Cardano Implements van Rossem Upgrade, Setting Stage for Leios Protocol

Cardano Implements van Rossem Upgrade, Setting Stage for Leios Protocol

The network enhancement brings down smart contract operational expenses and establishes the foundation for Ouroboros Leios, a significant scalability improvement anticipated in the coming months.

The Cardano network successfully implemented its van Rossem hard fork on Saturday, bringing the Cardano mainnet to version 11. This implementation is anticipated to decrease the costs associated with smart contract execution and establish the necessary infrastructure for Ouroboros Leios, a significant scalability enhancement planned for the protocol.

Network data available through Cardanoscan reveals the blockchain's transition from Protocol Version 10 during epoch 643 to Version 11 upon entering epoch 644.

"As well as Plutus improvements and Plutus Cost Model enhancements, this upgrade lays the foundation for the next upgrade, the Dijkstra era hard fork, which will introduce Ouroboros Leios to Cardano," Input Output wrote in a weekly development report on Friday.

Ouroboros Leios represents a scaling enhancement designed for the Ouroboros proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that powers Cardano, with deployment scheduled for late 2026. The primary objective is to significantly amplify transactions per second while maintaining the robust security guarantees inherent to Ouroboros.

Additionally, the van Rossem upgrade marks a historic milestone as Cardano's first governance-driven hard fork, representing a departure from previous upgrades that were orchestrated by Input Output, the engineering company that designed and built the Cardano blockchain.