Cardano News

The Cardano Hackathon Asia and the proposed 70 million ada Critical Integrations Budget are featured in the December 8, 2025, digest. Input Output announced its rebranding to Input Output (IO) alongside the new Cavefish light client protocol. Catalyst Fund15 has entered the review phase, and the Midnight NIGHT token has officially launched as a Cardano Native Asset.

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.

Nicolas Cerny reflects on the transition to fully decentralized decision-making during a historic year for Cardano governance. Key milestones include a 100% voting record as a DRep, the completion of the Interim Constitutional Committee tenure, and the delegation of 140 million ada to seven community DReps. Plans are underway to delegate an additional 220 million ada to Adoption and Operations DReps in early 2026.

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.

The "Layer Up" hackathon involved 134 developers across 92 teams during the Cardano Summit. The event featured an open innovation track and an AI-focused track by Masumi. Winners included BioFlow for health data and KarbonSense for environmental intelligence. The initiative aims to drive blockchain adoption through practical solutions, with future regional hackathons planned for Asia and Africa.

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.