Cardano Opens Vote to Name 2026 Hard Fork After DRep Max van Rossem

Cardano’s Hard Fork Working Group has proposed naming the next network upgrade to Protocol Version 11 as the “van Rossem” hard fork. The proposal honors DRep Max van Rossem, a long-time contributor to Cardano governance and constitutional design.

The recommendation was submitted through Intersect late last year and formally entered the voting phase in January 2026. Interestingly, naming hard forks after contributors follows an established Cardano convention.

The practice began with Byron and continued through Shelley, Allegra, Mary, Alonzo, Vasil, Valentine, Chang, and Plomin. Recent upgrades have increasingly focused on honoring community members who passed away.

Max van Rossem played a major role in Cardano’s transition to on-chain governance. He served as both a member and co-lead of the Constitutional Committee Election Working Group, which delivered the first fully elected Constitutional Committee.

He also represented the Dutch Cardano community at the Constitutional Convention in Buenos Aires, where he was a key driver behind the inclusion of Article VIII in the constitution.

Beyond governance, van Rossem founded AdaMoments, a project that allowed ADA holders to store images, videos, and text permanently on Cardano. He also organized meetups and coordinated community activity across the Dutch ecosystem.

Contributors who worked with him described him as highly technical, direct, and deeply engaged in long-term network design.

The naming proposal entered voting on January 13, 2026, and remains open until February 14, 2026. Participating DReps must lock a minimum deposit of 100,000 ADA to cast a vote.

As of publication, 18 DReps have voted. Yes votes account for roughly 850.11 million ADA, representing 14.65% of participating stakeholders. No votes represent about 4.95 billion ADA, or 85.35%.

Abstain votes approximately 8.36 billion ADA. A large portion of the delegated stake remains uncast. SPO participation remains inactive so far, with no votes recorded from stake pool operators.

The proposal requires a 66.67% threshold from Constitutional Committee members to pass before final ratification.

Protocol Version 11 is designed as an intra-era hard fork, keeping Cardano within the current Conway ledger era. The upgrade focuses on security, consistency, and performance rather than structural changes.

Planned changes refinements to reference input rules, VRF key uniqueness, and Plutus primitives. The update also targets lower script execution costs and higher reliability for builders. All work is funded through the treasury and does not require a ledger transition.

The Hard Fork Working Group plans to meet on a biweekly schedule and will forward the final naming decision to the Technical Steering Committee for review. Additional technical details will be released through the Intersect Knowledge Base.

It is important to note that in an with the Wolf of All Streets podcast, Cardano founder recently said that on-chain governance allows protocol-level decisions to be made independent of token price cycles.

He has also criticized US crypto policy outcomes since late 2024 and argued that regulatory progress has stalled despite political promises.