduled to go live in 2026.