On Wednesday, August 28, the hard fork working group, including representatives from the community, Intersect, Emurgo, the Cardano Foundation, and Input | Output, voted unanimously to initiate the hard fork, Chang #1. This hard fork will take effect on the Cardano mainnet on September 1 and is the first of two in the Chang upgrade. 

To prepare for this, Intersect has been working closely with stake pool operators (SPOs), exchanges, and developers of distributed applications (DApps).

The SPOs are ready, as 92% of stake is on pools running Cardano node v.9.1.0. Exchanges are also prepared, with 92% of liquidity held by exchanges that have been upgraded to v.9.1.0. Most DApps are ready, and no high-severity issues have been raised.

There will be a special X Space as we cross the epoch boundary! In addition, contingency plans are in place, with technical first responders on standby in case of unexpected events around the hard fork - read more here.

The transaction itself
You can inspect the transaction that initiates the Chang hard fork in Cardanoscan.

When that transaction takes effect at the next epoch boundary (Sunday, September 1, 2024 at 21:44:51 UTC), the Chang hard fork will occur. That will take the Cardano blockchain into the Conway ledger era and herald the start of Voltaire. (Cardano eras and phases)

From then on, the seven cryptographic keys used to sign the very first block of the chain (the genesis block), termed the genesis keys, are no longer valid. 

The genesis keys operated using the Shelley governance model, whereby the founding entities could transfer from the treasury (for project Catalyst), update protocol parameters, and trigger hard forks.

The power is transferred from the few to the many, and the blockchain is on its way to being governed solely by the community of ada holders. You can dive right into the technical details and specifications here.

Membership and community

In fantastic news, our paid membership has crossed the 800-member level. It's wonderful to see so many of you on board! Those who have yet to upgrade can check membership tiers and benefits.

When you’re ready, join us and be part of the community, taking an active role in the next generation of Cardano and making positive change a reality.

Annual members meetings

Initially, our annual members' meeting would consist of one event in Japan. However, due to the progression, success, and collaboration our community hubs have generated, we are excited to announce that we are going to host six smaller AMMs across different regions to foster greater inclusivity, hosted by our current four community hubs and two new community hubs, which we are looking to launch shortly.

The dates of each AMM event have been confirmed. This blog provides more information, including the locations and dates.

Community hubs

This week, our Japan community hub held two meetups: one in Okayama with 16 attendees and one in Fukuoka with 11 attendees. The hub also held a LINE LIVE talk with 11 attendees.

This week, there are lots of activities taking place led by our community hubs:

LATAM community hub

• Portuguese town hall held on August 28 with 5 attendees - recording here
• ‘Introduction to Cardano’ meetup with CoinEx in Argentina held on August 28 with 50 attendees
• Spanish town hall to be held on August 30 at 17:00 UTC - link here

Japan community hub

• X Space to be held on August 30 at 14:00 UTC - link here
• Constitutional Workshop to be held in Tokyo on August 31

CoinCeylon (Sri Lanka) hub

• Constitutional workshop to be held in Colombo on August 31
• Town hall to be held on August 31 at 15:00 UTC - link here

Our community hubs' excellent work is evident in the growing number of Individual members and associates, driven by the impactful events they deliver. Some statistics about the events and members are shown below: 

Exciting Cardano events

Tokyo Event: September 11, 2024

An exclusive Cardano research and networking event will occur on September 11 in Tokyo. The event will commence at 14:30 JST with a keynote address from Charles Hoskinson, founder of Input | Output. Attendees will also receive an update from Mario Larangeira, head of the Tokyo Blockchain Lab, on the latest research initiatives. The event will include presentations from Cardano's decentralized innovation engine, Catalyst, and the member-based organization Intersect. Following the presentations, there will be a networking session with prominent members of the Cardano community, lasting until 19:00 JST.

For more details, visit Tokyo Community Event 2024.
 

Osaka Event: September 13, 2024
Later that week Input | Output will host a Hajimari No Chi Meetup on September 13th in Osaka. This event will feature Charles Hoskinson, which reflects the significant role Japan—and Osaka in particular—played in Cardano's development. Tim Harrison, IO Executive Vice President, will lead the event, including Project Catalyst and Intersect insights. The meetup offers a unique opportunity to explore recent advancements within the ecosystem and celebrate the creativity of the Cardano community.

Due to limited availability, those interested are encouraged to respond promptly to secure their place. The organizing team will follow up with confirmation and additional details.

For more information and to register, visit Osaka Event 2024.

Committees and working groups

Intersect is designed to be steered by its members so that the future of Cardano is community-led. The membership body provides this steering via standing committees, which are intended to be community-led, with community members taking an active role in influencing the future of Cardano. You can learn more about Intersect committees in our knowledge base.

Upcoming committee elections

Are you an individual or enterprise member? Congratulations, you are eligible to apply for a seat on an Intersect committee! And, of course, you are also eligible to vote on candidates through the voting process. This benefit does not apply to all; associates are not eligible to apply for committee seats or vote in the election and other AMM votes. If you are an associate and would like to apply for a committee seat, please visit the member portal and upgrade your membership before the application deadline (September 27).  If you are an associate and want to participate in the AMM events and election voting, please visit the member portal and upgrade your membership before the deadline (September 30).

You can learn more about the committee elections and watch the recent engagement events on our knowledge base, and you can view and ask questions on the Q&A channel on Discord. 

Please note that the application dates have changed slightly to allow sufficient testing time. The application timeframe is now September 9—27.

Lastly, the bi-weekly committee report is now available. This regularly updates the core Intersect committees and their working groups.

Open source 
Open source committee - vote now!

The Open Source Committee (OSC) is running a pre-election vote to elect 4 empty voting seats. Another three voting seats will be elected during the October election period.

Eight amazing candidates have applied to join the OSC, many with deep technical proficiency and a comprehensive understanding of best open-source practices. From today, all eligible Intersect members can vote and select their preferred candidates to sit on the OSC for a one-year term.

Key info:

• Voting opens today and closes on Friday, September 13. Important note: you must register to vote by September 6 if you intend to cast your vote after that.
• You can view the candidates here
• You can view the OSC Voting Policy here
• Register to Vote:  https://oscvote.smmn.app/

Voting will run on a custom version of the Summon platform based on one-member-one-vote. To participate, click here and register using the email you used when joining Intersect. Note: It’s crucial to register with the correct email address for your votes to be counted. Contact [email protected] or create a support ticket on Discord if you need support.

Anyone who wants to participate but still needs to become a paid member can join us here! This allows you to have your say in this pre-election and the upcoming elections in October. For any help and support, please contact OSC at:

• [email protected]
• [email protected] 
• #open-source-committee(Intersect Discord)
• @TEX-OSO (Discord)
• @IntersectOSO (X)

Be sure to learn more about the candidates by attending the open interview/intro sessions on Tuesday, September 3, at 1 pm UTC and Wednesday, September 11, at 12 pm UTC. The voting period will run until Friday, September 13.

The open source committee will also participate in Intersect’s committee general elections. Look forward to our announcements for when nominee applications open. 

Constitutional workshops 

Summer may be closing, but constitutional workshops are only ramping up! The last week has seen workshops in Georgia, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Vietnam, with attendees from across the global community having their say on all aspects of the draft constitution, voting for their delegates, and traveling alternates to attend the constitutional convention in December.

Next week, workshops will be held in the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Sri Lanka, Japan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and Brazil. The schedule is hectic, so check the calendar to sign up for a workshop near you.

Community grants

The GovTool governance action outcomes grant is now open. CIP-1694 introduced on-chain governance, which empowers ada holders to submit a governance action (GA) directly onto the Cardano mainnet. This ability will transform how decisions are made on the blockchain. 

To support CIP-1694's on-chain features, Intersect has facilitated the creation of key governance tools, including GovTool and the CC portal. Intersect is providing a grant to create a governance action outcomes section in GovTool to complete support for the key governance processes. 

Once the project is completed successfully, the successful applicant will have the opportunity to become one of GovTool's core maintainers with a related contract. To find out more and apply, please click here.

Lucas Machiavelli has produced some insightful educational content on the Constitution via his education and multimedia grant (also in Spanish via the Milestone Acceptance Form):

• Interim constitution (article) 
• Interim constitution (Infographic) 
• Interim constitution (thread) - 
• CIP 1694 story so far timeline (Infographic) - 

The stats below provide an overview of community grant status. The grants page has more information about the grant projects.

Delivery assurance

Delivery assurance refers to the commitment and processes between continuity delivery partners to ensure the timely and reliable delivery of products, services, or projects, meeting specified requirements and expectations. Steered by the Technical Steering Committee (TSC), the Delivery assurance team is a core function at Intersect, completing the tasks outlined above on behalf of the community.

This week, we completed 64 milestones across the Cardano continuity contracts. This progress reflects our team's dedication and the effectiveness of our collaboration with key stakeholders. 

DReps workshops
Upcoming workshops: Sunday 31, August

• Join Taichi Yokoyama from 12:00 to 20:00  (GTM +9) for an introductory session on the roles and responsibilities of delegated representatives (DReps), covering all modules in Japanese. If you'd like to participate, please feel free to register here.

Intersect is conducting a five-minute multiple-choice survey to understand the community's thoughts, explore DReps' backgrounds and motivations, identify whom they represent, and uncover any barriers to becoming a DRep.
 

We want to highlight the importance of members' feedback on this vital subject. We'll share the results in a future update, so watch this space.

Over the past eight months, governance tooling has been tested with over 6,000 users, allowing Intersect to gather feedback and make consistent improvements. With Chang upgrade #1 coming soon, contributing teams are making the final touches to prepare GovTool and the CC Portal for the technical bootstrapping phase (post-hard fork).

Special attention is given to keeping the tool CIP-119 compliant, enabling proper DRep metadata management.

Sanchogov.tools allow a user to test full governance, while preview.gov.tools allows testing of governance features in the bootstrapping phase in preparation for Chang upgrade #1.

This week’s reminders

• Don’t forget to join the Chang watch party on Sunday, the 1st of September
• If you haven’t already had your say on DReps, this is an essential survey open to both members and associates to do so. Don’t miss your chance!
• Our core infrastructure roadmap working group now has a public Discord announcement channel. Visit and join this channel, and you can read more about this working group in our knowledge base.

Important member resources

Intersect Knowledge Base - Frequently updated, our knowledge base provides granular detail on our internal governance structure, committees & working groups, and funding opportunities, among many other items.

Intersect website - The latest news, roadmap, and more.

GovTool - Take part in testing governance actions on the SanchoNet testnet.

Discord / Telegram - Join our lively community and interact with committees, working groups, and other members.

Social - We are continually active on Twitter and LinkedIn, so follow us there to stay updated on our latest news and insights!

Town Hall - For those of you who missed August's town hall, the recording covers what was discussed.

Well, that’s it for this week's update. Thanks for reading!

And finally, we’re interested in hearing more from you about subjects important to you, such as Cardano’s governance. Your ideas and suggestions are crucial to us. If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, please get in touch via email, X, or LinkedIn.