Six months as Administrator, 2026–27 Net Change Limit now live on-chain, Hard fork planning underway, and more! Intersect Dev Report #96
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Welcome to Intersect’s Development Update #96! This week, we shared a six-month progress update on Intersect’s role as an administrator, outlining improvements to delivery assurance, new tooling, and upcoming resources for DReps.

 

We also highlight the Net Change Limit, now live on-chain; progress toward the 2026 budget process; and the first steps in the next Cardano hard fork, alongside continued work across smart contracts, open source, developer experience, and community engagement, and more. Let's dig into the specifics!

administration

It has been approximately six months since Intersect began operating as an Administrator for the Cardano ecosystem, currently administering around ₳345m across community-approved initiatives. As a constitutional role, administration exists to safely and consistently implement what DReps approve, ensuring that treasury funds are safeguarded and that delivery progress is trackable, auditable, and usable. Over this period, Intersect has continued to evolve its processes based on feedback from DReps, vendors, tooling teams, and the wider community, with a focus on clearer reporting, stronger delivery assurance, and more accessible on-chain transparency.

 

This week, Intersect published a detailed update outlining how administration works in practice, what Intersect does and does not do, the tooling and data available today, and the improvements being introduced at the six-month mark, including milestone spot-check audits, smart contract and dashboard enhancements, a new public API, and the upcoming DRep Resource Pack. Read the full update on X

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The Net Change Limit (NCL) for 2026–27 is now live on-chain, and the Budget Committee encourages all DReps to review the proposal and cast their vote. The NCL establishes the maximum amount of ada that may be withdrawn from the Treasury over the defined period and is a prerequisite for any Treasury-funded activity this year. DReps are also encouraged to leave a rationale with their vote, as the committee reviews this feedback, and it helps improve clarity, communication, and future iterations of the process.

In parallel, the Budget Committee is finalizing the Budget Process Info Action (BPIA), which defines how Intersect will run the annual Cardano budget process going forward. This includes the stages of proposal intake, feedback, prioritization, and on-chain actions, as well as the roles of DReps, proposers, and administrators. The committee has incorporated extensive DRep and community feedback, added detailed rationale for each stage, and aligned the process with the Cardano 2030 vision. The BPIA is expected to be submitted on-chain shortly, following final committee review and board coordination.

Once the Budget Process Info Action is submitted, the committee will publish key dates for the 2026 budget cycle and release the budget proposal template for teams to use when submitting funding requests. This template is designed to improve clarity, comparability, and accountability by aligning proposals to defined focus areas, KPIs, work packages, and budget breakdowns. Together, these steps aim to provide the ecosystem with a clearer, more predictable, and more transparent path from proposal to funding in 2026.

Hard fork update  v10

We are in the first stages of the upgrade process, currently focused on socialization and planning. Following discussions with the hard fork working group, the IOE teams are working hard to cut two releases of Cardano Node.

Pre-Release Cardano Node 10.6.2

  • Target release within one week
  • A Pre-Release node containing hard fork functionality
  • Aimed to get the hard fork features into the community’s hands ASAP
  • For SanchoNet testing.

Cardano Node 10.7.0

  • Target release within three weeks
  • Mainnet hard-fork-ready candidate release
  • Will be used to fork Preview, PreProd, and then Mainnet
  • Formal benchmarking and performance tests were run.

The 10.6.2 release aims to get the ball rolling and engage stakeholders before a Hard Fork candidate node is prepared. 10.7.0 is marked as a candidate, as it will be capable of the hard fork, but dependent on successful testnet deployments and formal benchmarking.

Keep informed

 

Join the dedicated Upgrade Discord channel at #wg-hard-fork (on the Intersect Discord server). This channel is monitored by the working group, with updates being shared and questions answered. Alternatively, you can reach out to hard-fork@intersectmbo.org.

 

The hard fork working group currently meets every other week; see the shared Luma Calendar. As progress continues, the meeting cadence will increase.

 

The Cardano Upgrades GitBook contains important hard-fork context, working group policies, readiness tracking, and working group meeting minutes.

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This week, our vendor spotlight goes to Cooperativa de Trabajo Eryx, which has a project, ZK Bridge, administered by Intersect.

Cooperativa de Trabajo Eryx developers are building a ZK bridge for Cardano, which will be deployed on the Cardano testnet. As part of this initiative, they will define a communication protocol for the bridge, provide the full source code of the smart contracts on the Cardano side, and produce comprehensive technical documentation detailing the protocol between Cardano and any other isomorphic blockchain.

Tooling Improvements

 

This week, we're launching an API that gives tooling providers and community members direct access to our administration data. This means you can integrate, visualize, and share this information using whatever tools work best for you.

 

It will be based on a Yaci-Store chain indexer configured to follow and store only administration information read from the Cardano mainnet. Intersect will host an instance of this, allowing access to the data. Builders are also encouraged to use the code as an example of how administration data could be indexed and stored.

Try it out now:

  • See API documentation
  • Example endpoint Events & Milestones
  • Repository

This is a work in progress, so expect to see further improvements in the coming weeks.

Open Source

Earlier this week, the Delivery Assurance team shared an update on our Milestone Activity in delivering the Paid Open Source Model (POSM). The milestones reported this week focus on establishing durable operating structures rather than immediate feature delivery. Together, they address long-standing gaps in security response, maintainer sustainability, and tooling stewardship by making responsibility explicit and funded. This work aims to reduce systemic risk and improve the long-term scalability of Cardano’s open-source ecosystem, even when short-term outputs are not immediately visible. 

Track progress across all Open Source Committee milestones via Delivery Assurance: http://bit.ly/TWDB

Developer Advocates

 

REMINDER: The State of Developer Experience Survey for 2026 is now live in five languages. If you are a developer, regardless of skill level, please be sure to respond. Stay tuned with the Developer Experience working group (Discord, devex.intersectmbo.org), where our Developer Advocates will review and address survey topics in Q2 2026. 

Take the survey here: English / French / Japanese / Chinese / Portuguese.

New dashboard tracks diverse Cardano Node development

 

A new Bitergia-powered dashboard is now live, providing real-time visibility into the development activity of emerging node implementations and infrastructure projects across the Cardano ecosystem. This marks a critical milestone in Cardano’s shift toward client diversity and infrastructure plurality.

Tracked projects include:

  • turbocardano – C++ node 
  • Razor – C# modular node 
  • dingo – Go-based node
  • Gerolamo– TypeScript-based node
  • amaru – PRAGMA’s Rust-based node 
  • Coming shortly: acropolis – IO’s Rust node

The dashboard exposes contributor activity, repo health, and organizational diversity metrics—key indicators of Cardano’s readiness for a multi-client future. Explore the dashboard and help build a more resilient Cardano.

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    Intersect Community Town Square


    Join us for an open forum for members and community participants to hear updates, ask questions, share feedback, and engage directly with the Intersect community in a transparent environment. We’re hosting two region-friendly sessions to make participation easier across time zones: an APAC-friendly session on February 17, 2026, at 10:00 AM UTC, and a US- and Europe–friendly session on February 17, 2026, at 2:30 PM UTC. Following each Town Square, we’ll continue the conversation through breakout rooms in the Intersect Virtual Hub, offering smaller group discussions for deeper engagement, networking, and topic-focused conversations.

    Register Now: Asia-Pacific-friendly time zones / US-Europe-friendly time zones.

    Join us for the next MCC X Space on February 2 | 14:30 UTC — an open conversation on membership, community initiatives, and what MCC is working on - Set a reminder. Missed the last one? Catch the recording here

    Missed the January Townhall?


    No worries! You can catch the full recording and stay up to date with all the key updates, discussions, and announcements.

    Watch the replay: Desktop / Mobile.

    Thanks to everyone who joined live, and we look forward to seeing you at the next Town Hall.

    Usability testing: call for participants

     

    We’re continuing usability testing to improve the Intersect member experience and are looking for a small number of additional participants.

    We’re specifically seeking people who are not currently registered with Intersect to take part in a short, 20-minute usability call. As a thank you, participants will receive one year of free Individual membership.

    We encourage members to share this opportunity with anyone in their network who may be interested in contributing feedback and helping us improve the overall experience.

    To take part, please email: membership@intersectmbo.org

      Intersect Recruitment banner X article v2

      As Intersect continues to mature and take on greater responsibility in serving a global, decentralized community, we are strengthening the people and operational foundations that support our work.

      We currently have three open roles across Operations, Executive Support, and People, each designed to improve delivery clarity, organisational effectiveness, and team sustainability:

      Planning and Delivery Operations Lead: A cross-functional operations role focused on leading annual and quarterly planning cycles, coordinating delivery across teams, and providing leadership with clear visibility into priorities, dependencies, and delivery readiness - Full job description and application.

      Executive Assistant to the Executive Director: A trusted executive support role focused on administrative excellence, scheduling, logistics, and operational follow-through, enabling effective leadership across governance, committees, and external engagements - Full job description and application.

      People Operations and Insights Partner: A hands-on people role supporting day-to-day people operations, people projects, workforce data and reporting, and hiring delivery for Intersect’s globally distributed team - Full job description and application. 

      Each role is remote-first, with opportunities to collaborate in person where appropriate.

      • View all open roles
      • Learn more about working at Intersect

      Intersect encourages our members or anyone interested in purpose-driven work and building in a decentralized, community-first organisation to explore the roles and consider applying.

      Growing the ecosystem through enterprise engagement


      The Cardano community continues to foster meaningful collaborations and support new projects that contribute to the ecosystem as a whole. As this growth continues, Intersect is also evolving as a decentralized, member-driven organization that serves as a key coordination and support layer for the community.


      Recent additions of new Enterprise Members, including Midnight,  have drawn increased attention to Cardano from adjacent ecosystems. As a result, new builders and organizations are discovering Cardano for the first time and expressing interest in its governance model and in the role Intersect plays in enabling participation and coordination.

      This presents an opportunity to further educate both newcomers and existing community members on Intersect’s purpose, governance structure, and membership pathways. Intersect offers multiple membership tiers designed to keep the barrier to entry low and participation accessible across a range of contributors and organizations.

      For those interested in learning more or getting involved, intersectmbo.org provides a comprehensive starting point, including information on membership, governance, official communication channels, and ways to engage across the ecosystem.

      As outlined on the Intersect website, Intersect increasingly acts as a trusted coordination point between specialized, member-driven groups within and beyond the organization, helping participants understand where to engage, how to contribute, and how value flows across the Cardano ecosystem.

      Community members and newcomers alike are encouraged to explore the website and connect through Intersect’s official channels.

      Emurgo

      Enterprise membership spotlight: EMURGO Labs

      EMURGO Labs, an Intersect Enterprise Member, is a blockchain innovation and development arm of EMURGO, one of the co-founding entities of the Cardano ecosystem. EMURGO Labs focuses on supporting Web2 and Web3 organizations in building, scaling, and transitioning to decentralized solutions, with a strong emphasis on real-world blockchain adoption. Their work spans full-stack blockchain development, venture support, and ecosystem tooling, leveraging Cardano alongside EVM-compatible environments to enable secure, interoperable, and production-ready applications. Through its technical expertise and venture-building approach, EMURGO Labs continues to play an active role in enabling builders and enterprises to engage with the Cardano ecosystem.

      Governance actions

      DeltaDeFi: Hydra Trading Infrastructure Budget expired January 29 with 11.97% support from DReps. It was the final Budget Info Action submitted during the previous Constitution. 

      Here are the current standings on active Governance Actions as of the time of writing. 

      Net Change Limit (Epoch 613 to Epoch 713)
      This Net Change Limit info action expires on February 8 and proposes setting a maximum treasury withdrawal cap of 350 million ada for the period from the beginning of Epoch 613 (February 13, 2026) to the conclusion of Epoch 713 (July 3, 2027). Establishing this limit is constitutionally required before any treasury withdrawal actions can be submitted and serves as a guardrail to ensure fiscal discipline, transparency, and compliance with Article IV of the Cardano Constitution.


      Current standings: (at the time of writing)

      Constitutional Committee

      • Cardano Curia: Not voted ⏳
      • Tingvard: Constitutional ✅
      • Eastern Cardano Council: Not voted ⏳
      • Ace Alliance: Constitutional ✅
      • Cardano Japan Council: Constitutional ✅
      • Phil_uplc: Not voted ⏳
      • KtorZ: Constitutional ✅
      • DReps: 47.88% Yes votes

      Ratification thresholds:

      • DReps: Greater than 50% of active voting stake

      Name Protocol Version 11 Hard Fork – van Rossem

      This info action expiring on February 13 proposes naming the Protocol Version 11 hard fork the “van Rossem Hard Fork” in memory of Max van Rossem, honoring his significant contributions to Cardano’s governance, constitutional development, and community building. The proposal continues Cardano’s tradition of naming hard forks after impactful contributors whose work helped shape the ecosystem.


      Current standings: (at the time of writing)

      Constitutional Committee

      • Cardano Curia: Not voted ⏳
      • Tingvard: Constitutional ✅
      • Eastern Cardano Council: Not voted ⏳
      • Ace Alliance: Constitutional ✅
      • Cardano Japan Council: Constitutional ✅
      • Phil_uplc: Not voted ⏳
      • KtorZ: Not voted ⏳
      • DReps: 36.44% Yes votes

      This is an info action and does not require specific approval thresholds.


      Increase Transaction and Block Memory Units (Part 1 of 2)

      This parameter update governance action expires on February 13, and proposes increasing Plutus script memory unit limits per transaction and per block by 25%, enabling more work to be performed by Plutus scripts within a single block while maintaining network security, performance, and consistency with constitutional guardrails. The change is intended to reduce friction for DApp developers, improve scalability, and increase Plutus throughput with minimal risk. This action represents the first of two linked updates required under the current guardrails.


      Current standings: (at the time of writing)

      Constitutional Committee

      • Cardano Curia: Not voted ⏳
      • Tingvard: Not voted ⏳
      • Eastern Cardano Council: Not voted ⏳
      • Ace Alliance: Constitutional ✅
      • Cardano Japan Council: Not voted ⏳
      • Phil_uplc: Not voted ⏳
      • KtorZ: Constitutional ✅

      • DReps: 27.50% Yes votes
      • SPOs: 12.31% Yes votes 

      Ratification thresholds:

      • Constitutional Committee: Approval from five of seven members
      • DReps: 67% approval
      • SPOs: Majority approval by active block production stake

      Cardano DeFi Liquidity Budget - Withdrawal 1 (₳500,000)

      This Treasury Withdrawal action expires on February 18, and requests 500,000 ADA to establish the foundational legal and technical infrastructure for the broader Stablecoin DeFi Liquidity project. The funds are earmarked for three specific pillars:

      • The legal formation of a Cayman Islands Foundation Company to provide the DAO with a separate legal personality
      • The setup of an Amaru multisig contract by Sundae Labs for secure fund management.
      • A comprehensive security audit by Invariant0 LLC. This action is the first functional step following the community-approved Budget Info Action, ensuring that subsequent large-scale liquidity deployments are governed by a robust, constitutionally compliant framework.

      Current standings: (at the time of writing) Constitutional Committee

      • Cardano Curia: Not voted ⏳
      • Tingvard: Unconstitutional ❌ 
      • Eastern Cardano Council: Not voted ⏳
      • Ace Alliance: Not voted ⏳
      • Cardano Japan Council: Not voted ⏳
      • Phil_uplc: Not voted ⏳
      • KtorZ: Not voted ⏳
      • DReps: 22.88% Yes votes

      Ratification thresholds:

      • Constitutional Committee: Approval from five of seven members
      • DReps: 67% approval

      We strongly encourage all members to engage with the governance process, whether that is being involved directly through a committee/working group, actively voting, letting your representatives know how you’d like to vote, or simply engaging in discussion! We thank each and every member for their constant drive!

      undefined-Nov-28-2025-06-11-29-0840-PM

      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.

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