Cardano is making ready a layer-1 improve it says will push mainnet throughput from roughly 10–15 transactions per second to lots of, whereas conserving the community’s decentralization and safety profile intact. At a Tokyo group occasion on the Midnight Japan Tour, Enter Output’s Michael Smolenski and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson framed Ouroboros Leios as each a scaling step and a broader consensus breakthrough.
Smolenski, Cardano Core product supervisor at Enter Output, advised attendees Leios is “an improve to layer 1 to make Cardano quicker,” with lively growth underway and a goal launch “this 12 months in 2026.” He described the present throughput ceiling as appropriate for proving out Ouroboros’ design, however inadequate for the following section of adoption and for the economics of stake pool operators (SPOs).
Cardano’s Leios Eyes 50x Pace Enhance In 2026
“Up till now the velocity of the community has been round […] 10 to fifteen transactions per second,” Smolenski mentioned. “However now we have to transfer on to greater transaction throughput in an effort to compete and drive additional adoption. One other issue, SPOs, they in the long run must assist the price of their operations from transaction charges as a substitute of from block rewards […] they should see community utilization of round 50 transactions per second.”
The preliminary Leios mainnet launch is pitched as a “50 instances enchancment,” with Smolenski translating that into an early transfer from roughly 10 TPS to round 500 TPS. Quite than sticking to transactions-per-second because the headline metric, he emphasised “transaction kilobytes per second” to account for various transaction sizes, calling out a goal of “300 transaction kilobytes per second” and a affirmation window “between 20 to 80 seconds,” primarily based on prototype outcomes.
Smolenski described Leios as Cardano’s “subsequent era consensus protocol,” constructed round further block varieties. “There’s a brand new block. It’s referred to as an endorser block,” he mentioned, including that current blocks can be known as “rating blocks.” The sensible consequence, in his telling, is the flexibility to “pack an entire lot extra transactions” by bundling them into endorser blocks, alongside different prioritization mechanics he didn’t element on stage.
He additionally harassed that scaling might be incremental to keep away from overburdening node operators. The staff plans to display greater throughput in steps, first focusing on 500 TPS on mainnet, then proving 1,000 TPS within the close to time period, with an eventual ambition of 10,000 TPS. “We will’t simply go from the place we’re […] and go as much as 10,000 transactions per second as a result of this must be performed in a strategic method,” Smolenski mentioned, repeatedly pointing to the necessity to “carry the SPOs together with us.”
On timeline, he mentioned a primary public Leios testnet is focused “on the finish of Q2 this 12 months,” forward of a mainnet laborious fork.
Hoskinson: ‘Not Simply TPS’ However The Trilemma
Hoskinson widened the body, positioning Leios because the fruits of a decade-long analysis and engineering pipeline. “Ouroboros Leios didn’t start in 2026 […] Leios truly started in 2016, 10 years in the past,” he mentioned, describing “greater than two dozen papers,” “dozens of protocols,” and contributions spanning “greater than 15 engineering corporations” and “168 scientists over a 10-year interval.”
“Why Leios is particular is it’s not TPS,” Hoskinson mentioned. “It’s truly a decision of the toughest downside in consensus and blockchain, the blockchain trilemma […] you’ve got decentralization, you’ve got safety, and you’ve got scalability […] we’re advised you may solely decide two.” He then made the core declare: “This protocol is decentralized, safe, and quick.”
Notably, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin additionally mentioned the blockchain trilemma has successfully been solved, feedback he made only a few weeks in the past.
Hoskinson additionally argued the design is engineered to degrade safely. “If the protocol fails, the protocol fails to what we have now as we speak. It collapses to Ouroboros Praos,” he mentioned, referencing a previous community incident he characterised as a smooth fork during which “Cardano cut up into two networks” and later “got here again collectively by itself.”
In the identical remarks, Hoskinson repeatedly returned to governance capability because the longer-horizon benefit, suggesting pure technical differentiation is transient. He pointed to Cardano’s on-chain governance and treasury — “a billion {dollars} in it […] that you just management […] the ADA holders,” he mentioned — because the mechanism to fund upgrades and coordinate change over time.
At press time, ADA traded at $0.2638.
Featured picture from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com
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