This is a referendum is part of the upgrade path to enable Elastic Scaling. It contains the polkadot-sdk `2503-7` update which adds support for slashing/disabling validators that that dispute valid candidates and validator re-enabling. This is expected to significantly improve how the system handles dispute spam and allows us to enable RFC103 without causing finality issues we have seen on our [first attempt](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/2025-05-09-kusama-dispute-storm-postmortem/12947) . 

For the full list of changes, please read the fellowship [1.6.0](https://github.com/polkadot-fellows/runtimes/releases/tag/v1.6.1) and  [1.6.1](https://github.com/polkadot-fellows/runtimes/releases/tag/v1.6.1) release notes.

Enactment is set at block [26902523](https://polkadot.subscan.io/block/26902523) estimated time: 2025-07-16 08:07:45 (UTC)

Whitelist: TBD

#1645 [Whitelisted Caller] Runtime Upgrade to v1.6.1