Cardano completes van Rossem upgrade and starts development in the Dijkstra era

Cardano completes van Rossem upgrade, launches Dijkstra era development

Intersect, a member-driven organization within the Cardano network, has made significant progress in protocol development, governance and community tools over the past week. As Cardano transitions from the van Rossem stage to the Dijkstra era, technological milestones and collaboration initiatives are accelerating.

Protocol Progress and Technology Deployment

Cardano implemented a hard fork in the van Rossem era on July 18 and upgraded to protocol version 11. This upgrade improves Plutus performance, improves ledger consistency, and enhances node security. Project participants said the update lays a solid foundation for the upcoming era of Dijkstra, which will introduce more protocol improvements to the network.

The upcoming era of Dijkstra will adopt the Ouroboros Leios mechanism, aiming to further advance Cardano's consensus mechanism and extensibility. Intersect said preparations for the new phase are already underway, and the main focus of the project is shifting to planning and community participatory governance in preparation for the next major hard fork.

(Note: Intersect is a Cardano-focused membership organization that promotes governance, technology development and community participation in the Cardano ecosystem.)

With the van Rossem upgrade completed, project contributors are moving towards the era of Dijkstra, prioritizing technology development and governance processes while inviting broader participation from the Cardano community.

Community Governance and Future Planning

Intersect highlighted ongoing planning activities in the Dijkstra era, noting that the project is defining a process so that the community can influence the scope of future protocol upgrades after Dijkstra's initial implementation. The organization reports that product committee representatives and ecosystem contributors are actively collaborating to shape these hard forks.

The phased advancement of the Dijkstra era will introduce new features such as nested transactions, linear Leios and Peras. The Haskell node team plans to deliver the first two phases-nested transactions and linear Leios-to the Cardano mainnet by the end of 2026. This step-by-step approach aims to gradually unlock new capabilities and ensure network stability as the protocol evolves.

Constitutional amendments governing key aspects of Cardano's operations are expected to come after the completion of the Dijkstra hard fork. However, Intersect encourages the community to provide comments and discussions as early as possible so that comprehensive feedback can be obtained before formal adoption.

Overview of the current era:

van Rossem era: The main features are Plutus performance, ledger and node security, which will be deployed on July 18, 2024.

Dijkstra Era: The main features are Ouroboros Leios, nested transactions, linear Leios, and Peras, which are currently in the development stage and are expected to be implemented in phases by the end of 2026.

Constitutional Council and the next hard fork naming

The community has begun voting on a new parameter update, while the ongoing on-chain Constitutional Council election is also underway. Community members can now access the Constitution Amendment Portal, which has entered the alpha testing phase, to participate in potential governance changes.

Intersect also pointed out that based on the decision of a previous working group, the next hard fork after Dijkstra will be named after Alexander Esgen. Another proposal-a hard fork named after Fabian von Bergen-has been submitted through On-Chain Information Action and is open to community feedback. The organization aims to involve the Cardano community as much as possible in these important naming and governance decisions.

Intersect encourages stakeholders to actively provide feedback on the name of the next hard fork, demonstrating its commitment to collaborative governance and transparency throughout the Cardano development cycle.