Welcome to Intersect update #123.

The TL;DR is two governance actions open that need stake pool operators as well as DReps to reach approval, the Constitutional Amendment Portal went live to a warm reception, and the scope for the first Dijkstra hard fork was frozen. There is also a quiet win worth celebrating: our multilingual volunteers have now translated more than 2,280 terms into French. Whether you follow Cardano closely or are just getting a feel for it, read the full update to stay informed.
Contributors: Bosko M, Ian H, Larisa M, Thomas L, Abhik N, Simo S, Intersect

Latest on Cardano upgrades: Dijkstra 

How to say it, and who was Dijkstra? DYKE-struh (/ˈdɑɪkstɹə/)

The initial Dijkstra rollout is planned in two phases, introducing Linear Leios with Nested Transactions, and Peras, respectively. The hard fork scope for the first phase is now frozen, following last week's presentation to the Technical Steering Committee on July 29. The scope now includes CIP-50, contributed by Jared Corduan, with CIP-23 first part also considered for the 2026 roadmap.

The Haskell node team's current objective is to deliver Phase 1 (Nested Transactions and Linear Leios) to Mainnet by the end of 2026, providing an incremental rollout of key Dijkstra capabilities, with Phase 2 (Peras) being activated in intra-era hard fork in Q2 2027.

Hard fork naming

Following a previous working group decision, the current intention is to name the next hard fork after Alexander Esgen, while introducing an In Memoriam section within the governance action metadata to honor other recently departed Cardano community contributors. Community feedback is invited on additional names to include. The Hard Fork Working Group acknowledged the existing on-chain info action proposing to name the next hard fork after Fabian von Bergen.

Parameter update action recently submitted on-chain

• Reducing minPoolCost from 170 ada to 75 ada
• Completing the planned 25% increase to the Plutus transaction and block memory limits.

A reminder that this action is on-chain and open for voting. As it includes parameters within the Network group, it requires approval from both DReps and stake pool operators:

* 67% of active DRep voting stake
* 51% of active SPO voting stake.

This is one of two governance actions currently on chain in which SPO participation is required.
Stake pool operators and DReps are encouraged to review the proposed changes and supporting rationale before casting a Yes, No, or Abstain vote and you can view the governance action on GovTool

Constitutional Committee election 2026 update

The governance action to seat the four successful candidates from the 2026 Constitutional Committee election has been on-chain for a week, and at the time of writing sits at 11.55% Yes from DReps and 1.65% Yes from SPOs. To pass, it needs 67% Yes from DReps and 51% Yes from SPOs, so there is still a good distance to cover.

The deadline for ratification is September 1st.

This is the last part of putting the DRep signalled CC election result (preferred choice of candidates) into effect by submission on chain for an update committee governance action. Should this action not be ratified before the current members' terms expire, the Constitutional Committee would drop below its required minimum size, and most governance actions cannot be ratified until that is resolved.

If you are a DRep or an SPO, this is an action that requires your participation. Read it and cast a Yes, No, or Abstain vote before September 1st on GovTool.

Introducing the Constitutional Amendment Portal, now open for alpha testing

The CAP Portal is live, and the community has shown up enthusiastically. If you’ve missed this, CAP is the first place you can read the Constitution, propose amendments, and raise issues together in one tool, and early feedback is already shaping what comes next.

If you haven’t tried it, you can find it here or read more about it in this blog post.

CAP Portal Proposal Journey

Every proposal carries one lifecycle label at a time: consultation, ready, done, or withdrawn (if it's pulled at any point). Here's how a proposal moves through each stage:

1. Submission The recommended consultation period is set automatically based on the proposal category.
2. Consultation The community discusses the proposal while the author responds and refines it. Minimum consultation periods range from 14 to 90 days.
3. Author signals readiness Once the minimum period has passed, the author signals that the proposal is ready for review.
4. Ready A CAP Editor reviews the proposal and, if complete, moves it to Ready. The route towards possible on-chain submission is then agreed with the author.
5. Done The proposal has either been submitted on-chain or closed without submission.

The first week brought in four submissions: three Constitutional Amendment (CAPs) and one Issue Statement (CIS). All are open and in the consultation stage, so this is the window to read them and comment. You can see some of the proposals received below and if you want to jump into those conversations, you can do so directly on the Portal.

CAP-1: Require Milestone-Based Treasury Disbursement and Return of Undistributed Funds (Inputendorsers)
Adds a minimum standard to Article II for every Treasury Withdrawal: measurable milestones, payments tied to those milestones, reporting at least every 90 days, and the return of unspent funds within 90 days of completion. Advance payments are still allowed where a proposal explains why they're necessary.

CAP-2: Remove Article II section 7.4 (Michele)
Proposes deleting the clause that requires each Treasury Withdrawal to set aside ada for independent audits and oversight metrics. The author's case is that the wording is too broad and open to interpretation, and cutting it reduces bureaucracy without weakening any real guarantee.

CAP-3: Evolve the Net Change Limit into a Strategic Spending Plan (Thomas)
Reframes the Net Change Limit from a single spending cap into a plan that splits the maximum across high-level budget categories, so the treasury has an agreed direction rather than just a ceiling. It pairs that with two safeguards: a 67% approval threshold to adopt a new limit, and a lock period during which it can't be replaced. The specific categories and amounts are left to each governance action.

CIS-4: The "Bundling" Problem (Styg) 
Raises a process concern rather than a text change: the amendment rules let several unrelated changes ride on one take-it-or-leave-it vote, which blocks selective support and makes later fixes messy. The suggested fix is a convention that keeps structurally distinct changes in separate votes, with no protocol change needed.

Get started: head to cap.intersectmbo.org

Recently closed governance actions

Live governance actions*

*data from 2026-08-07 at 12:30 UTC
** SPO votes not always counted in the outcome but the ledger allows SPOs to vote on all Info Actions

Follow vote progress with your favorite Cardano explorers: GovTool | Tempo | Cexplorer | AdaStat | CardanoScan | CGov | Civitas

Members have approved the proposed updates to the Intersect ByLaws, following the successful completion of the member vote and independent audit.

The updated ByLaws reflect a comprehensive legal review to ensure alignment with Wyoming law while consolidating Intersect's governance documents into a more complete and self-contained framework that better reflects how Intersect operates today.

Thank you to those participating in the voting process. Your engagement has an important role in shaping the future of Intersect and strengthening our internal governance.

The new version of the Intersect ByLaws are now in effect and are available to read here: Intersect's bylaws v2

Community Contribution Highlight

Our Membership & Community Committee (MCC) elected members have now translated over 2,280 terms from English to French for the Intersect website.

This is a fantastic community-driven effort that helps make Intersect more accessible to French-speaking members and demonstrates the continued commitment of our volunteers to improving the member experience.

A huge thank you to everyone involved!

Enterprise member spotlight: WIMS-Cardano

Our featured member for this edition’s Enterprise member spotlight is WIMS-Cardano (Women In Move Solutions), a Cardano-based community organisation working across the Southern Africa Development Community region.
WIMS describes itself as "driving innovation, education and empowerment" within the Cardano community, with a particular focus on women and on groups that are underrepresented in tech.

Much of WIM’s work is in education. According to the organisation, its programmes include children's and girls' education, tertiary internships and work-integrated learning, educator coding training on Marlowe and Scratch, and Haskell and Plutus development training, alongside open-source developer student programmes.

WIMS is also active in Cardano governance. It takes part as a Delegated Representative (DRep), has run constitutional governance workshops alongside Intersect, contributed to Catalyst funding research and working groups.

Not just a women’s group, the organisation says it is inclusive by design, welcoming men as well as women, on the basis that both contribute to building communities together.

Learn more about their work: https://cardano.wims.io/is WIMS-Cardano (Women In Moves Solutions)

What’s coming up?

DRep monthly call: Our second DRep call took place this Wednesday, co-hosted with Tweag which was an open session for DReps to join, bring the topics they wanted to discuss, and help shape what comes next. This time the focus was planning future speakers and themes for upcoming sessions, so the calls stay genuinely useful to DReps.

Thank you to those who joined and shared their views. The next call is on the last Wednesday of the month, Wednesday 26 August, at 15:30 UTC.- sign up on our Lu.ma calendar to receive reminders.

Civics Committee X Space, on Wednesday 2 September, 15:30 UTC. Members of the Civics Committee will share updates and answer questions about the committee and their role. Co-hosted by @intersectcivics members and Intersect, remember to turn on notifications for both accounts so you don’t miss it.

Intersect's "must have" T-shirt designs, being made live at the Rare Evo 2026 booth proved popular as always - show us yours!

That’s it for this week’s update. Thank you for reading. To learn more about Intersect’s work, explore the 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.