Intersect development update #94

Intersect development update #94 - January 16 2026

19 min

January 16

Welcome to Intersect’s Development Update #94. This week marks a significant leadership milestone with the appointment of Intersect’s new Executive Director, alongside continued momentum across Cardano governance, hard-fork preparation, open source sustainability, and community activity. From protocol planning and governance actions to upcoming events and enterprise engagement, this update reflects a governance ecosystem firmly in execution mode as we move deeper into 2026. Let’s dive into the specifics!

After a thorough hiring process, the Intersect Board has unanimously chosen Jack Briggs, previously Interim ED, as the new leader of Intersect. The board believes he has the right mix of leadership skills, practical experience, and commitment to serving the community that this organization needs.

The search was designed to be open and inclusive, involving input from Intersect's community members. The board received many applications from both within and outside the Cardano blockchain ecosystem, narrowed them down to six finalists, and conducted extensive interviews with various stakeholders, including staff, board members, and the Steering Committee.

Although there were several excellent candidates, the board agreed that Jack's combination of strategic thinking, ability to get things done, and skill at building trust across a diverse, decentralized community made him the best fit for this important role.

Intersect thanks everyone who applied and everyone who helped make the hiring process fair and community-focused.

The Hard Fork Working Group has formally begun its 2026 sessions, with a primary focus on the upcoming protocol upgrade and the transition to Protocol Version 11.

This week, the group submitted an Info Action to formally name the hard fork after Max van Rossem. Voting on this action is now live for DReps.

On the technical side, the group is assessing a shift toward Node v10.7 as the primary hard fork candidate. While Node v10.6 remains suitable for early testing on Sanchonet, v10.7 is preferred for Mainnet deployment due to its inclusion of critical Plutus V3 benchmarking tools and fixes to node-to-client protocols.

To improve alignment and decision-making, the group is coordinating with Input Output Engineering (IOE) to move future meetings later in the week. This change will allow members more time to review updates from Tuesday’s Release Management meetings before discussions take place.

Attention is also turning to community readiness and governance efficiency. The Parameter Committee has been integrated into the formal readiness review process to oversee significant updates to Plutus cost models. In parallel, the group is prioritizing clear documentation for SPOs, particularly around Prometheus metric changes in v10.7, and has issued a final “Last Call” for feedback on the proposed hard-fork changes.

This week, our vendor spotlight goes to Input Output (IO), who have a project being administered by Intersect: Blockfrost Platform.

Blockfrost is decentralizing its Cardano Blockchain API. Through the Blockfrost Platform and Blockfrost Gateway, it will enable a network of Icebreakers operated by SPOs and node operators to process API requests and share revenue. All components are open-sourced to ensure transparency and avoid vendor lock-in.

This week’s Civics Committee meeting focused on strengthening operations, progressing workstreams, and improving how Civics keeps the ecosystem informed.

Thank you to the Civics members who have put themselves forward for the Vice Chair election, now live in the Intersect Members Portal. The Committee also discussed how future Chair/Vice Chair processes can be more consistent and transparent.

Workstream Momentum

The Constitutional Amendment Process (CAP) WG provided an update on progress and explained that many CAP requirements are met through a repository-based approach. Next steps focus on making submissions easier (e.g., issue templates), clarifying reviewer responsibilities, and exploring how constitutional amendment proposals are surfaced from the community.

Data gathering continues in the Governance Education WG, which is calling for community input to complete a short form about the governance learning resources they actually use. This aims to help map what’s working and where material is missing. Please take a moment to participate by completing or sharing the form here.

With the Governance Health Report published, the Governance Health WG can shift its focus to ongoing discussion and visibility. This includes the first topic for Civics’ new monthly X Space series, starting Wednesday, January 21, at 2 pm UTC.

Please join us on X for: Civics Unpacks 1 – The Health of Governance

This space will run monthly and serve as a regular touchpoint for governance updates, open discussion, and Civics Committee news. You can keep up to date with Civics on X @IntersectCIVICS, and please get in touch if there's a particular governance topic you’d like to hear about in a future space.

A full update on all Paid Open Source Model programs can be found here. For this week, we are highlighting the following two programs:

Maintainer Retainer Program update

Eight maintainers have been selected in the current intake, after two interview stages with the OSC: three project founders and five community maintainers.

The three founders will move directly into their trial phase. The five community maintainers will proceed to project team interviews, followed by a trial phase if alignment is confirmed.

We currently have 18 approved projects available for maintainer placement. Seven slots remain open for additional community projects interested in participating in the Maintainer Retainer Program.

Tooling Sustainability Program update

The Tooling Sustainability Program has finalized its operating process and is moving into active intake.

Six tooling projects are currently queued for review. No funding has been disbursed yet. The focus remains on preventative sustainability, including maintenance continuity, security patching, upgrades, and long-term reliability of ecosystem-critical tools.

Outreach is now beginning to bring in additional tooling applications as the program transitions from setup into execution.

Project spotlights

Unrelated to the Paid Open Source Model, we also want to highlight several project spotlights conducted last year in case you missed them.

These include Evolution SDK, which outlines its development roadmap for 2025 and forward planning into 2026, as well as Delta DeFi, Empowa, and Aquara. Each of these projects is pursuing a distinct approach and trajectory within the Cardano ecosystem, and we encourage the community to review their spotlights for a closer look at what they are building.

Project spotlight

Thank you to all who have contributed to open source on Cardano. We look forward to supporting and seeing the progress!

The State of Developer Experience Survey #2 is launching on Monday, January 19, 2026. Our advocates reviewed and added many questions, curated to understand the experience of developers within the Cardano Ecosystem. Be sure to follow @IntersectOSO on X for updates.

Please email oso@intersectmbo.org if you experience any issues or have general questions.

It’s Intersect’s second week back after the new year break, and things are heating up nicely, with plenty of touchpoints for our members to get involved! First up, we have our Community Town Square on February 17, 2026.

USA & Europe–friendly session
10:00 AM EST / 3:00 PM UTC
APAC region–friendly session
10:00 AM UTC/3:30 PM IST / 07:00 PM JST

Intersect will share further details and access links in the coming weeks.

Then we have the first Intersect Townhall of the year, taking place on January 29, 2026, at noon UTC. The session will be streamed live on YouTube, X, and LinkedIn. Watch for further details; access links will be shared next week!

Finally, but certainly not least on the list is the membership and community committee space! Join us for another Intersect MCC Office Hours next week. Ask questions, share feedback, and get the latest MCC updates- you can tune into the X space here.

Intersect Events

We are extremely excited to share that Intersect will participate in two key events in Q1 2026:

Buidler Fest - [yes, it’s really spelled that way!] Buenos Aires 2026: March 24 and 25, 2026. Buidler Fest is a non-profit, community-driven two-day gathering focused on collaboration, experimentation, and connection between attendees. At this tech and development-focused event, expect practical workshops, deep conversations, and plenty of tech talk. Join Intersect as we discuss the ecosystem’s growth and how governance tech can adapt!
Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026: February 11 to 13, 2026. Hosted in Nairobi, Kenya, the first Cardano Africa Tech Summit brings together governance, development, and real-world impact. Africa remains a vitally important region for Cardano’s ecosystem and governance growth. Join CATS, engage with Intersect’s team, and help ensure that the voices shaping governance truly reflect the community's diversity.
Consensus Hong Kong: February 10 to 12, 2026. We’re thrilled to share that, as part of the community-approved Unveiling the First Unified Global Events Marketing Strategy for Cardano proposal, Intersect will be heading to Consensus Hong Kong 2026 alongside Emurgo, the Cardano Foundation, Rare Network, and many other builders in the ecosystem. Consensus is a renowned event that brings together policymakers, creators, developers, and leaders from around the globe to explore the latest in blockchain innovation and institutional adoption. Join us in Hong Kong and be part of the future of blockchain!

Our enterprise spotlight this week is Serviceplan Group - House of Communication, the global integrated agency model of the Serviceplan Group, bringing together strategy & consulting, creative & content, media & data, and platform & technology under one collaborative ecosystem. Their digital platform reflects this unified approach, showcasing cross-disciplinary innovation through their ÜberCreativity concept, alongside global case studies, thought leadership, and regional market presence.

In December 2025, Serviceplan Group - House of Communication joined Intersect as an Enterprise Member, reinforcing the growing alignment between Cardano’s ecosystem and established global marketing and communication leaders. Their membership highlights increasing enterprise interest in interoperable, scalable, and future-ready digital infrastructure, and strengthens Intersect’s position as a bridge between Web3 innovation and traditional enterprise-grade communication and brand ecosystems.

Cardano governance is in full swing with many key governance actions being put forward to track Cardano’s trajectory into 2026 and beyond. Below, we look at the governance actions set to expire within the next four weeks.

Cardano 2030: Vision, Mission, Strategy Framework, and KPIs: This info action, which is open until January 19, proposes adopting a community-led Vision 2030, Mission, Strategy Framework, and high-level KPIs to provide a shared long-term direction for Cardano. The framework is intended as a strategic measuring stick for DReps when evaluating proposals and treasury spending, not as a binding or constitutional instrument, and is designed to be iteratively updated over time through future info actions.