Cardano activates Van Rossem hard fork through on-chain governance, keeping the network stable

Cardano completed the Van Rossem hard fork through on-chain governance, and the network remained stable.

Cardano completed the Van Rossem hard fork on July 18, upgrading the blockchain to protocol version 11 without any network downtime. The upgrade marks a major shift for Cardano, as it is the first major update to be approved entirely through on-chain community governance rather than led by Input Output, the blockchain's founding development company.

On-chain community governance dominates for the first time

Previous upgrades were managed by Input Output, while Van Rossem upgrades were jointly decided by Cardano's decentralized community. The upgrade is named after Max van Rossem, a contributor to Cardano in the Netherlands who passed away in October 2025. He helped design the governance system used in the upgrade. Van Rossem has served as a developer, node operator and constitutional representative on the Cardano Network.

Three groups approved the upgrade: delegated representatives (DReps), rights pool operators, and the Constitutional Council. DReps, which exercises voting rights on behalf of Cardano ADA holders, supported the upgrade with an overwhelming majority of 77.63%, exceeding the 60% approval requirement. Equity pool operators responsible for running the network's core servers approved the fork with a approval rate of 52.7%, slightly above the minimum threshold of 51%. The proposal was also approved by the seven-member Constitutional Council, which is charged with ensuring it conforms to Cardano's basic principles.

Since the Chang hard fork in 2024, Cardano has been moving towards this decentralized governance structure. The subsequent Plomin hard fork in early 2025 further empowered token holders by introducing true on-chain voting rights.

Small Dictionary: DReps (delegated representatives) are elected members who represent ADA holders in on-chain governance voting, similar to parliamentary representatives.

Technology Changes and Developer Impact

The Van Rossem upgrade is classified as an in-era upgrade, meaning it provides targeted improvements without changing the basic architecture of Cardano. The main goal is to reduce the execution costs of Plutus smart contracts and allow developers to deploy more complex decentralized applications and tools at a lower cost.

Plutus is Cardano's smart contract programming language that supports decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, NFT marketplaces and on-chain payment solutions on the network. In addition to reducing costs, the upgrade also introduces encryption enhancements and implements a security improvement that requires each equity pool to use a unique encryption key, blocking previously known attack vectors.

protocol was launched, technical changes include: constant time array indexing, native processing of Value types, faster list traversal, and new encryption primitive implementations. These improvements apply to Plutus V1, V2 and V3 versions, and the transaction structure remains unchanged.

Component/Before Van Rossem/After Van Rossem
Smart contract execution cost/higher/lower
Array index/variable time/constant time
Security (equity pool)/key shareable/key unique

Market response has been sluggish, upgrades pave the way for future change

Despite major changes at the technical and governance levels, ADA's market prices have remained relatively stable. The token was sideways around the $0.1662 level over three days, maintaining a market value of approximately $6 billion. Analysts pointed out that although bullish traders had tried to push the market, overall market sentiment remained cautious. This hard fork appears to have provided some price support and prevented further declines.

Technical indicators show that the overall trend is neutral and weak. The 50-day moving average of the index remains below the 200-day line, a pattern that is often interpreted as a bearish signal. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is 48.8, indicating momentum neutrality, while the Average Trend Index (ADX) shows a lack of strong trends but early signs of a bullish shift.

Whale address holdings holding between 100,000 and 100 million ADAs have risen to their highest level since 2023, while retail investors have reduced exposure, according to analyst firm Sanitation.

Version 11 of the protocol introduces smart contract cost reductions, encryption enhancements, and a stronger interest pool operator security model, paving the way for broader scalability and future upgrades.

Next step: Ouroboros Leios and Cardano roadmap

Cardano's next major development is the Ouroboros Leios upgrade, which is expected to increase network transaction throughput by 30 to 65 times, with a target of more than 1000 transactions per second. The Van Rossem upgrade is considered a key technical prerequisite for achieving this goal. Leios's public testing network, called Musashi Dojo, was launched on June 23. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson predicts that Leios may be launched on the main network before the end of 2026.

Input Output, the developer of Cardano's basic code, recently announced plans to hand over development work to an external professional team starting in August. Van Rossem is the first protocol upgrade coordinated under this decentralized development plan.