Cardano price: Dijkstra testnet advances toward staged Leios scaling
Published on 10/30/2026 at 07:08 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWSCardano Upgrade Moves Into Testing
- Cardano's public Dijkstra testnet opened on October 21 and is currently running Conway protocol rules on node version 11.1.3.
- Intersect says Leios is planned to begin at roughly three to five times the current Praos ceiling, with later parameter updates targeting 10 to 15 times that level.
- Investing.com displayed ADA at 0.1936 USD, with a market capitalization of 7.16 billion USD and a rank of 15.
Cardano's next major upgrade has moved from a roadmap item into public testing. Intersect said in its October 24 weekly update that a public Dijkstra testnet respin took place on October 21. The network is currently running Conway protocol version 11 on node version 11.1.3, while a later move to protocol version 12 will require a node 11.2 prerelease and a hard-fork initiation action.
The development gives builders and stake pool operators an environment in which to prepare, but it is not yet a mainnet activation. Intersect said stake pool operators can begin onboarding with the relevant configuration files and testnet faucet. The timing of the production upgrade therefore remains dependent on implementation, testing and Cardano's governance process. The details are set out in Intersect's weekly update.
Leios Scaling Will Be Staged
The planned throughput increase is not designed to arrive in a single switch. Intersect says Leios would initially operate at roughly three to five times today's Praos ceiling of 4.5 TxkB/s. At least two later parameter updates could target 10 to 15 times the current ceiling, subject to performance testing and governance-approved guardrails.
That distinction matters for investors assessing the Cardano price. The testnet demonstrates readiness work, not delivered mainnet capacity, and the eventual impact on network usage will depend on adoption by applications, pools and users. A separate October 28 update from the Mithril team also reported work on IPFS distribution, SNARK key registration and the upgrade to Cardano node 11.2, showing that supporting infrastructure is still being developed. The Mithril team update records those tasks.
ADA Snapshot And Investor Context
The Investing.com Cardano page displayed ADA at 0.1936 USD. It also showed a market capitalization of 7.16 billion USD, a market ranking of 15, 24-hour volume of 466.60 million and 36.82 billion ADA in circulation against a maximum supply of 45 billion ADA. The displayed figures are a market snapshot rather than a verified UTC day-close comparison.
For ADA holders, Dijkstra and Leios offer a potential technology catalyst, but the immediate investment case still contains execution risk. Public testing is an observable milestone; it does not establish when higher throughput will reach mainnet or whether it will translate into stronger demand for ADA. Investors should separate those uncertain future outcomes from the current network progress.
More Cardano developments and market context are collected on the Cardano topic page.
