Welcome to Intersect's update #127

Most of what follows has a route in attached. MusashiNet is live and taking SPOs into Leios testing. DijkstraNet follows with node 11.2. Two node diversity workshops with dates and locations. In the CAP Portal, Constitutional Amendments are open for comment. And Board Election voting opens on September 14, which makes checking your own eligibility this week rather than next week, and reading this update, five minutes well spent .

Contributors: Bosko M, Ian H, Larisa M, Thomas L, Abhik N, Simo S

Latest on Cardano upgrades

Work toward the Dijkstra era hard fork continues to advance across node development, ecosystem readiness, and downstream tooling. The two tables below provide a high-level overview of what to keep an eye on in the months ahead.

 

What can you do right now?

Join the Hard Fork Working Group weekly calls to contribute and get the very latest developments directly, subscribe to the Luma calendar. All outputs are also recorded on the Cardano Upgrades pages if you are unable to attend. Read the Upgrade Bulletin, a more technical update alongside this one, published weekly as an X article. The latest is available here.

SPOs, node operators, and ecosystem developers are highly encouraged to join the public testnets as soon as they are available to ensure timely readiness ahead of the hard fork to protocol version 12.

SPOs can join the Musashi Dojo now and help test Leios developments and provide feedback. An incentivized phase recently began with more details available here. A public DijkstraNet is anticipated following the release of node version 11.2.

Node developers can note 2 planned node diversity workshops in their diaries:

• Singapore (Token 2049), October 6
• London, November 13-14

Governance participants can monitor cap.intersectmbo.org for the planned Dijkstra-related Constitutional Amendments to be publicly proposed and join the discussions as soon as they are.
Following a recalibration of the technical delivery plan, the current moderate confidence window places potential hard fork enactment between December 5 and January 4, while the high confidence window runs from February 24 to March 26.
Alongside development, work continues to document the impact of all changes so ecosystem teams have sufficient information to assess and prepare for the upgrade.

Constitutional Committee updates

The Update Constitutional Committee 2026 action has been ratified.

All required thresholds were met, with ratification taking place at the epoch boundary on September 1, 2026 (Epoch 653). DReps reached 71.95% against a 67% threshold and SPOs reached 56.54% against 51%, in both cases clearing thresholds that looked uncertain with a week to go.

The newly elected Constitutional Committee members can now take their seats as planned, and Cardano’s governance continues without a gap in Constitutional oversight.

A huge thank you to everyone who helped get this over the line, from those working behind the scenes and reaching out to pools and exchanges, to everyone sharing information and encouraging participation. Importantly also thank you to every DRep and SPO who voted. This was a genuine ecosystem-wide effort.

Finally, congratulations to the new Constitutional Committee members, and thank you for putting yourselves forward to serve. An additional thank you goes to those outgoing Constitutional Committee; Cardano Japan Council and KtorZ.

Constitutional Amendment Portal (CAP) updates

A number of quality of life improvements and a bug fix were made to the CAP Portal over the past week;

UI/UX Improvements

• Threaded discussions, collapsible to maintain readability
• New Drafts area, allowing drafts to be saved and revisited before submission
• Proposals can now credit co-authors, by stake address, allowing contribution recognition

Bug Fixes

• A syntax error in the CIP-120 conversion of the current Constitution meant sections of the Constitution were dropped during conversion. This has now been fixed.

The portal is in alpha, and community feedback is what shapes it. All three improvements above came from things people told us, so if something is awkward, tell us by contacting support@intersectmbo.org.

One new CAP was submitted this week, on September 4. CAP #10 “Require SPO Approval for Changes to Stake Pool Economic Parameters”. A proposal arising from SPO governance discussions following the recent on-chain Parameter Update action. Join that discussion or just get started at cap.intersectmbo.org.

Recently closed governance actions

Intersect Board Election 2026 – Applications now open

Applications are now open for the 2026 Intersect Board Elections, with two member-elected Board seats up for election this September.

If you've been thinking about standing for the Board, you can put yourself forward now. Applications for candidates are open until September 11 at 12:00 UTC, giving eligible members one more week to apply.

Eligibility: Candidates need at least 180 days of membership, be in good standing, have completed identity verification, and have served at least one previous term on an Intersect Committee or Intersect Board.

Planning to vote? Voting will open on September 14, so now is also a good time to make sure your membership is active and your identity verification is complete. If you still need to verify your identity, complete your verification through the Member Area early to avoid any last-minute issues.

If your membership has recently expired, remember that you can renew within 180 days without losing your existing membership history for eligibility.

Key dates (UTC):
Applications close: Sept 11, 12:00
Voting opens: Sept 14, 12:00
Voting closes: Sept 25, 12:00
Results published: Sept 28

Intersect Knowledgebase:  With the Intersect 2026 Board Elections here, the Knowledge Base is the place to understand how the process works, who can stand, and how voting happens. 
For full details on eligibility, the election process and what it means to serve on the Board, see the Board Election announcement.

Monthly DRep Community Call: Catch up on the August conversation

Being a DRep often means assessing governance actions across technical, constitutional, treasury and ecosystem topics, and all within a limited voting window. The monthly DRep Community Call creates an open space for DReps to ask questions, seek clarification, exchange perspectives and connect with others carrying the same responsibility.

Jointly hosted by Tweag by Modus Create and Intersect, the calls are open to DReps and anyone interested in listening to Cardano governance discussions.

The August call brought together DReps and subject-matter experts to explore the governance issues live at the time, as well as emerging initiatives intended to help DReps connect and collaborate.

Read the full August call recap

The next call takes place on Wednesday, September 30 at 15:00 UTC. You can register now to join the next DRep Community Call, and get reminders directly to your inbox.

Membership updates
Membership is the mechanism by which Cardano governance stays member-led rather than delegated to whoever happens to be in the room. Members elect the Board, stand for committees, shape the working groups where the detail actually gets decided, and vote on the decisions that set Intersect direction. If you have views on how Cardano is governed, membership is where those views get a vote attached to them.

There are practical benefits too, including discounts with Tangem, Keystone and Composie.io, access to legal advice through Sentinel Legal, Town Halls, Discord and the Intersect brand assets.

Enterprise member spotlight: Dquadrant

Our spotlight this month goes to Intersect Enterprise Member Dquadrant*

Dquadrant has been building on Cardano since 2017, which puts it among the longer-standing development teams in the ecosystem, and well before most of the tooling it now works with existed.

The Netherlands-based Web3 development company works across blockchain development and deployment, smart contract development and auditing, infrastructure, quality assurance, strategic planning, technical consultancy, and ongoing maintenance and support. Its stack spans Plutus, Aiken, Helios, Haskell, Rust and TypeScript, across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.

Alongside client work, the team builds and contributes to open tooling. KuberIDE is a browser-based environment for building, testing and deploying Plutus smart contracts. Mempool Explorer gives visibility into Cardano transaction flows. Autonomous Agent Testing is an open-source approach to simulating interactions with decentralised applications, aimed at a testing problem most dApp teams solve badly or not at all.

Dquadrant is an Enterprise founding member of Intersect, and its contribution shows up in places that are easy to overlook: governance tooling QA, hard fork QA testing, the Open Source Consortium, and across Intersect technical and working groups. Quality assurance is the kind of work that is invisible when it goes well, which is exactly why it is worth naming.

Learn more about Dquadrant: https://dquadrant.com

*Enterprise Member Spotlights showcase the work and activities of Intersect members. Information about products, services, capabilities and activities is provided by, or based on information published by, the featured member, and does not constitute an endorsement by Intersect.

Enterprise members: this space is yours
The Enterprise Member Spotlight goes out to the full Intersect update readership and across our channels. If your organisation is an Enterprise member and you would like to be featured, get in touch at members@intersectmbo.org and we will get you into the schedule.

That’s it for this week’s update. Thank you for reading. To learn more about Intersect’s work, explore the Knowledge Base, which provides detailed information on governance structures, committees, and funding.

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