Cardano is entering a critical development stretch as Intersect details the phased Dijkstra rollout, aiming to bring Nested Transactions and Linear Leios to mainnet by late 2026, with the Peras upgrade planned for an intra-era hard fork in the second quarter of 2027. The roadmap divides delivery into phases and centers on four major node releases, allowing developers, stake pool operators, and governance participants to prepare before the network-wide transition.
The first release, Cardano-node 11.1.1, is expected for mainnet use by September 7, removing the legacy tracing system and addressing known Genesis issues. Node 11.2 is expected within a month and will introduce most Dijkstra features into structured testing, though Leios components remain outside because they are tied to consensus and block production. Cardano-node 11.3 is then targeted as the hard fork release candidate within one to two months, while version 12.0 will become the definitive hard fork node release.
For testing, a public DijkstraNet is planned after node 11.2, supporting Plutus V4, Nested Transactions, and CIP-50, while MusashiNet continues evaluating Leios. Intersect also scheduled node diversity workshops in Singapore on October 6 and London on November 13–14. The hard fork timing remains readiness-based: a moderate-confidence enactment window runs from December 5, 2026 to January 4, 2027, while the high-confidence window runs from February 24 through March 26, 2027. Constitutional amendments related to Dijkstra are also expected to be proposed publicly for governance review, making the upgrade a coordinated ecosystem transition rather than a single event.
