Cardano activated its Van Rossem hard fork on July 18, 2026, at approximately 21:44 UTC, upgrading the network to Protocol Version 11.
The update marks the first Cardano hard fork approved entirely through its on-chain community governance system, known as Voltaire.
This upgrade reduces the execution costs of smart contracts by revising the Plutus framework and updating the network's cost model.
New built-in functions were introduced to Plutus, making application development more efficient.
Node security improvements were also part of the upgrade.
The hard fork was ratified on July 13, 2026, after a four-week voting period that resulted in 68.57% approval from Delegated Representatives, Cardano's elected governance participants.
Stake pool operators and infrastructure providers achieved approximately 84% readiness for the upgrade by June 15, indicating smooth coordination ahead of the vote.
The update is named after Max van Rossem, a late contributor to the Cardano community who passed earlier this year.
Following the fork activation, ADA’s price rose roughly 5%, outperforming the broader crypto market during the same timeframe.
Market participants now focus on whether the lowered smart contract costs will drive increased network usage, including on-chain transaction volumes and smart contract deployments.
The Van Rossem fork is described as a precursor to Cardano's upcoming development phase called the Dijkstra era, targeting scalability improvements for DeFi, NFTs, and real-world asset tokenization.
This builds on previous milestones such as the 2021 Alonzo hard fork, which enabled smart contracts, and the 2022 Vasil upgrade.
Material is for information only, not financial advice.
