Cardano News

USDCx is now live on mainnet via Circle’s xReserve, providing native, 1:1 backed liquidity to the ecosystem. The Cardano Foundation has assumed stewardship of Project Catalyst and is transitioning cardano.org into a multilingual platform. Technical updates include the release of Cardano-Signer 1.35.0, while enterprise adoption scales through projects like Petrobras and Plastiks. Additionally, the community welcomes Bernard Sibanda as a new ambassador focused on developer education.

USDCx has officially launched on the Cardano mainnet, providing native liquidity backed 1:1 by USDC through Circle’s xReserve infrastructure. By utilizing the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), this integration enables seamless "burn-and-mint" capital flows and eliminates traditional third-party bridge risks. This advancement strengthens the network's financial rails, significantly enhancing interoperability with other blockchains and simplifying asset movement between ada and centralized exchanges.

MoneyGram has joined the Midnight network as a federated node operator, while the Cardano Foundation officially assumed stewardship of Project Catalyst. Yoroi now supports dual rewards for ada and night tokens. Additionally, performance benchmarks for node v.10.5.4 and v.10.6.2 were released, and the Leios team demonstrated a working prototype capable of producing endorser blocks under high load. Mithril also advanced its development of succinct SNARK proofs.

A Roundtable Talk, features a discussion on supply chain resilience and the gap between blockchain’s promise and enterprise adoption. Participants explored how regulations like Digital Product Passports drive traceability needs while unpacking the barriers to large-scale implementation. The session focused on the practical shifts required to move blockchain from pilot projects to widespread utility.

Hydra has officially transitioned into its adoption phase, with the core team focusing on production feedback and real-world use cases. The upcoming v.1.3 release introduces critical memory optimizations, fee calculation fixes, and partial fan-out functionality to improve head management. Projects like DeltaDeFi and Masumi are already demonstrating high-performance trading and scalable micropayments, while the working group prioritizes infrastructure hardening to support enterprise-grade deployments.

Node v.10.6.2 is live, featuring structural enhancements and preparing the network for the version 11 hard fork. The ledger team progressed with nested transactions and account address improvements, while Hydra v.1.3 focuses on production adoption. Coinbase now accepts ada as loan collateral, and the Leios prototype successfully minted endorser blocks under load. Finally, Messari released the Q4 2025 report alongside Intersect's committee election announcement.

LayerZero integration has been approved, connecting the network to over 150 blockchains to expand cross-chain liquidity. The Cardano Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi showcased regional adoption, while node v10.5.4 introduced critical networking enhancements for resilience. Additionally, the Midnight mainnet is on track for a late March launch, coinciding with the official debut of ada futures on the CME Group exchange.

Node v.10.5.4 has been released, introducing critical patches to enhance the robustness of the diffusion layer. The consensus team integrated network packages for the upcoming node v.10.7 and further advanced the Leios prototype. Meanwhile, the Mithril team implemented new succinct proofs and SNARK-friendly certificate chains. Simultaneously, the Leios team moved toward finalizing protocol parameter recommendations through extensive research and simulations to analyze network traffic under load.

Developing on Cardano no longer requires Haskell proficiency thanks to on-chain languages like Aiken, Scalus, and Plu-ts. These tools offer mainstream syntax and efficient execution, significantly lowering the entry barrier for web2 developers. However, the primary learning curve remains mastering the Extended UTXO (EUTXO) model to ensure all decentralized applications are secure, deterministic, and optimized for the ledger's unique architecture.

SPOs and DReps have three days remaining to vote on the Protocol Parameter Update to increase Plutus execution limits. This update scales DApp capabilities by allowing more logic per transaction while optimizing block usage for higher throughput. Stakeholders are encouraged to review the formal proposal and the recent SPO Roundtable discussion to ensure the network continues to meet growing demand.