Cardano targets Q4 2026 for Dijkstra upgrade rollout

Cardano’s governance body Intersect has laid out a detailed roadmap for the blockchain’s next major era, splitting the Dijkstra upgrade into two phases rather than a single hard fork. Phase 1 is penciled in for Q4 2026, with Phase 2 following in Q2 2027. The plan, unveiled on August 16, 2026, arrives just weeks after the successful van Rossem hard fork in mid-July. That upgrade, which moved Cardano to Protocol Version 11, was essentially the foundation pour for everything Dijkstra promises to build on top. What Phase 1 actually changes The headline feature of the first phase is Ouroboros Linear Leios, formally tracked as CIP-164. Linear Leios is a scaling mechanism designed to put idle node capacity to work. Linear Leios introduces two new block types, Ranking Blocks and Endorser Blocks, that allow the network to process additional endorsed transactions during those idle periods. Phase 1 also brings Nested Transactions, documented as CIP-118. This feature allows transactions to contain other transactions within them, which is a practical improvement for composability. DeFi protocols, in particular, benefit from being able to bundle complex multi-step operations into a single atomic...