Cardano Dijkstra Era Milestones and Node Updates Announced
Cardano (ADA)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
u.today reports that Cardano is approaching key milestones in its Dijkstra era, with Phase 1 targeting a Mainnet rollout by the end of 2026. Intersect notes that development is advancing across node software, ecosystem readiness, and tooling. The initial rollout introduces Linear Leios with Nested Transactions in Phase 1, followed by Peras in Phase 2 during a hard fork in Q2 2027.
Four major node releases are anticipated to unlock functionality, starting with Cardano-node-11.1.1 on September 7. This update removes the legacy tracing system and fixes Genesis issues. Cardano-node-11.2 will contain the Dijkstra feature set for testing, excluding Leios elements, while node 11.3 is targeted as the hard fork candidate.
Node 12.0 will serve as the definitive hard fork release, though its timeline is undetermined. A public testnet called DijkstraNet will launch alongside MusashiNet to support development of Plutus V4 and CIP-50. Intersect highlighted that SPOs, developers, and DReps have time to prepare for these changes. The moderate confidence window for the hard fork enactment is set between December 5, 2026, and January 4, 2027.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for ADA, measured when this story was written up on 7 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
ADA is trading at $0.2234 with a 24-hour buy ratio of 51.5%, indicating a slight majority of buyers over sellers. The 1-hour buy ratio stands at 47.3%, suggesting a short-term dip in buying pressure compared to the longer timeframe. Volume delta for the hour is negative at -$145,251, while the 24-hour delta is positive at +$876,116. This divergence shows that while hourly selling pressure is present, the daily trend remains net positive. The CVD for the 24-hour close is -$813,885, indicating that cumulative selling has outweighed buying over the full day. Spot volume reached $28,536,345 with 127,730 trades, showing active market participation.
The latest daily buy ratio of 45.6% sits at the 5th percentile of the last 322 days, against a median of 49.2% - among the weakest buying days it has had.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for ADA, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, the average buy ratio was 48.4%, making today's 24-hour ratio of 51.5% an unusual day with +3.1 points above average. Volume was 0.95x the average, indicating slightly lower-than-normal trading activity. The price increased by 15.9% over eight days, contrasting with a total volume delta of -$3,051,491 for the period. Only two of the seven days saw net buying, suggesting the recent price rise occurred amid mixed flow conditions. This day stands out as a relative high in buying ratio compared to the weekly baseline.