Welcome to Intersect update #112

In what is a busy and fast-moving period across Cardano, with multiple governance, technical, and operational workstreams progressing in parallel from upgrade coordination and budget voting preparation to Constitutional Committee elections and working group activity, there’s a lot happening across the ecosystem all at once.

One of the goals of these weekly updates is to help break that activity down into something more accessible, highlighting what’s moving, what’s coming next, and where the community can get involved.
This week’s update looks ahead at several important milestones approaching over the coming weeks, and the coordination efforts continuing behind the scenes to help support them - read on:

Contributors: Bosko M, Kevin H, Hard Fork Working Group, Parameter Committee, Intersect Technical Steering Committee

Cardano upgrades

The van Rossem upgrade program continues progressing through staged rollout activities, though ecosystem readiness discussions this week increasingly focused on the risk of schedule pressure around critical tooling dependencies. Coordination efforts remain concentrated on minimizing disruption while maintaining ecosystem stability and integration confidence ahead of Mainnet governance actions.

Node v11.0.1: Node v11.0.1 remains the mandatory upgrade path for infrastructure providers to successfully transition through the Protocol Version 11 hard fork boundary. Ecosystem discussions this week centered on ensuring dependent tooling and services can complete upgrades in time to support the broader rollout sequence.

DB-Sync: Discussions this week focused on a recently identified and resolved DB-Sync issue affecting synchronization stability under certain upgrade scenarios. While compatibility with node v11.0.1 remains in place, additional validation and soak time were deemed necessary before progressing further with the hard fork rollout.

Timeline: Following the latest Hard Fork Working Group discussions, the previously targeted Mainnet governance action submission timeline is expected to shift in order to accommodate additional ecosystem readiness work and critical tooling validation. The group aligned on delaying progression being preferable to risking instability, particularly while dependencies such as Ogmios readiness and related integration confirmations remain unresolved. The revised sequencing continues prioritizing ecosystem stability, operational confidence, and sufficient soak time across Preview and PreProd before proceeding toward Mainnet enactment.

Plutus cost models: Plutus Cost model parameter update governance action is due to be submitted on mainnet on May 22.

Operational aspect: The Hard Fork Working Group continues meeting twice weekly to maintain coordination across wallets, infrastructure providers, exchanges, tooling teams, and node integrators as rollout sequencing progresses through Preview and PreProd stages.

Readiness tracking has been collaboratively maintained during the working group calls to better reflect overall ecosystem preparedness.

In Memory of Max van Rossem:
“...Max was also a cardano builder. Through AdaMoments and finally Moments, he pursued a singular vision: that individuals should own their digital signal, their identity, and their story. "User data = User's data" was not a slogan for him. It was a principle he defended in code, in governance, and in every conversation…”

Contributors: Thomas L, Ian H, Larisa McF, Intersect, Civics Committee

Constitutional Committee election updates

The Constitutional Committee candidate registration period is open now, and so far we’ve seen two registered candidates step forward.

Serving on the CC is a serious responsibility, and one of the most direct ways to help shape and safeguard Cardano governance. We know there are many capable people across the ecosystem with the experience, perspective, and judgement needed for the role, and encourage those considering it to take a closer look at the process.

You don’t need to campaign like a politician or be “famous on X” to contribute meaningfully. Strong candidates come from many different backgrounds across the ecosystem.

Resources, documentation, and weekly AMA sessions are available for anyone who wants to learn more about the role, the expectations, or the registration process.

Helpful links:

• Candidate registration
• Documentation & resources
• Weekly AMA sessions
• CC election overview

Civics Committee

The Civics committee reviewed updates across its active working groups, and prepared for the election of the next Chair seat, following the recent intake of new members. Committee Chair and Vice Chair elections open for all voting members of committees, with voting by elected members running immediately after applications close. Candidates will have opportunities in following meetings to present their vision and plans to the group.

Working group updates

• Governance Incentives: The group is building out its master incentives mapping document to address participation stagnation. The next step is migrating these initiatives into a trackable spreadsheet and sharing them via the Intersect newsletter to attract more contributors.
  
• Constitutional Amendment Process (CAP): Due to repository security constraints, the group approved a major pivot away from GitHub login toward a dedicated database setup. Testing for this migration is already 95% complete, keeping the tool on schedule for public testing by the end of May.
  
• Governance Health (CC Qualitative Interviews): A new 4-pillar interview framework has been designed to conduct one-on-one calls with active and outgoing Constitutional Committee members. The goal is to capture insights on workload, operational blockers, and onboarding friction to help build a long-term governance database.
  

If you want to get involved in any of these work streams, feel free to jump into the respective Discord channels!

Recently closed governance actions

No governance actions have ended since the last weekly update.

Live governance actions*

Treasury withdrawal proposals (22)

*data from 2026-05-22 at 1300 UTC

Contributors: Budget committee, Simo S, Intersect

2026 Budget process update — Hydra Voting begins next week

The Final Feedback & Review phase of the 2026 Budget Process has now officially closed.

All proposals submitted through the budget platform are now locked ahead of voting and can no longer be edited or updated. Community discussion and comments may still continue and help inform DRep decision-making during the voting phase.

We want to thank all proposers, reviewers, DReps, and community members who participated in the feedback and refinement process over the past weeks.

Hydra Voting

Hydra Voting will run from:

📅 26 May 2026 at 12:00 UTC
to
📅 12 June 2026 at 12:00 UTC

During this phase, DReps will vote on submitted proposals through the Hydra Voting process.

To move forward through the Intersect budget process, proposals must reach the required threshold of:

✅ 67% approval of participating stake within Ekklesia

Following voting, qualifying proposals will move into the proposal consolidation and Treasury Withdrawal preparation phase.

📘 How to Vote Guide

📂 Intersect Hydra Voting Platform

We encourage DReps to review proposals ahead of voting and continue engaging with proposers and the wider community throughout the process.

Contributors: Product committee, Lorenzo B, Intersect

Cardano Product Committee update

The Cardano Product Committee has opened applications for the Product Research Grants, supporting 9 research initiatives intended to help Cardano make better product, market, ecosystem, and roadmap decisions.

This work forms part of the Product Committee’s broader effort to turn the Cardano 2030 vision and related strategic questions into practical, decision-useful research. The aim is to support research that can inform future priorities, identify adoption opportunities, validate assumptions, and help the ecosystem better understand where Cardano can create meaningful usage and product-market fit.

The total budget allocated to the 9 research initiatives is 373,000 ada. Proposers can apply via the process described here.

There are 9 open research initiatives:

1. RFP 01: Customer Segmentation and Profiling
2. RFP 02: Use Case Landscape and Competitive Positioning
3. RFP 03: Stablecoin Liquidity Incentive and Activation Strategy
4. RFP 04: Brand Awareness and Perception
5. RFP 05: Government and Emerging Markets Entry Strategy
6. RFP 06: Enterprise and RWA Readiness Assessment
7. RFP 07: L2 Adoption and Interoperability Demand Study
8. RFP 08: Enterprise Delivery Partner Network
9. RFP 09: AI Commercial Positioning

Researchers, product strategists, market analysts, ecosystem contributors, and teams with relevant expertise are encouraged to review the open initiatives and apply.

Contributors: Ian H, Intersect

What’s on next week

X Space
Intersect Connect #1: Budget Proposers & CC Elections
Tuesday, May 26 2026 at 3PM UTC
https://x.com/i/spaces/1DGleEPrEaoJL

Intersect Insights
The next Monthly Members Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 28 2026 at 12PM UTC. Tune in for a roundup of everything Intersect from the month of May. Streamed on YouTube and the IntersectMBO X account.

Intersect Connect
Immediately after Intersect Insights, the discussion and participation shifts to the Intersect Virtual Hub. A place for members to connect and engage with each other, committees and Intersect staff. Ask questions about the Intersect Insights session or anything else you may want to know.
How to join the Virtual Hub guide on X

Constitutional Committee elections 2026
There are regular CC Election Process AMA sessions scheduled every Tuesday throughout the upcoming CC elections. Times alternate weekly to accommodate different time zones. These sessions are open for anyone with questions about the role or needs help with technical resources.

Next session: Tuesday, May 26 2026, 0830-0930 UTC

Subscribe to the Luma Calendar

van Rossem hard fork
Now that progress towards the hard fork is in full swing, the Hard Fork Working Group meets every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe to the Luma calendar

That’s it for this week’s update. 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.

Join the conversation on Discord, and follow us on Twitter (X) and LinkedIn to engage with fellow members, working groups, and the broader community. Subscribe to the public Google and Luma calendars.