Welcome to this week's development update, a Cardano Constitution Special! Intersect is delighted to report that the draft constitution was voted YES at the constitutional convention by a whopping 95% majority of elected delegates, making this week not only a monumental week in Cardano but also a notable moment in blockchain history. Cardano aims to be a guiding light that illuminates the path forward for the entire blockchain industry.

Cardano’s constitution: a historic milestone in decentralized governance
A global effort, a momentous achievement
It’s been a historic week for Cardano and those who champion decentralized governance. After 63 workshops across 51 countries, participants came together to refine and strengthen the Constitution. The workshops each elected representatives to attend the convention and vote on the completion of the Cardano constitution. These efforts culminated at the Cardano Constitutional Convention, held simultaneously in Buenos Aires - Argentina, and Nairobi - Kenya.

Inside the convention - Buenos Aires, Argentina.



Inside the convention - Nairobi, Kenya.

Faculty of law - at the University of Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires, Argentina - delegates and attendees from around the world.

Nairobi,  Kenya - delegates and attendees.

World map with the highlighted delegates’ countries.

Delegates – all elected representatives and traveling alternates (over 120 people in total) joined the civics committee, the interim constitutional committee, global community members, and tens of thousands of online viewers to finalize discussions and endorse a version of the Constitution that reflects the community's collective voice.

The now delegate-approved Cardano constitution is the foundational document that translates the community’s values and decisions into a clear set of principles, rules, and responsibilities. It defines the governance framework for the Cardano ecosystem, outlining stakeholders' roles and obligations, including delegated representatives (DReps), stake pool operators (SPOs), and others. This Constitution guides Cardano toward becoming a sustainable platform for Web3 products and services.

60 of the 63 delegates voted in favor—a 95% majority. The delegate-approved Constitution will now be placed on-chain for community approval in early 2025. For now, we celebrate this remarkable demonstration of community-driven consensus and thank every delegate for their dedication, thoughtfulness, and perseverance.

The results by delegate.

Chair of Proceedings in Buenos Aires, Lloyd Duhon, marking the historic moment with a group selfie at the Buenos Aires, Argentina event  - documenting this historic moment.

Inside the convention, at the moment, the result was known - Nairobi, Kenya.

On the Convention’s final day, a signing ceremony, panels, speeches, and festivities will commemorate this milestone. The full event was livestreamed and recorded so if you missed it you can watch the entire event at cardanoconvention.com.

The next step: on-chain consideration
The delegate-approved Constitution is a significant milestone, but requires one further step. It’s now up to the entire community to decide. It is expected to be submitted as a Constitutional Amendment governance action following the Plomin upgrade in January 2025. From there, the Cardano community will determine whether to ratify the Constitution, in line with Cardano’s on-chain governance framework.

The Constitutional Committee’s Role
Like the interim Constitution, the interim Constitutional Committee (ICC) helped enable the first stage of the Chang upgrade. The ICC provides technical oversight, ensuring the initial community submitted on-chain governance actions adhere to the constitution’s thresholds and safeguards. This system of checks and balances preserves the blockchain’s stability and security while granting the community a decisive voice.

If the delegate-approved Constitution is ratified, the ICC will adhere and uphold the new version.

The ICC’s term concludes in the summer of 2025. At this point, the community will elect members for the next term—another step toward a fully decentralized and representative governance model.

Looking back, moving forward
From early workshops to this week’s monumental endorsement, Cardano’s community has taken deliberate, inclusive steps toward a robust and enduring governance framework. With scenes captured from both Nairobi and Buenos Aires, this moment will be remembered as a turning point in decentralized decision-making, strengthening Cardano’s position as a leading platform for the future of Web3.

Stay engaged, stay informed, and take pride in what we’ve accomplished together. It’s only the beginning of what Cardano’s community can achieve.

If that wasn’t enough this week, there’s a lot more that’s been bubbling away.

Plomin hard fork update
Release 10.1.3 
A minor node release 10.1.3 addressing Issue #4772 is now available and can be found via the cardano-node release repository Cardano-Node/releases.

Users must upgrade to this node version before the mainnet hard fork.

Mainnet hard fork and plan 529
Introducing plan 529. Over the last weeks, the hard fork working group has discussed and agreed the requirements for raising the mainnet hard fork governance action. In short, the hard fork working group’s must-have requirements have been met. Availability and time constraints will also have been met by mainnet epoch 529. Epoch 529 starts on 2024-12-20 at 21:44 UTC. This is the likely planned date for raising the mainnet hard fork governance action.

SPOs and the ICC will decide the final date for hard fork enactment. This action and voting can be followed through most on-chain explorers or via the manual updates provided on the Intersect knowledge base.

Once the on-chain voting thresholds are met, the hard fork will be enacted after a one-epoch ratification period, with approximately five days' notice. 

With the Plomin upgrade complete, Cardano’s final on-chain governance features will be a reality and live on mainnet.

Readiness page updates 
The hard fork readiness page on the Intersect knowledge base keeps the community updated on progress toward the mainnet hard fork.

Core infrastructure CIR-roadmap prioritization
Since August, the core infrastructure roadmap working group (CIR-WG) has collated potential roadmap items with contributions from the community and technical working groups. You can read more about that here.  The entire backlog of project briefs for proposed roadmap items submitted to date is now publicly available for review in the TSC knowledge base. 

The prioritization survey
The committee would like to thank all those who completed the survey and provided feedback to help shape the 2025 core infrastructure roadmap. We value quantitative and qualitative input, and we will be reporting on the results in due course, so watch this space.

Governance in numbers
As we press ahead following Chang #1, follow the progress of governance actions on-chain here every week. Since Friday, November 29, 2024: 

• We've advanced from epoch 524 to epoch 526
• Unique delegators increased by 9,012 (45,720 -> 54,732)
• Total number of vote delegations increased by 9,539 (49,186 -> 58,725)
• Total DRep votes increased by 41 (548 -> 589)
• The total number of DRep registrations increased by 20 (763 -> 783)

To learn how to start using Cardano GovTool, explore GovTool documentation. Here, you'll find everything from step-by-step guides to detailed explanations of its features.

On the Intersect Discord server, you can connect to the core maintainers of governance tools via the new request and help & support channels under Core Governance Tools in Discord. 

Open source
The open source office is excited to celebrate the achievements of our developer advocate program. All of the selected advocates, Alex Seregin, Bernard Sibanda, Suganya Raju, and Udai Solanki, have not only accepted the tasks set before them, but exceeded expectations. 

Alex continues to be a force of nature not only in the developer community, but also in the wider Cardano community, supporting and participating in various working and interest groups both internal and external to Intersect.  

Bernard has further dedicated his activities within the developer education space in South Africa. While managing WIMS, he maintains many active communication channels, allowing newer developers to not only learn but also to feel heard and recognized. 

Suganya brought her technical writing skills to the forefront and consistently tapped into her prior experience as a developer by building new connections in eastern Canada. The outlook is bright for all that can be accomplished as this community becomes more involved. 

Udai is an accomplished leader in the Web3 space and continues to use his platform to reach the wider community in India. He has clearly demonstrated a desire to connect the developer community to Intersect and therefore Cardano by attending and facilitating various events. 

The open source office has presented some documentation for review by the open source committee. Our Contribution Ladder was curated by our Developer Advocates, our Project Incubation - Acceptance Criteria is the culmination of 6+ months of curated inner source and open-source opinions and peer review. 

A reminder, the documents produced by the open source office and open source committee typically align with an explainer video. This content can be found on our YouTube channel @osointersectmbo. Make sure to subscribe for the most up to date releases, you can also follow us on X: @IntersectOSO!

Well, that’s it for the constitutional special, but we will continue to report on the governance actions and the progress of decentralized governance. Thanks for reading!

And finally, we’re interested in hearing more from you about subjects important to you, such as Cardano’s governance. Your ideas and suggestions are crucial to us. If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, please get in touch via email, X, or LinkedIn.