Cardano is preparing a layer-1 upgrade it says will push mainnet throughput from roughly 10โ15 transactions per second to hundreds, while keeping the networkโs decentralization and security profile intact. At a Tokyo community event on the Midnight Japan Tour, Input Outputโs Michael Smolenski and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson framed Ouroboros Leios as both a scaling step and a broader consensus breakthrough.
Smolenski, Cardano Core product manager at Input Output, told attendees Leios is โan upgrade to layer 1 to make Cardano faster,โ with active development underway and a target release โthis year in 2026.โ He described the current throughput ceiling as suitable for proving out Ouroborosโ design, but insufficient for the next phase of adoption and for the economics of stake pool operators (SPOs).
Cardanoโs Leios Eyes 50x Speed Boost In 2026
โUp until now the speed of the network has been around [โฆ] 10 to 15 transactions per second,โ Smolenski said. โBut now we need to move on to higher transaction throughput in order to compete and drive further adoption. Another factor, SPOs, they in the long term need to support the cost of their operations from transaction fees instead of from block rewards [โฆ] they need to see network usage of around 50 transactions per second.โ
The initial Leios mainnet release is pitched as a โ50 times improvement,โ with Smolenski translating that into an early move from roughly 10 TPS to around 500 TPS. Rather than sticking to transactions-per-second as the headline metric, he emphasized โtransaction kilobytes per secondโ to account for varied transaction sizes, calling out a target of โ300 transaction kilobytes per secondโ and a confirmation window โbetween 20 to 80 seconds,โ based on prototype results.
Smolenski described Leios as Cardanoโs โnext generation consensus protocol,โ built around additional block types. โThereโs a new block. Itโs called an endorser block,โ he said, adding that existing blocks would be referred to as โranking blocks.โ The practical consequence, in his telling, is the ability to โpack a whole lot more transactionsโ by bundling them into endorser blocks, alongside other prioritization mechanics he did not detail on stage.
He also stressed that scaling will be incremental to avoid overburdening node operators. The team plans to demonstrate higher throughput in steps, first targeting 500 TPS on mainnet, then proving 1,000 TPS in the near term, with an eventual ambition of 10,000 TPS. โWe canโt just go from where we are [โฆ] and go up to 10,000 transactions per second because this needs to be done in a strategic manner,โ Smolenski said, repeatedly pointing to the need to โbring the SPOs along with us.โ
On timeline, he said a first public Leios testnet is targeted โat the end of Q2 this year,โ ahead of a mainnet hard fork.
Hoskinson: โNot Just TPSโ But The Trilemma
Hoskinson widened the frame, positioning Leios as the culmination of a decade-long research and engineering pipeline. โOuroboros Leios didnโt begin in 2026 [โฆ] Leios actually began in 2016, 10 years ago,โ he said, describing โmore than two dozen papers,โ โdozens of protocols,โ and contributions spanning โmore than 15 engineering firmsโ and โ168 scientists over a 10-year period.โ
โWhy Leios is special is itโs not TPS,โ Hoskinson said. โItโs actually a resolution of the hardest problem in consensus and blockchain, the blockchain trilemma [โฆ] you have decentralization, you have security, and you have scalability [โฆ] weโre told you can only pick two.โ He then made the core claim: โThis protocol is decentralized, secure, and fast.โ
Notably, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also said the blockchain trilemma has effectively been solved, comments he made just a few weeks ago.
Hoskinson also argued the design is engineered to degrade safely. โIf the protocol fails, the protocol fails to what we have today. It collapses to Ouroboros Praos,โ he said, referencing a prior network incident he characterized as a soft fork in which โCardano split into two networksโ and later โcame back together by itself.โ
In the same remarks, Hoskinson repeatedly returned to governance capacity as the longer-horizon advantage, suggesting pure technical differentiation is transient. He pointed to Cardanoโs on-chain governance and treasury โ โa billion dollars in it [โฆ] that you control [โฆ] the ADA holders,โ he said โ as the mechanism to fund upgrades and coordinate change over time.
At press time, ADA traded at $0.2638.
Featured image from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com
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