The 2025 State of the Cardano Developer Ecosystem Survey reveals a shift in developer priorities, with Identity and Authentication now the primary focus for DApps, overtaking DeFi and stablecoins. Key findings from the 109 respondents include TypeScript, JavaScript, and Python as the top proficiency languages, while Aiken has become the dominant smart contract tool, used by over 75% of developers. The community identified Ouroboros Leios (higher throughput) and improved documentation as the ecosystem's most pressing technical needs.

The ledger team finalized the specifications for nested transactions, while Lace v.1.32 launched with a new notification center and NIGHT token support. Hydra v.1.2.0 introduced the "SafeClose" feature, and Mithril advanced its SNARK-friendly STM library. Additionally, Project Catalyst Fund15 moved into community review with 761 proposals, and a 23-hour virtual Annual Members' Meeting was successfully hosted.

Giorgio Zinetti analyzed the November 21 incident, where a malformed transaction caused a temporary chain partition. Despite the split, block production continued uninterrupted, and the network remained online throughout. A coordinated response from SPOs and the Ouroboros consensus mechanism resolved the issue within 14 hours, demonstrating the network's resilience and decentralization.

A proposed intra-era hard fork to Protocol Version 11 enhances Plutus performance, ledger consistency, and node security. This upgrade avoids an era transition to minimize integration burdens while introducing enhanced primitives, VRF key uniqueness, and updated reference input rules. Intersect is forming a working group to manage ecosystem readiness and feedback.

Professor Aggelos Kiayias analyzed the November 21 incident, where a serialization bug caused a temporary chain split. He explains how the Ouroboros protocol's self-healing design and longest chain rule successfully resolved the partition without central intervention. Once SPOs upgraded their nodes, the network converged back to a single history, demonstrating the resilience of decentralized consensus under real-world stress.

The Net Change Limit serves as a constitutional safeguard that caps ADA withdrawals from the treasury to ensure financial sustainability. A proposed short extension allows the community time to ratify a new 18-month limit and align fiscal strategies with Cardano Vision 2030, ensuring continuous funding for ecosystem growth.

The Leios development tracker was launched to provide a consolidated view of the protocol's global progress. The networking team focused on Cardano node v.10.6, resolving cardano-tracer issues and preparing for P2P-only networking. Project Catalyst Fund15 proposal submissions have closed, and Intersect is preparing for its 24-hour virtual Annual Members' Meeting in the Virtual Hub.

Input Output launched the Leios 24/7 development tracker, providing real-time, global visibility into the Ouroboros Leios consensus protocol. The tool showcases key milestones, active workstreams, and contributions, highlighting a "follow-the-sun" engineering model. This initiative reinforces transparency and accountability as the project transitions from research to implementation.

Intersect published "Facts at a Glance" regarding the November 21 incident. A malformed transaction exploited a deserialization bug, causing a temporary chain partition while the network remained online and funds were safe. A coordinated response, including upgrades to node v10.5.2/v10.5.3, successfully restored full convergence within 14.5 hours.

The November 21 incident involved a mainnet chain partition caused by a malformed transaction, which was resolved with the hotfix node v.10.5.3. The ledger team defined sub-transactions for the Dijkstra era, while the Plutus team finalized costing for Value primitives for the upcoming hard fork. Lace v.1.31 was released with in-wallet token swaps and Bitcoin wallet support, and Mithril completed the first phase of decentralizing configuration parameters.