Welcome to Intersect’s Development Update #93. This first update of 2026 sets the context for the year ahead, as Cardano’s governance framework moves fully into day-to-day operation. With governance now being exercised across real decisions, budgets, and technical change, this update covers recent progress across committees, governance actions, and ecosystem coordination as cadence resumes following the year-end break.

With 2026 now underway, Cardano’s governance framework has moved firmly from design into day-to-day operation. Governance mechanisms are now being exercised across real decisions, budgets, and technical change, with a growing emphasis on execution, coordination, and delivery.

For Intersect, this reinforces a clear responsibility: supporting the community as decentralized governance scales, complexity increases, and expectations around reliability and transparency continue to rise. This update sets the context for the year ahead, before turning to recent governance activity and committee updates. Members looking for a broader framing of the year can also read Welcome to 2026: Intersect and the path ahead.

Intersect’s Three-Year Direction

Over the coming years, Intersect’s role will remain focused on serving as a trusted coordination layer for Cardano, supporting standardized, transparent, and member-led governance processes as the ecosystem continues to mature.

This includes coordination and administration across the Cardano budget cycle, long-term strategy and roadmap development, constitutional refinement, hard fork processes, and open-source contribution. Through clear processes, delivery assurance, and transparent administration, Intersect supports effective treasury management while safeguarding community trust.

2025 Recap: Setting the Foundations

2025 marked a significant transition for Cardano’s governance and for Intersect as its member-based organization. During the year, Intersect supported key milestones including the Plomin upgrade, the submission of the community-approved Constitution, and the delivery of Cardano’s first community-led Treasury budget.

Intersect administered the first full Treasury cycle, coordinated multiple Treasury withdrawals, and established smart contract-based payment and delivery assurance frameworks that now underpin future funding rounds. Governance maturity also progressed, with committees and Board representation becoming increasingly member-elected, alongside growing participation across working groups, elections, and town halls.

You can download a full recap of 2025 activity, including reflections from the Board, here 2025 Development Update.

2026 Goals: Coordination and Delivery

In 2026, Intersect’s focus remains on the areas where it provides the most value: coordinating governance and technical processes, enabling member-led delivery, and acting as a transparent and reliable administrator of community funds.

Key priorities include supporting a standardized 2026 budget cycle, coordinating ongoing refinement of Cardano’s long-term strategy and roadmap, administering budget information actions and Treasury withdrawals with consistent reporting, and facilitating coordination for critical network upgrades. Alongside this, Intersect will continue improving member onboarding, governance documentation, and the cadence of open coordination and engagement.

Further details on Intersect’s purpose, mission, vision, and 2026 goals are available in the dedicated goals documentation.

In our final Development Update of 2025, we highlighted the submission of the Critical Integrations Budget treasury withdrawal governance action, which sought funding for a set of ecosystem-wide integrations deemed essential to Cardano’s next stage of growth.

The governance action has since been ratified. With approval complete, responsibility for delivery now sits with the group of entities that collectively requested the funding, referred to as the Pentad.

The Pentad is a unified executive collaboration comprising five independent Cardano ecosystem organizations: Input Output, Cardano Foundation, EMURGO, Midnight Foundation, and Intersect MBO. The collaboration was established to improve coordination on major integrations and funding decisions that span research, development, adoption, and governance.

The approved scope focuses on five priority areas: tier-one stablecoin infrastructure, institutional-grade custody and wallets, secure cross-chain bridges, globally recognised pricing oracles, and advanced on-chain analytics. Together, these integrations aim to support a more mature DeFi and real-world asset environment on Cardano.

Following ratification, initial delivery activity has begun. Two integrations supported under the approved scope, Dune and Pyth Network, have now been onboarded, marking early progress toward execution.

As delivery continues, further updates will focus on execution milestones and measurable outcomes as these integrations move from approval into operation.

After the short holiday break, the hard fork working group is set to continue discussing and coordinating matters related to the intra-era proposed hard fork.

This is an open Intersect working group, and anyone is welcome to join. A successful mainnet upgrade requires more than just Intersect members; it requires a whole ecosystem. The next session will be on January 13, 2026.

Proposed intra-era upgrade to protocol version 11

Cardano's following protocol upgrade proposal outlines an Intra-Era hard fork to Protocol Version 11, introducing targeted improvements across Plutus performance, ledger consistency, and node-level security without changing Transaction shape or transitioning to a new ledger era. 

These refinements represent the latest round of treasury-funded development nearing completion, and the ecosystem is now invited to assess, discuss, and contribute feedback as Intersect convenes the Hard Fork Working Group to coordinate readiness and ensure broad alignment.

More details on the upcoming changes can be found at Proposed Intra-Era Upgrade Fork to Protocol Version 11.

Following the snap election held from November 17 to December 5, 2025, DReps selected a candidate to fill the vacant seat on the Cardano Constitutional Committee, restoring it to its minimum operational size.

Intersect submitted the corresponding Update Committee governance action on December 9, and just six days later, on December 15, it was ratified. This makes it the fastest governance action ever approved on Cardano.

This record-speed ratification was made possible by the quick response from DReps and SPOs, who acted decisively to ensure the network entered the holiday period with a fully operational governance structure.

With the action ratified, Cardano Curia is now an active member of the Constitutional Committee and has started submitting its votes. Governance can now continue without restriction.

The first Civics Committee meeting of 2026 marked both a moment of reflection and a reset for the year ahead, with a clear focus on delivery, measurable outcomes, and the strengthening of Cardano’s governance foundations.

Governance Health Report Approved for Publication

The committee approved the publication of the Governance Health Report, the first formal deliverable from the Governance Health working group. The report brings together clear metrics and analysis designed to support the ecosystem in understanding how governance is functioning in practice, and where improvements may be needed.

A dedicated public page is now live, and the report will be actively shared across community channels in the coming weeks. You can explore the report via the Governance Health KPI Report.

Following publication, the working group will pause regular meetings and continue work asynchronously while scoping its next objective, returning to the committee with a new proposal once that work is ready.

CIP-149 Grant: Deadline Extended (Final Call)

The committee also reviewed the status of the CIP-149 implementation grant, which supports wallet providers and governance tool builders implementing optional DRep compensation mechanisms.

While uptake has been lower than anticipated, it was recognised that some teams may still be actively progressing their implementations. As a result, the committee agreed to extend the grant deadline to 31 January, marking a final opportunity for:

• teams already implementing CIP-149 to complete and submit applications, and
• any remaining interested builders to finalise and claim available support.

Further information is available via the CIP-149 requirements overview and the application process guide.

Looking ahead, the committee also discussed strategic priorities for 2026, emphasizing that governance improvements be well-designed, properly resourced, measurable, and sustainable.

Following the year-end break, a number of governance actions progressed on-chain, reflecting Cardano’s transition from governance design into active, day-to-day operation.

These actions span key areas including treasury continuity, Constitutional Committee functionality, governance resilience, constitutional refinement, budget signalling, and long-term strategic direction. Together, they illustrate a governance system now operating continuously under real conditions, with safeguards, thresholds, and enforcement rules applied in practice.

A detailed overview of these developments, including actions that have expired, those currently active, and items in the pipeline, has been published in a dedicated blog post. Members and DReps can read the full update in Recent Cardano Governance Actions

The next Intersect Monthly Town Hall will take place on 29 January 2026 at 12:00 UTC. The session will be streamed live on YouTube, X, and LinkedIn.
Further details and access links will be shared in the coming weeks.

Membership and Community Committee Space

The Cardano community is moving, and the Membership & Community Committee (MCC) remains committed to transparency. Join our first MCC X space of the year on Monday, January 12th!!

Enterprise Spotlight: Midnight Foundation

Last month, Midnight, the privacy-focused sidechain on Cardano, officially joined Intersect as an Enterprise Member—marking an important milestone for both ecosystems.

Midnight’s integration has already attracted increased attention from across the broader blockchain space, bringing new visibility and engagement that strengthen the Cardano ecosystem overall.

As Midnight continues to develop, its close alignment with Intersect provides a strong foundation for collaboration across governance, ecosystem tooling, and privacy-focused infrastructure. This relationship is also helping Midnight act as a bridge to other blockchain communities, drawn by its work on private smart contracts and practical applications of “rational privacy.”

These cross-ecosystem interactions are driving increased participation within the Midnight community and encouraging newcomers to engage more deeply with Cardano discussions on platforms such as X and Discord.

For many, Midnight has become an accessible entry point into Cardano. As participants settle in, they are discovering Intersect’s role as a key coordination and support structure—helping foster collaboration, governance alignment, and long-term ecosystem growth.

Even at this early stage, it is clear that as Midnight grows, Cardano is strengthened alongside it.

Before we roll into 2026, let’s reflect on what was achieved in 2025. The Treasury Withdrawal Smart Contracts were officially enacted on-chain in August 2025. Of which, all 32 successful vendors who had their proposals voted on, all had their Smart Contracts enacted live on-chain. This enabled 41 projects to be funded and by the end of 2025, 113 milestones had been successfully delivered. 

Most recently, Vellum Labs successfully completed its contract. Vellum Lab’s contract was funded to actively maintain Cexplorer.io by an experienced team of backend, frontend, and infrastructure developers, and continue ongoing maintenance, including server infrastructure, performance monitoring, bug fixes, and updates aligned with Cardano protocol changes.



Well, that’s it for this very first update of 2026. Thank you for reading!

To learn more about Intersect’s work, explore our Knowledge Base, which provides detailed information on governance structures, committees, and funding. Additionally, visit the Intersect website for the latest news, updates, and roadmap information.

Join the conversation on Discord, and follow us on Twitter (X) and LinkedIn to engage with fellow members, working groups, and the broader community.

Your voice helps shape the future of Cardano governance.