Welcome to Intersect’s update #132

The urgent call for SPOs and node operators to upgrade remains after 3 weeks with 30% of block production still running on node versions superseded by a critical update. Two governance actions are due to expire on Sunday, and CAP-12 came back revised, after a comment caught a guardrail that would have blocked the very change the amendment exists to make. The review worked, because people joined the conversation. The rest of the week belongs to TOKEN 2049 where Cardano came to Singapore.

Contributors: Ian H, Larisa M, Thomas L, Fred T, Abhik N, Duncan S, Intersect

Latest on Cardano upgrades

Cardano Node

Three weeks after release, block production on Cardano Mainnet for epoch 660 currently shows 30% still being validated by node versions older than 11.1.2 (represented by v11.0 block headers).
Cardano Node 11.1.2 was a critical upgrade issued in response to an issue discovered on the Preprod testnet in September and Intersect continues to urge SPOs and node operators to upgrade their infrastructure accordingly. Version 11.1.3 was released to patch a minor bug in the decoding of IPv4 addresses and 11.1.3 remains the recommended version for all users, with 11.1.2 as a minimum. Adoption can be tracked on explorers by block header versions 11.0, 11.1, and 11.2 respectively.

Dijkstra hard fork progress

Work towards the Dijkstra hard fork continues with the next major node milestone being the anticipated release of version 11.2. This version will carry with it the full Dijkstra feature set (minus Leios) and will see the launch of the public DijkstraNet to facilitate dApps and tooling integrations ahead of any move towards hard forking Preview and Preprod testnets. DijkstraNet will run in parallel to MusashiNet, allowing integration work against the Dijkstra feature set to progress alongside consensus level development respectively.

Node version 11.3 will then seek to merge these two work streams into a hard fork release candidate version containing the full Dijkstra feature set and linear Leios implementation.

Dijkstra brings with it constitutional changes as well as technical. Initial Dijkstra parameter amendments were recently submitted to the Constitutional Amendment Process (CAP) Portal and are now available for public discussion. While these parameters are initial, with final confirmation pending review and testing, early participation and socialization regarding the wording is highly encouraged. Read more in the next section. DApp and tooling teams can prepare by planning to test against DikkstraNet as soon as it is available.

Get involved

The Hard Fork Working Group meets every week on Tuesdays. Join via the Luma calendar and follow the Cardano Upgrades pages.

Constitutional Amendment Portal (CAP) updates

Last week we introduced CAP-12, the amendment that adds the new Dijkstra era parameters to the Constitution. This week the author came back with a revised draft, and it shows what the review process is for.

The first version drew a lot of attention in a short time, including an editor review, comments from DReps and SPOs, and a full technical review from the TSC on behalf of Intersect’s Parameter Committee. The new draft takes most of that on board. The minimum pool margin parameter, which had been listed but never defined, now has its own section with proper guardrails. The naming inconsistencies across the parameter lists are gone. The Leios section is noticeably stronger, with real upper bounds in place of several placeholders, safeguards that make sure even the largest valid transactions can always be carried in an Endorser Block, and a clear way to switch Linear Leios off if that is ever needed. A number of guardrails have also been reclassified to say honestly which ones the Guardrails Script can enforce on its own and which depend on values it cannot see.

The most talked-about fix came from a sharp observation in the comments. The new minimum pool margin is meant to replace the old minimum pool cost, but an existing guardrail still insisted that minimum pool cost be set in line with the cost of running a pool. Left untouched, that old rule would have blocked the very change the new parameter exists to enable. The author has now moved to deprecate it.

Not everything is in yet. The author has said the remaining points from the discussion, including how often the pledge leverage parameter can change and how CAP-12 relates to CAP-10, will follow next week, and a good number of placeholder values still need real numbers from benchmarking.

The draft is still open, the author is clearly listening, and the questions on the table are ones that SPOs, DReps and anyone who runs or relies on the network have a real stake in. If you have a view on any of it, now is the time to add it. You can read the latest version, compare it with the first, and join the discussion at https://cap.intersectmbo.org.

Live governance actions*

*data from 2026-10-08 at 14:45 UTC
** SPO votes on Info Actions are not mandatory, however this action requests SPO input
Follow vote progress with your favorite Cardano explorers:
GovTool | Tempo | Cexplorer | AdaStat | CardanoScan | CGov | Civitas

Administration services updates

Treasury funds administered by Intersect move through two layers. The governance action approves a withdrawal into a Treasury Reserve Smart Contract (TRSC), and from there funds can move into Project Specific Smart Contracts (PSSC) as individual vendors reach agreed milestones. Nothing can reach a project unless it has passed through both. To date, the 2025 TRSC has administered 568.4M ada, while the 2026 Treasury Reserve Smart Contract (TRSC) has administered 201.67M ada, 26.1M USDCx, and 4.8M USDM.

All of it is visible. Amounts, recipients, milestones, and every contract can be checked on the treasury dashboard and on chain. You can follow a withdrawal from the governance action that approved it, through the contract that holds it, to the project it pays.

MLabs Contract Funding

This week, the funding of the MLabs Smart contract for “MLabs Core Tool Maintenance & Enhancement: Plutarch and Ply” was completed.

This agreement funds 12 months of maintenance and enhancement work for Plutarch and Ply, delivered through four quarterly maintenance cycles using a maintainer-led, priority-based model. The work keeps both libraries reliable, compatible, performant and well-documented as Cardano’s ledger, Plutus, UPLC and developer ecosystem continue to evolve, including protocol-era compatibility work (such as Dijkstra-era changes) where relevant updates land during the funding period.

The funded smart contract can be viewed on Intersect’s Smart Contract UI Dashboard.

Intersect Knowledge Base tip of the week

Learn more in detail about the mechanics behind the TRSC and PSSC mentioned above on the Administration Services Hub pages here.

Token2049 announcements

Much of the Cardano news in this update comes from Token 2049, and relates to being usable by people and Institutions with rules to follow, and increasingly by software acting on their behalf.

Programmable tokens went live on mainnet on October 7, announced at TOKEN2049. CIP-0113 lets issuers embed compliance and transfer rules directly into a token, including KYC and AML checks, sanctions screening and freezing, with the ledger enforcing them whenever the token moves. It did not need a hard fork and it does not affect ada or existing native tokens. Launch support includes Eternl, GeroWallet, CardanoScan, BloxBean, and BendingAI. The next day, Cardano Foundation spun out Veridian, a digital identity product, as an independent company and tokenized its shares with CIP-0113, making them the first asset under the new standard. Veridian will continue to build identity tools for governments, businesses, and AI agents.

Cardano support also landed in the Open Wallet Standard this week, with version 1.4.3 adding key derivation, transaction and message signing and balance lookups, so applications and AI agents can sign across several chains through one interface. It was built by WingRiders, with technical review from IOG and Midnight.

Midnight brought their “A” game to Token with the Midnight Cafe, hosting a live Privacy Pitched session and streaming it for anyone to see. On the main stage, its day one keynote announced Midnight Passport, collateral warehouse, night mode and offer files, framed as a privacy layer for every chain. The day before TOKEN2049 opened, it announced Solana wallet support, letting Solana users make private swaps and use private DeFi from wallets they already have. Midnight Foundation is an Intersect Enterprise member, and permissionless smart contracts went live on its Midnight Mainnet on October 2. On Day 2, Charles Hoskinson took to the main stage to deliver a keynote about Midnight City, agentic payments, and introduce a new concept, Night Frames.

Connecting with the community at Token2049

Intersect at TOKEN2049, Singapore 🇸🇬

October 7 and 8 brought the largest crypto industry event of the year to Marina Bay Sands, and Cardano was there in force with over 30 speaker slots across the two days.

From Intersect, Executive Director Jack Briggs, Board members Kavinda Kariyapperuma and Mercy Fordwoo, and staff Abhik Nag and Fred Tanaka. Many of our committee and Enterprise Members representatives were present, with Kris Kowalsky of Tweag by Modus Create being one of the speakers taking to the Cardano stage to talk about AI agent security, who controls the decisions those agents make, and how to mak sure safeguards actually work.

Over two days the Cardano booth reported hundreds of Cardano wallet & Cardano Academy sign ups and 2,000+ conversations with the team across the stand.

Jack was interviewed by BeInCrypto, Blockwind News and Blockopedia, with the Blockwind discussion covering regulatory clarity and what it means for Cardano. He also sat down with the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on decentralized governance and where the ecosystem goes next. Further conversations with web3pod.xyz opened follow-up opportunities, and an online interview with NADA News, formerly CoinDesk Japan, is already arranged.

The less visible work matters as much. Over two days the team made introductions to CoinDesk, Bloomberg, Reuters, Fortune, DollarsAndSense.sg and independent creators covering the region. Most of that came from walking the floor and starting conversations rather than from anything scheduled.

We leave Singapore with three interviews recorded, more scheduled, and a network that now spans specialist crypto media, mainstream financial press and independent creators. We will share the interviews as they are published.

Social media coverage appears to have been largely positive throughout the event and we look forward to a detailed debrief in the weeks ahead. Meanwhile we wish all attendees safe travels following the event.

What’s on

🇯🇵 Midnight City: Tokyo event
🗓️ October 10, 2026
3PM - 7PM JST 🇯🇵 | 6AM - 10AM UTC 🌐
Luma calendar | Live stream

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.