Cardano has two weeks to avoid a governance freeze as 4 committee seats expire
Cardano faces a Sept. 1 deadline on renewing four of seven Constitutional Committee seats. If the on-chain approval fails, the committee would shrink to three members, below the minimum five, and most major on-chain governance would effectively pause. The blockchain would still process transactions and produce blocks normally. The renewal, submitted July 31 after the 2026 committee election, still needs approval from DReps and stake pool operators. A live Aug. 17 snapshot showed 32.46% DRep support and 1.95% SPO support, short of the required 67% and 51%. Enough uncast voting power remains for passage, but current support is far from enough. If the update fails, only Info Actions and Update Committee actions would remain available. That would block governance on hard forks, protocol changes, constitutional changes, and treasury withdrawals until the committee is restored.
