Cardano activates the Van Rossem hard fork and Protocol Version 11, introducing faster smart contracts, on-chain governance, and new Plutus upgrades.
The Cardano blockchain has reached a major milestone with the successful activation of its Van Rossem hard fork. This is more than a technical upgrade; it marks the first time the network has approved a hard fork entirely through on-chain governance. This gives ADA holders and network participants a direct role in shaping Cardano's future.
The Van Rossem hard fork has officially activated on the Cardano mainnet, upgrading the blockchain to Protocol Version 11 without changing its current Conway era.
The Cardano Foundation and ecosystem contributors confirmed the upgrade after months of testing and community coordination involving stake pool operators (SPOs), decentralized representatives (DReps), developers, exchanges, and infrastructure providers.
The hard fork was approved under Cardano's on-chain governance system, making it the first network upgrade fully ratified through community voting rather than being decided only by the project's core development team.
Cardano's Hard Fork Working Group thanked ecosystem participants for helping deliver a smooth upgrade.
The team announced that "The van Rossem hard fork has been successfully enacted on Cardano Mainnet."
The group added that it was also "the first hard fork that DReps have been able to vote on, in addition to SPOs and the Constitutional Committee.”
Before the upgrade could be approved, the Cardano Constitution required at least 85% of active stake to run software compatible with Protocol Version 11.
Beyond governance, Protocol Version 11 introduces several improvements designed to make Cardano applications faster and cheaper to run.
The update expands Plutus, Cardano's smart contract platform, by making the latest built-in functions available across Plutus versions V1, V2, and V3. Previously, developers often had to migrate contracts to newer versions before accessing additional features.
The upgrade also introduces new programming tools, including native case expressions for common data types such as Boolean, Integer, and Data. Instead of relying on longer and more expensive code, developers can now write cleaner smart contracts that require fewer computing resources to execute.
In addition, the network adds new cryptographic functions, including modular exponentiation, allowing developers to perform advanced cryptographic operations directly on-chain rather than relying on external processes.
This is expected to reduce transaction size while improving efficiency for decentralized applications.
Furthermore, Protocol Version 11 strengthens several parts of Cardano's ledger. The update enforces VRF key uniqueness at the ledger level, improves how reward withdrawals are validated, and provides clearer reporting when protocol parameters do not match expected network settings.
Constitutional Committee voting restrictions are also enforced directly on the blockchain, ensuring governance decisions follow the same rules for every participant.
According to Cardano's testing reports, the upgrade showed no performance regressions compared with previous node versions.
Security audits covering the new Plutus cryptographic functions and execution costs were also completed before deployment.
All these improvements are designed to make the network more reliable while reducing the chances of configuration errors for developers and node operators.
Major Cardano upgrades have often boosted market sentiment. Following the hard fork, Cardano’s (ADA) price was trading at around $0.1652, gaining roughly 0.73% over the previous 24 hours.
Meanwhile, on-chain data from Santiment also points to growing confidence among large investors. Wallets holding between 100,000 and 100 million ADA have accumulated more than 25.6 billion ADA, the highest level recorded since February 2023.
That accumulation suggests many large holders continue building positions despite recent market volatility.
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