On January 29, 2025, Cardano achieved the transition to full community governance with the enactment of the Plomin hard fork

The upgrade was enacted on-chain after the hard fork was approved by stake pool operators (SPOs) and the interim constitutional committee. This is a truly momentous achievement, not only for Cardano but for the entire blockchain industry.

This is the first hard fork in blockchain's short history to be decided, approved, and enacted with the full involvement of the community rather than by a central authority. The decision began with CIP-1694, which was developed over two years and included community workshops. It is also the only hard fork to make such an epochal change to blockchain governance.

From this instant, the future of the Cardano blockchain is determined by governance actions. Any ada holder can raise a governance action, and all ada holders can vote to accept or reject it. They can do this as individuals or by delegating their voting power to delegated representatives (DReps).

About the hard fork

The Plomin hard fork is the second part of the Chang upgrade to Cardano. Initially known as Chang #2, it was renamed in memory of Matthew Plomin, a contributor to the Cardano community. 

The Chang #1 upgrade moved the blockchain into a bootstrapping phase to prepare for the transition to full community governance. An essential feature of this phase was the creation and approval of a draft  Cardano constitution in December, 2024.

With the enactment of the Plomin hard fork, the system of voting by ada holders is fully established. One of the first tasks of the ada holders and DReps will be to ratify the delegate-endorsed constitution by on-chain voting, with one lovelace counting as one vote.

Governance actions explained

There are seven types of governance action, shown in the following table.

Staking Rewards

The community should note that although post-Plomin staking rewards will continue to be earned as usual, ada holders must delegate to a DRep to withdraw their rewards following the Plomin hard fork. The delegation can be one of the predefined options, a single key, an active script, or a Plutus v3 script. 

Keep informed 

Join the dedicated Plomin hard fork Discord channel at #hfwg-plomin.

The Intersect knowledge base has been updated, and information about the Plomin hard fork can be found in the refreshed Cardano Updates space.

We recommend bookmarking this page and checking back often, as the hard fork working group regularly updates details. The Knowledge base, guides, and FAQs on GovTool contain information on the constitution and on-chain governance.