• Cardano's Voltaire phase, the final stage of its roadmap to create a fully decentralized blockchain ecosystem, is set to occur in June.
• The Cardano Node will reach version 9.0, making it ready for a hard fork to enter the Voltaire era.

The Cardano network is set to move into the final phase of a multiyear program to become a wholly decentralized blockchain ecosystem later this month, co-founder Charles Hoskinson said in an X post Monday.

As a first step, the validating node software operated by the system's stake pool operators, or SPOs, needs to be upgraded to the latest version. Then, the blockchain will evolve into a backward-incompatible version, a process known as a hard fork , and in doing so, enter a new era known as Voltaire. Cardano is currently in its Basho era.

The project's roadmap says that once the switch is complete, the seven-year-old blockchain will no longer be actively managed by Cardano development firm IOHK but will instead be wholly run by community members.

“It looks like June will be the month that Cardano Node will reach 9.0,“ Hoskinson posted. “This means that Cardano is Chang fork ready and waiting for 70 percent of the SPOs to install the new node. Then, a hard fork can occur pushing Cardano into the Age of Voltaire.”

“We'll have the most advanced blockchain governance system, annual budgets, a treasury, and the wisdom of our entire community to guide us,” he added.

According to governance forums and blog posts, the first part of Voltaire will see the implementation of CIP 1694, a proposal that will allow holders of the native (ADA) token to vote on topics and features that benefit Cardano. A second step will enable more novel features, such as proxy participation and treasury withdrawals, allowing users to propose and fund projects within the Cardano ecosystem.

ADA tokens are down 1.6% in the past 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows, outperforming losses of 2.2% in major tokens tracked by the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index .