- Cardano implemented the Plomin hard fork this year and introduced the Cardano Foundation DRep Delegation program.
- They cooperate with Griffin AI and celebrated their first anniversary as an Enterprise Member of Intersect in September.
For Cardano, 2025 was the year the network made its full transition to decentralized onchain governance. At the same time came US President Trump’s pro-crypto initiatives – although Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson argued the government had disrupted the traditional four-year crypto market cycle.
Looking back at year 25, there were the following Cardano announcement on X:
“If 2025 has taught us anything, it is that the Cardano community approaches complex challenges with maturity, intelligence, unity and passion. Governance is an adventure; it can be messy and loud, but it is undeniably ours.”
From foundation governance to community governance
Im Message the foundation highlights that Cardano conducted the Plomin hard fork on January 29th, officially initiating the network’s transition to fully decentralized governance.
With Plomin, ADA holders gained direct voting rights over important aspects of the blockchain, including parameter changes, withdrawals from the treasury, hard forks, and the overall direction of the network.
The hard fork is named in honor of the late Cardano community member Matthew Plomin.
Cardano’s constitution was enacted in accordance with CIP-1694, establishing the formal framework for governance in the community-led era. Governance now works via a three-tier system consisting of Delegated Representatives (DReps), Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) and a Constitutional Committee (CC), with which decision-making power has been transferred from the founding organizations IOG, the Cardano Foundation and EMURGO to the community.
Cardano welcomed its first fully community-elected Constitutional Committee, replacing the interim body previously overseen by founding organizations Input Output Global (IOG) and EMURGO. Cardano also launched the DRep delegation program, providing 140 million ADA to seven developer and builder DReps.
September marked the first anniversary as an Enterprise Member of Intersect. Over the course of this year the team has been heavily involved in several committees, with Nicolas Cerny playing a leading role on the Civics Committee.
Markus Gufler and Alexander Moser were instrumental in maintaining network security and continuity. Arnaud Baily represented the open source committee, Rita Mistry and Nicolas Cerny worked with the budget committee and Intersect to design a transparent Cardano 2026 budget process with guidelines for all stakeholders.
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