Cardano price in focus as Dijkstra testing and Amaru work advance

Cardano price developments are unfolding alongside a sequence of network engineering milestones, but the mainnet timetable for the Dijkstra upgrade remains unsettled. The latest updates concern testnet functionality, node diversity and compatibility work rather than a completed protocol upgrade on Cardano's main network.

Dijkstra testing advances on testnet

Intersect said in its November 6 weekly update that DijkstraNet had completed a hard fork to protocol version 12 on November 2, 2026, at 00:00 UTC, using Node 11.2. The network is being used to test Dijkstra-era features. Intersect also stated that Node 11.2 was not yet cleared for mainnet and that full Linear Leios was not included in that test configuration. The details are available in Intersect's weekly update.

The same update identified Node 11.2.1 as the next planned release with mainnet clearance and a fix for a memory-usage regression. Node 11.3 is intended to combine the complete Dijkstra feature set, including Linear Leios, but Intersect described that release as still several weeks away in the November 6 communication. No fixed date for the Dijkstra hard fork was stated there.

Amaru broadens client diversity

A separate development concerns Amaru, a Rust-based Cardano node implementation maintained by PRAGMA. Intersect reported that the November 5 release lifted the restriction that had limited block forging to test networks. The release also added a software identifier to blocks produced by Amaru. However, the minimum viable block-producer milestone remained open in Intersect's update, so permission to forge blocks should not be confused with broad production use across stake pools.

For delegators, the significance is operational rather than an immediate change to ADA balances. A second independently developed node can reduce reliance on a single software implementation, but that benefit depends on testing, compatibility and eventual adoption by operators. CryptoTicker described the same November 5 change and noted that public confirmation of a mainnet block produced by a pool using Amaru was still absent in its November 7 account. Its report is available here.

What developers are still checking

A November 13 development report from Essential Cardano listed continuing work on Dijkstra's transaction representation, Plutus V4 evaluation, reference-input pricing and conformance testing. It also described compatibility checks involving Ledger tooling and Aiken, while noting that transaction decoding, evaluation and budget behavior still require validation against the real node. These details point to an upgrade process that remains focused on integration and verification.

For investors, the relevant distinction is between progress in development environments and a completed mainnet deployment. The Cardano price may continue to be evaluated against broader crypto-market conditions, while the network milestones provide a longer-term technical context. Neither the Dijkstra testnet step nor the Amaru release by itself establishes a confirmed date for the next mainnet hard fork.

More Cardano developments and ADA-related coverage are available on the Cardano topic page.