Cardano's Van Rossem Hard Fork: Same Era, Same Timeline, Just Less RAM Leak

Cardano is gearing up for an intra-era hard fork to Protocol Version 11, bringing improved Plutus performance, ledger consistency and node security. The Van Rossem hard fork is keeping things chill by skipping an era transition entirely, which should ease integration headaches. The upgrade adds enhanced primitives, VRF key uniqueness and updated reference input rules. Target date remains late June 2026, with preparations moving forward steadily.

Meanwhile, the 10.7.0 pre-release hit a snag. Benchmarking uncovered a memory regression adding roughly 6 GB of extra RAM usage over a 15-day period. The Cardano performance and testing teams pinpointed the culprit and deployed a local fix. Integration benchmarking with the performance team is scheduled to confirm the fix works without requiring downstream API changes.

The result? 10.7.0 won't go mainnet. Instead, the memory fix plus a separate consensus issue patch will land in 10.7.1. The good news: the team caught it early, and the late June timeline still holds.

On the analytics front, Cardano's on-chain data landed on Dune earlier this month, and the community has already started building dedicated dashboards. The Pentad team is polishing the Cardano Ecosystem Overview Dashboard based on user feedback, while a Cardano Governance Health Dashboard made its debut.