Cardano's Van Rossem Hard Fork Activates on July 18 as Input Output Transfers Core Infrastructure

Input Output announced Friday it will transfer control of Cardano's core infrastructure—the Haskell node, Plutus platform, Daedalus wallet, and Hydra scaling tool—to external specialist firms beginning in August, with the full transition running through 2027. Se7en Labs and Teragone, along with community bodies Intersect and Pragma, will oversee at least three independent node implementations in Haskell, Rust, and Go.

The Van Rossem hard fork activates on July 18 at 21:44 UTC, advancing Cardano to Protocol Version 11 and introducing new Plutus functions designed to reduce smart contract execution costs. The upgrade was ratified with 77.63% approval from community representatives. ADA traded up about 2% on Friday to roughly $0.165, with a $6 billion market capitalization.