Van Rossem Hard Fork Targets Protocol Version 11 in Late June
Cardano is preparing for an intra-era hard fork to Protocol Version 11, an upgrade named the Van Rossem hard fork. The upgrade is designed to enhance Plutus smart contract performance, improve ledger consistency, and strengthen node security. It is classified as an intra-era hard fork — meaning it avoids a full era transition — specifically to minimize integration burdens for developers and infrastructure operators.
Key technical changes include enhanced Plutus primitives, VRF key uniqueness enforcement, and updated reference input rules. The upgrade is currently projected to take effect in late June 2026, according to Intersect, the member-based organization coordinating Cardano ecosystem governance and development.
10.7.0 Pre-Release Hits Memory Regression, Version 10.7.1 to Follow
The path to mainnet deployment hit a technical obstacle this week. Benchmarking of the 10.7.0 pre-release identified a significant memory regression: approximately 6 GB of additional RAM usage appearing over a 15-day observation period. For a network node, unexpected RAM growth of this scale is a meaningful stability concern — it could affect validator performance and network reliability at scale.
Cardano’s performance and testing teams reported that the likely cause of the regression has been identified, and a local fix has already been implemented. Integration benchmarking with the performance team is planned for the coming days to confirm the fix resolves the issue without requiring downstream API changes.
As a result, the 10.7.0 version will not be promoted to a mainnet-ready release. Instead, the memory fix will be bundled into a new 10.7.1 release, along with a separate fix for a consensus issue that has been causing occasional node failures. Intersect framed the situation constructively: the regression was caught early in benchmarking rather than reaching mainnet, which is precisely what pre-release testing is designed to prevent.
Critically, Intersect confirmed that the late June 2026 enactment date remains unchanged. If the 10.7.1 release clears integration benchmarking without requiring API changes, there is sufficient flexibility in the timeline to absorb the 10.7.0 delay without pushing the hard fork date.
Cardano On-Chain Data Now Live on Dune Analytics
Separately, Intersect announced at the start of April that Cardano’s on-chain data is now available on Dune Analytics — the blockchain data platform widely used by researchers, developers, and DeFi analysts across the Ethereum ecosystem. The integration marks Cardano’s first presence on Dune and opens its on-chain activity to a significantly wider analytical community.
The initial response has been active. Since the integration launched, community members have built dedicated Cardano dashboards on Dune, and the Pentad team has been refining the Cardano Ecosystem Overview Dashboard based on user feedback. An initial Cardano Governance Health Dashboard has also been created — relevant given the network’s ongoing transition to decentralized on-chain governance under the CIP-1694 framework.
The Dune integration is a practical step in Cardano’s effort to close the data accessibility gap with Ethereum-based chains, where Dune has been a standard research tool for years. Broader analytical coverage tends to attract more developer and institutional attention to a network by making its activity easier to monitor and verify independently.
Good news