Cardano News

Transfer rules such as allowlists, freezes, and jurisdiction limits can now live inside the asset itself, after CIP-113 was merged into Cardano's main CIP repository. Cardano marked nine years since its genesis block with 2,890 stake pools, 123.98 million transactions, and 158 governance actions, while Intersect shipped node 11.1.3 to fix IPv4 address decoding. The Foundation also detailed a UCLA Anderson partnership.

Cardano provides the traceable record behind the SAF Book-and-Claim model, showing where an environmental benefit originated, who it was assigned to, and that it has been claimed only once, with travelers able to calculate their route's CS-SAF amount and receive a certificate. The Diesel R application converts information from each production, transport, and use stage into a continuous record that can support Scope 3 emissions reporting.

Cardano Academy material and use cases enter UCLA's blockchain coursework, including Blockchain Cryptocurrency Applications in Business and Finance, from 2027. The agreement also sponsors five fellowships for early-stage companies in the UCLA Accelerate program and covers the Foundation's sponsorship of the 2027 Draper Innovation Showcase, extending education work already running with the University of Zurich, the University of Brasília, and PUC-Rio.

Cardano Node 11.2 should carry the new block format and Plutus V4 context but not Leios, and it is not a hard fork-ready release, so tooling teams are asked to assess breaking APIs early. The Parameter Committee is reviewing roughly 100 new Dijkstra guardrails plus about 50 for Peras, wallet vendors are being briefed on BLS key changes, and the Civics Committee rebuilt its knowledge base around six completed objectives.

Certified Endorser Blocks move from the rollback file to the settled one in the background, so each database file can live on its own disk, and garbage collection marks rows before deleting them in batches instead of blocking the node. Lace 2.3 shipped reworked staking and DRep browsers with broader hardware wallet support, Hydra fixed a Mesh SDK deposit lockout and replaced 13 slow end-to-end tests with 30 unit tests, and Plutus closed out its September milestones.

Tokens that use the Cardano Token Registry (CIP-26) and the on-chain metadata standard (CIP-68) become standard assets on Fireblocks, where they previously required manual steps. Fireblocks has supported ada since 2021, and support for the tokens is expected by March 2027 across its bank, exchange, payment, and fintech clients.

The Cardano Foundation announced eight ventures for the Cardano Accelerator Program Fall 2026 cohort. Five ventures joined the Core track and three the Spotlight track, focusing on digital product passports, supply chain traceability, verified identity, and responsible AI oracles. Each team receives a CHF 10,000 contribution and prepares for a February 2027 Demo Day.

Intersect released cardano-node 11.1.2, which supersedes 11.1.1 and asks SPOs to prioritize the upgrade alongside mithril-signer 1.1.9. The Dingo Go node validated mainnet blocks, a milestone for node diversity, while the Board Election entered its final week with eleven candidates competing for two seats. The Constitutional Amendment Portal holds seven proposals in consultation, and three governance actions remain live, including the OpenZeppelin Stack treasury withdrawal and the minPoolCost parameter change.

Dijkstra batch validation was implemented so Plutus scripts for sub-transactions now run and their execution budgets count toward block and fee limits, closing a gap where validators and minting policies went unchecked. Withdrawals handling was reworked in the ENTITIES rule, TxInfo translation for protocol version 4 was implemented, and Leios protocol parameters landed in the Dijkstra era. Hydra closed a fanout wedge that could leave a head stuck after a partial withdrawal, stabilized broadcast connections under heavy load, and completed the Performance milestone.

Plutus moves from IO Labs to Midgard Labs, joining Se7en Labs, Teragone, ICAN Group, and BlockPQR as specialist teams maintaining core Cardano functions. Midgard Labs already audits and writes Plutus smart contracts, contributes to the Plutarch and Aiken ecosystems, and its CEO helped bring Plutus tooling into the Plutus Pioneer Program. The transition is coordinated openly through Intersect.