Cardano's second node Amaru cleared to build mainnet blocks since November 5: what changes for delegators

What is confirmed: since November 5, 2026, block production with Amaru, the second node software for Cardano, is no longer restricted to testnets. That is stated in the release notes for version 10.11.20261105 on the Amaru release page on GitHub. Our assessment follows further down: for the stability of the blockchain this is real progress, for the price hardly anything in the short term.

If you have delegated ADA to a stake pool, you do not need to do anything today. The delegation stays as it is, the coins remain in your own wallet, and there is no lock-up period. On Saturday evening, November 7, ADA traded at around $0.181 or €0.162, down 2.4 percent in 24 hours according to CoinGecko. This article explains what a second node client changes, who is behind it, what the roadmap to the Dijkstra hard fork looks like and what investors in Germany need to consider on staking income and the holding period.

• New: Amaru 10.11.20261105 lifts the restriction of block production to testnets.
• Before: On October 22, the team still stated explicitly that block production on mainnet would remain switched off.
• Open: Whether a pool has already produced a mainnet block with Amaru had not been publicly confirmed by Saturday evening.
• Price: $0.181, down 23 percent over 30 days and around 94 percent below the all-time high of $3.09.

Amaru release of November 5: block production no longer limited to testnet

The release carries version number 10.11.20261105 and came out on Thursday. The key sentence in the release notes says, in essence, that block production is no longer limited to testnets. Two technical changes come with it: Amaru now includes transactions from the mempool in the blocks it builds, and every block produced this way carries a software identifier. The mempool is the waiting area where submitted transactions sit until a block picks them up.

Development moved in short steps. On October 22, the team reported that Amaru could build blocks on testnets as long as the operator supplied the required keys; on mainnet the feature stayed locked. The release of October 29 added commands for pool operators, including generating KES keys and verifying operational certificates. KES keys are short-lived signing keys that a stake pool uses to sign its blocks and that must be renewed regularly. A week later, the lock was lifted.

Context matters here: Amaru is still published as a weekly beta release. Being allowed to build blocks with Amaru does not mean many pools will do so. The software identifier in every block, however, makes adoption measurable as soon as the first pools switch.

Haskell node and Rust node: two programs for the same protocol

A node is the program a computer runs on the Cardano network. It downloads blocks, checks every transaction against the protocol rules and passes valid data on to other nodes. Stake pools also use it to build blocks themselves when the protocol selects them to do so.

Until now, Cardano has effectively run on a single program, the cardano-node written in Haskell and maintained today by Intersect. Amaru is an independent new implementation in the Rust programming language. According to the cardano.org glossary, Amaru is meant to be fully compatible with the Haskell node. It already runs as a relay on mainnet, a node that passes data along without building blocks itself. It bootstraps from a Mithril snapshot, a verified snapshot of the ledger, rather than replaying the entire history since 2017.

Two programs for the same protocol must interpret every rule in exactly the same way. If one of them deviates even in an edge case, the two would judge the same block differently. That is why such a step takes years rather than months.

Client diversity: why a second node makes outages less likely

The technical term is client diversity: several independently written programs implement the same protocol. The benefit lies in software bugs. If the whole network runs on a single program, a bug in it hits every node at once. In the worst case, they all stop, or they all adopt the same wrong state.

With two programs, the picture changes. If only one has the bug, nodes running the other keep going and the network continues to produce blocks. Ethereum has worked with multiple clients for years and is regarded as the model for this approach. The flip side: a bug affecting only one program can also briefly split the network into two camps if both programs have many users.

How realistic such scenarios are became apparent at Cardano only a few days ago, in a different form. On November 2, we reported that Intersect had warned pool operators about a Linux vulnerability. That case concerned the operating system beneath the node, not the node itself. The message was the same: the more uniform the technology across all pools, the greater the impact of a single bug.

PRAGMA behind Amaru: Cardano Foundation, Blink Labs, dcSpark, Sundae Labs and TxPipe

Amaru is maintained by PRAGMA, an association of companies from the Cardano ecosystem. According to cardano.org, its members include the Cardano Foundation, Blink Labs, dcSpark, Sundae Labs and TxPipe. Input Output, the company of Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, is not on that list. The second node is therefore being built outside the company that shaped the first one for years.

The work is funded in part from the treasury, the network's common fund, on which delegates have voted since on-chain governance was introduced. How hard such votes can be became clear in May, when funding for the Cardano Summit 2026 failed, falling 1.46 percentage points short of the required two-thirds majority. Amaru has faced no comparable obstacle recently; releases continue to appear weekly.

Dijkstra hard fork: node 11.2.0 available as a pre-release since October 28

In parallel, Intersect is working on the next major protocol upgrade, the Dijkstra hard fork. A hard fork is a rule change after which old software no longer accepts new blocks; all pools must upgrade beforehand. Haskell node 11.2.0 has been available as a pre-release since October 28. It already contains tooling for nested transactions, which bundle several sub-transactions into one. Intersect explicitly does not yet recommend it for mainnet, where version 11.1.3 from September 29 applies.

There is no fixed date for the hard fork. Reports from the summer point to the end of 2026 for the first stage with nested transactions and Linear Leios, while other accounts mention a window up to March 2027. Linear Leios is an overhaul designed to raise the network's throughput. According to cardano.org, Amaru will only support the Dijkstra era after block production. For the hard fork itself, the Haskell node therefore remains decisive for now.

Cardano price on Saturday evening: $0.181, 94 percent below the all-time high

So far, the news has passed the price by. ADA stood at around $0.181 on Saturday evening, with a 24-hour range of $0.1796 to $0.1854 according to CoinGecko. Over seven days the loss is 6.4 percent, over 30 days 23.1 percent. By market capitalisation, Cardano ranks 18th.

Little has changed since our article on Friday. ADA was at $0.185 then, the daily low was $0.178, and we named the August floor around $0.174 as the downside level. That level has held: the lowest value of the past 24 hours, $0.1796, was a good three percent above it. The $0.1834 support from our Cardano price prediction of November 4, by contrast, has since broken, and the price is trading just below it. On the upside, the 200-day line, which we put at $0.208 on Friday, remains around 15 percent away.

The day's trading mainly shows that the pressure comes from the broader market. Bitcoin stood at around $75,700 at the same time, down 0.3 percent, while ADA lost roughly seven times as much over the same period. In a weak market, technical news rarely reverses that relationship.

Stake pools running Amaru: what delegators can now see

For delegators, nothing changes day to day for now. On Cardano, delegating means the ADA stay in your own wallet and only the voting weight goes to a pool. There is no lock-up period; you can switch or sell at any time. Rewards are paid out per epoch, and an epoch lasts five days.

What is new is the software identifier in every block built with Amaru. Block explorers can use it to show which pool runs which program. If you want to deliberately support pools that use the second node, you will soon have a verifiable indicator rather than a marketing claim on the pool's website. Conversely, a pool using fresh beta software for block production also carries a higher risk of missing scheduled blocks. Missed blocks cost that pool's delegators rewards, not their ADA.

Regardless of Amaru, the familiar pool metrics are worth checking: fixed fee, margin, saturation and the number of recently produced blocks. If you would rather stake through a platform than delegate yourself, our comparison of staking platforms lists providers and terms. One caveat: there, the platform chooses the pool and holds the coins.

Staking income and holding period: what the German tax office requires for ADA

In Germany, staking rewards count as income under Section 22 No. 3 of the Income Tax Act. They are taxed at their euro value at the moment they are received. Up to an exemption limit of €256 a year for all income of this type combined, they remain tax-free; anyone above it pays tax on the full amount, not just the part above the limit.

For a later sale, the usual one-year holding period applies. In its guidance on crypto assets, the Federal Ministry of Finance clarified that staking does not extend the period to ten years. If you hold ADA for longer than a year, you sell tax-free; within the period, the gain is taxable, subject to an exemption limit of €1,000 a year. Whether the holding period will stay is politically contested; our overview of the crypto holding period reform summarises the current state.

In practice, every epoch brings a small credit, and each needs a euro value on the day it is received. With 73 epochs a year, that quickly adds up to a long list. Since January 1, 2026, providers in the EU have also been collecting their customers' data for reporting to tax authorities under the DAC8 directive. A crypto tax tool reads the rewards from the wallet address and values them automatically.

Our view: Amaru strengthens Cardano but does not move the price

In our editorial view, enabling block production is Cardano's most important technical step this autumn, more important than any single price level. The evidence in the release notes supports this: the mainnet lock is gone, and every Amaru block becomes identifiable. A network with two independent programs is more robust than one with a single program, as experience with Ethereum shows.

Against that, the benefit only materialises with adoption. As long as hardly any pool uses Amaru for block production, Cardano in practice still depends on one program. Then there is the market: ADA has lost almost a quarter in 30 days, Bitcoin 7.4 percent over the same period. Experience suggests an infrastructure story will not reverse this downtrend. Progress becomes measurable once explorers report the share of Amaru blocks.

Buying ADA in Germany: through a MiCA-licensed provider

Since the end of the transition period, crypto providers serving customers in Germany need a licence under the European MiCA regulation. Before you buy, check whether your provider is listed in the register of the European supervisor ESMA or with BaFin. If you want not only to buy ADA but also to delegate it yourself, you need a provider that allows withdrawals to the Cardano network and your own wallet that supports delegation.

Pay attention to the network when withdrawing: ADA belongs on a Cardano address starting with "addr1". Some exchanges also offer ADA as a token on other blockchains; that route does not land the amount in a Cardano wallet. Fees and spreads vary considerably between providers, and our crypto exchange comparison lists them side by side.

Cardano node Amaru: only the share of pools will show the progress

1. Review your delegation: Check in an explorer how many blocks your pool has produced recently and whether it is switching to Amaru. Alternatives and their terms are in the staking comparison.
2. Record your rewards: Note the euro value for each epoch or let a tax tool read the credits, so the €256 exemption limit remains clearly documented.
3. Choose how to buy: Only buy ADA from a MiCA-licensed provider that allows withdrawals to the Cardano network; the terms are in the exchange comparison.

(As of November 7, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)