News of the Cardano network’s upcoming hard fork, known as van Rossem, hit the testnet on May 5, as Intersect – the membership organization responsible for coordinating Cardano’s technical roadmap – confirmed that the governance process and the Cardano Node 11.0.1 beta were being released simultaneously.
This move brings the V11 protocol closer to the mainnet, with the critical variable now shifting entirely towards Stake Pool Operator (SPO) readiness; At least 85% of active stake pools must be upgraded before the process can proceed to ratification.
For ADA holders observing Voltaire-era governance mechanisms in action in real time, this beta phase is working exactly as intended.
Node 11.0.1 is the first release to officially support Cardano’s intra-era hard fork, meaning the network is upgrading the protocol without having to leave the current Conway era.
Thanks to this mechanism, the form of transactions will not change and disruptions to the ecosystem will be reduced to a structural minimum. The release also includes an upgrade of the cardano-api and cardano-cli tools to the 11.0 series and pushes the experimental hard fork target to version 12 of the protocol, indicating that the development pipeline is already looking beyond the current upgrade.
The upgrade brings together five new core Plutus software packages, identified in Improvement Proposals (CIP) 0109, 0132, 0133, 0138 and 0153, and unifies the features integrated in Plutus versions V1, V2 and V3. The importance of this last point is that existing smart contracts (V1 and V2) will be able to access the full and expanded set of integrated features after the hard fork, thus expanding the capabilities of decentralized applications (DApps) without the need to rewrite contracts.
What are the 85% trigger thresholds for pool operators in Cardano?
The 85% active stake threshold is not only a flexible goal, but a constitutional requirement rooted in Cardano’s governance framework.
Under the rules of the Voltaire-era on-chain governance model, a hard fork governance action cannot be ratified until pool operators (SPOs) representing at least 85% of active stakes have upgraded to a version supporting Protocol 11. Delegate Representatives (DReps) and the Constitutional Committee must also vote before the action is implemented on-chain.
The logic of this threshold aims to avoid breaking the chain. If a critical mass of block-producing nodes is not upgraded, the network risks producing incompatible blocks at the hard fork, the same flaw that split the mainnet in late 2025 when a faulty delegation transaction forced operators to make emergency upgrades to version 10.5.3. This incident demonstrated that coordination of swimming pool operators is not just a routine procedure, but constitutes a real level of safety.
Although the current upgrade rate of operators on the testnet has not been precisely confirmed, historical patterns from previous Cardano upgrades, including the Chang upgrade cycle, suggest that the first wave of large, professionally managed pools upgrade within the first 72-96 hours of the beta. As for smaller, stand-alone resorts, they are usually delayed by one to two weeks.
https://twitter.com/IntersectMBO/status/2051713154757857473/photo/1
Intersect’s announcement was simple:
“alert
The van Rossem hard fork governance process was introduced today on the Preview testnet. Cardano Node 11.0.1 beta is also available now. This version is a prerequisite for safely crossing a hard fork. We urge pool operators, decentralized applications, and developers to upgrade immediately.
Chang’s hard fork experience – where latency in decentralized platforms and applications delayed mainnet activation even after operators crossed the initial threshold – means the pressure is now on the entire ecosystem, not just pool operators.
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