Cardano Upgrade 2026: New CIPs and Price Recovery on the Horizon
The Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP) system is at the center of attention for the Cardano Upgrade 2026. Two new proposals, CIP-0197 and CPS-0034, have entered review, aiming to strengthen quantum security and dev tooling.
CIP-0197 proposes post-quantum ZK signatures for HD wallets, which would add zero-knowledge proofs of wallet seed phrases on top of existing signatures. This is an intermediate step towards quantum security before a full cryptographic migration. Meanwhile, CPS-0034 outlines a shared framework for testing Plutus behavior consistently across node types.
Three proposals are under active debate: CIP-0196, which aims to standardize human-readable wallet handles; CIP-0178, which would let light clients and bridges verify transactions without downloading full blocks; and CPS-0030, an early research track for defending the base layer against future quantum attacks.
Five proposals have cleared review and are ready for implementation: CIP-0168, more built-in value functions; CIP-0172, self-usable transaction outputs; CIP-0183, conflict-based fee priority in mempool; CPS-0028, approaches to non-strict UPLC evaluation; and CPS-0033, DRep voting power concentration.
The Cardano ADA price has been recovering, sitting near $0.2192 with a 24-hour volume of $610 million. This marks one of the token's stronger stretches of the year and adds fresh weight to the recovery case for 2026.