Cardano's development organization Intersect has announced that the pre-release of Cardano Node 10.7.0 is expected in the next few days. This upgrade is a critical component of the upcoming Van Rossem hard fork, which will transition the network to Protocol version 11. The pre-release is not blocked by benchmarking but is dependent on performance results and integration testing, with further minor releases anticipated to follow.
The 10.7.0 node will soon be accompanied by a compatible DBSync release. A key feature for developers is that the upgrade includes no serialization changes, minimizing potential issues with hardware wallets. The pre-release version is intended for testing features, and version 10.7.x will be promoted to V11 to fork the Preview and PreProd testnets before the mainnet.
A major focus of Protocol Version 11 is the enhancement of Plutus, Cardano's smart contract platform. The hard fork will introduce several new Plutus built-in functions, including CIP-138 (Array type), CIP-153 (MaryEraValue type), CIP-109 (Modular exponentiation builtin), CIP-132 (dropList builtin), and CIP-133 (Multi-scalar multiplication over BLS12-381). These new built-ins are already available for testing as the SanchNet has been upgraded to Protocol Version 11. In preparation, Scalus' smart contract tooling has been upgraded to enable these functions.
Cardano trading platform TapTools has highlighted that 2026 is poised to be a pivotal year for the network, "stacked" with several bullish developments. These include the Van Rossem hard fork, the launch of the Midnight mainnet bringing privacy features, the CLARITY Act providing regulatory clarity, the Ouroboros Leios upgrade, and CNT listings. The CLARITY Act is seen as crucial for cementing ADA's status as a commodity, following the SEC's classification, and could boost institutional adoption.
Institutional interest is further evidenced by Grayscale's filing for an ADA ETF, which is reportedly far along in the approval process. The launch of such a fund could attract significant new capital into the Cardano ecosystem. Meanwhile, current market data shows ADA trading around $1.38, down over 2%, with analysis from sources like Santiment pointing to oversold conditions and a historically negative MVRV ratio of -43%, which have previously preceded significant rallies.
