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Van Rossem goes live
Cardano activated its Van Rossem hard fork on July 18, moving the mainnet to protocol version 11 and lowering smart contract execution costs while preparing for a future scalability upgrade.
“Inside Cardano's 'Van Rossum' hard fork, and what it means for users The Van Rossem hard fork moved Cardano to version 11 on Saturday”
CoinDesk said the upgrade was enacted Saturday, July 18 at 21:44 UTC after ratification on July 13, with the network moving from version 10 in epoch 643 to version 11 in epoch 644.
CoinDesk reported that for the first time in Cardano’s history the upgrade was initiated, debated and ratified entirely through the onchain governance system introduced in the Voltaire era, rather than by Input Output.
The same CoinDesk account said the upgrade is an intra-era hard fork that does not change the structure of transactions, and it adds new capabilities to Plutus while tightening ledger validation rules, including one guaranteeing that no two stake pools can reuse the same cryptographic identity key.
CoinDesk also tied the procedural groundwork to the next planned upgrade, quoting Input Output’s development report that "this upgrade lays the foundation for the next upgrade, the Dijkstra era hard fork, which will introduce Ouroboros Leios to Cardano," expected later in 2026.
Governance vote and approval
CoinDesk reported that passage required sign-off from three separate bodies, with delegated representatives voting 78.97% in favor against a 60% threshold.
CoinDesk said the constitutional committee found the hard fork compliant, with all seven members agreeing where five were required, and it described pool operators approving the upgrade by the narrowest margin of their three, with 53.02% voting to approve.
CoinDesk also stated that under Cardano’s constitution the upgrade required at least 85% of stake pools by active stake to run compatible node software before ratification, and it said network telemetry showed adoption well ahead of that with roughly 93% of block production already on version 11 heading into activation.
Cryptonews.net framed the same activation as a market event, saying Van Rossum activated at 21:44:51 UTC on July 19, 2026, and that 93% of blocks were already being produced by protocol v11-ready nodes before the transition.
Cryptonews.net added that no action was required from ADA holders and that the upgrade was unanimously approved by D-Reps, stake pool operators, and the Constitutional Committee, while also warning that the upgrade does not guarantee a positive price response.
Price reaction and what’s next
While the protocol upgrade focused on smart contract efficiency and stake pool security, Cryptonews.net said $ADA traded at $0.1626 on July 20, down 2.17%, after the token pulled back below the Bollinger midline at $0.1687.
“Cardanoactivó su hard fork Van Rossemel sábado, trasladando la mainnet a la versión 11 del protocolo”
Cryptonews.net described a near-term technical setup, saying a bullish stochastic RSI cross was flagged on July 20 and that the next three to five daily sessions will determine which signal dominates.
Cryptonews.net also pointed to a historical pattern, stating that $ADA has seen price declines following nearly every major hard fork in Cardano’s history, including the Byron, Shelley, Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire era upgrades.
In the same market framing, Cryptonews.net laid out downside levels, saying if the answer is no, the historical playbook says to expect $ADA to test $0.1488 before finding buyers.
CoinDesk’s user-facing framing said there are no visible changes for someone casually holding or spending ADA, with transactions working the same way, wallets not requiring updating, and the fee to send ADA remaining unchanged.
