Cardano Prepares Major Node Changes as Dijkstra Era Takes Shape

Planning for the Cardano Dijkstra era hard fork is on track with no changes to the agreed-upon scope and target dates, Intersect said in its latest report.

Dijkstra's initial rollout is expected to be done in two phases, with the implementation of Linear Leios with Nested Transactions and Peras, respectively. The current goal of the Haskell node team is to deliver Phase 1 (Nested Transactions and Linear Leios) to Cardano Mainnet by the end of 2026, which will offer an incremental rollout of key Dijkstra capabilities, while Phase 2 (Peras) will be activated in an intra-era hard fork scheduled for Q2 2027.

An interesting development around Dijkstra is the continued progress of alternative Cardano node implementations. This is important because node diversity can give Cardano increased resilience by reducing dependence on a single implementation.

In this light, progress on Amaru, a fully open-source Cardano node implementation written in Rust, was highlighted in Intersect's report. The Amaru team confirmed that its node is currently relay-capable, validating and syncing to tip, with mainnet block production targeted for November 2026, Intersect stated.

Amaru aims to implement a new, fully interoperable block-producing node for Cardano, providing another perspective and solution for stake pool operators and developers while prioritizing a modular approach and low hardware requirements.

Cardano governance update taking shape

Cardano is preparing a small, purely technical update to its Constitution ahead of the Dijkstra era, so the network's newest capabilities are fully governable from day one.

Dijkstra introduces major upgrades, including Ouroboros Leios, which brings new updatable protocol parameters. Cardano's Constitution follows a strict rule: any protocol parameter not explicitly listed in the Constitution's Guardrails cannot be changed by governance.

The intent is to introduce the parameters for all Dijkstra features in a single Constitution change with one cohesive proposal, rather than several.

According to Intersect, work is progressing on governance and community participation surrounding Dijkstra and future hard forks. Constitutional amendments associated with the Dijkstra era now have a defined path for community discussion, submission, and enactment through the newly established Constitutional Amendment Portal ($CAP), supported by the Civics Committee.