The new Cardano van Rossem hard fork landed on the pretestnet on May 5, with Intersect, the membership organization coordinating Cardano’s technical roadmap, confirming both the submission of the governance action and the simultaneous release of Cardano Node prerelease 11.0.1.
The upgrade brings version 11 of the mainnet protocol closer, with the critical variable now fully shifted to SPO (Stake Pool Operator) readiness: at least 85% of active stake pools must be upgraded before ratification can take place.
For ADA holders watching the governance mechanisms of the Voltaire era operate in real time, this is the preview phase that works exactly as intended.
Node 11.0.1 is the first release to officially support Cardano’s intra-era hard fork mechanism, meaning the chain upgrades the protocol version without triggering an era transition out of Conway.
The form of the transaction does not change. Disturbance of the ecosystem is structurally minimized. The release also upgrades cardano-api and cardano-cli to their 11.0 series and advances the experimental hard fork target to version 12 of the protocol, signaling that the development pipeline is already looking beyond the current upgrade.
The upgrade consolidates five new sets of Plutus primitives, defined in CIP-0109, CIP-0132, CIP-0133, CIP-0138 and CIP-0153, and unifies the built-in functions across Plutus V1, V2 and V3. This last point is important: existing V1 and V2 scripts have access to the full integrated bundle extended after the fork, which extends the capabilities of the DApp without requiring a contract rewrite.
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What are the news triggers for the 85% SPO threshold for Cardano
The active participation threshold of 85% is not an easy goal; this is a constitutional requirement built into Cardano’s governance framework.
According to the rules established by the Voltaire-era on-chain governance model, the hard fork governance action cannot be ratified until SPOs representing at least 85% of active participation have been upgraded to a node version supporting version 11 of the protocol.
The DReps (delegated representatives) and the Constitutional Committee must also vote before the action is promulgated in chain.
Threshold logic exists to prevent a chain break. If a critical mass of block-producing nodes have not been upgraded, the network risks producing incompatible blocks at the fork boundary, the same failure mode that caused a mainnet chain partition in late 2025 when a malformed delegation transaction forced emergency SPO upgrades to node 10.5.3.
This incident clearly showed that SPO coordination is not procedural theater; this is the real layer of security.
The current SPO upgrade percentage during preview is not yet publicly confirmed at a specific figure, but the historical pattern of previous Cardano hard forks, including the Chang upgrade cycle, suggests the initial wave of upgrades from large, professionally managed pools within the first 72-96 hours following a preview release.
Small home-hosted pools are typically 1-2 weeks late. Community tracking tools including Cardano Scan and PoolTool are the live data sources to watch as the count climbs towards the 85% mark.
Intersect’s announcement was straightforward:
“ATTENTION
The van Rossem Hard Fork GA was submitted to the Preview test network today. Cardano Node pre-release 11.0.1 is also now available. This version is an essential condition for safely crossing the hard fork. SPOs, DApps, and developers are advised to upgrade immediately.
The van Rossem Hard Fork GA was submitted to the Preview test network today. Cardano Node pre-release 11.0.1 is also now available. This version is an essential condition for safely crossing the hard fork. SPOs, DApps, and developers are advised to upgrade immediately.Chang’s hard fork experience – where the exchange and dApp delay mainnet activation even after SPOs cross the initial threshold – means the pressure is now on the entire ecosystem stack, not just pool operators.
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The article Cardano News: Overview of Network Milestone Followed by 80% SPO Threshold for Mainnet appeared first on Cryptonews.
