Cardano is on the cusp of a significant transformation, as its upcoming Leios upgrade, also known as Ouroboros Leios, aims to dramatically enhance the network’s transaction throughput. Charles Hoskinson, the blockchain’s founder, has indicated this pivotal development will bring Cardano closer to his original vision, effectively declaring the network “complete” upon its full integration.
The public testnet for Ouroboros Leios, codenamed “Musashi Dojo,” launched on June 23, 2026, marking a critical step towards realizing these ambitious scalability goals. This upgrade represents a foundational shift designed to address long-standing challenges in blockchain transaction processing.
Cardano Leios upgrade drives throughput
The Leios upgrade is a next-generation consensus protocol built upon Cardano’s existing Ouroboros Praos mechanism. It introduces a novel architecture featuring endorser blocks and a committee validation system.
This innovative design allows block producers to create standard Praos blocks alongside larger secondary blocks, which contain additional transactions. These transactions undergo committee validation before their inclusion on the ledger, fundamentally increasing the network’s capacity.
Early simulations suggest the Leios upgrade could boost transaction throughput by an impressive 10 to 65 times. The public testnet itself is aiming for approximately a 30-fold improvement in throughput compared to current levels.
Charles Hoskinson has publicly stated that the upgrade holds the potential to elevate network performance by approximately 60 times. These figures highlight a concerted effort by Input Output Global (IOG), the research and development firm behind Cardano, to significantly scale the blockchain.
The innovative architecture of Leios
Leios distinguishes itself by decoupling transaction inclusion from their final ordering. This allows for parallel processing of transactions, a crucial element for achieving high scalability without compromising the network’s inherent Proof-of-Stake security model.
The system integrates input/endorsement blocks for parallel operations with ranking blocks that maintain a single linear chain. This two-tier structure is central to its ability to handle a greater volume of activity efficiently.
Current testing of Leios has already demonstrated a throughput of around 1,000 transactions per second (TPS). This is a substantial leap from Cardano’s typical mainnet throughput, which averages approximately 10 TPS, signaling a new era of performance for the platform.
Achieving 1,000 TPS places Cardano in a competitive position, potentially rivaling the XRP Ledger. The XRP Ledger is widely recognized for its high-speed, low-cost transactions, boasting a theoretical capacity of up to 1,500 TPS.
Scaling transaction volume for future growth
The implications of such a throughput increase extend directly to transaction volume. The Leios upgrade specifically targets an increase in the network’s monthly transaction volume.
This ambitious goal seeks to raise the total from 800,000 transactions to more than 27 million. Such growth would dramatically expand Cardano’s utility and appeal for decentralized applications and broader enterprise adoption.
This push for enhanced performance directly addresses the Cardano Problem Statement (CPS-18), which focuses on achieving greater transaction throughput. It is also a fundamental pillar of the overarching Cardano Vision 2030 roadmap, laying groundwork for sustained long-term expansion.
Charles Hoskinson’s vision of a complete network
Charles Hoskinson, the driving force behind Cardano, has consistently articulated a comprehensive vision for the blockchain. With the advent of Leios, he believes that vision is finally approaching its full realization.
When asked if Cardano is effectively complete, Hoskinson definitively responded, “that after Leios, yes.” This statement underscores the monumental importance of this upgrade to the network’s foundational design and functionality.
His complete vision for Cardano includes a robust suite of features: fully decentralized consensus, open governance, eUTXO, the Plutus smart contract platform, advanced scalability solutions, and the integration of formal methods for rigorous verification. He also highlighted the importance of multiple independent node implementations and a self-improving structure.
Securing the development of this critical upgrade comes with substantial investment. Input Output Global is actively seeking 27.714 million ADA from the Cardano Treasury to fund the ongoing Leios development and integration efforts. This reflects the community-driven funding model inherent to the Cardano ecosystem.
The “Magnum Opus” and future innovations
Beyond Leios, Hoskinson has also hinted at further ambitious projects. He mentioned working on a concept related to “Midnight” that he believes could solve many existing problems within the cryptocurrency space.
He described this new endeavor as “the magnum opus of my career,” though specific technical details remain under wraps. This suggests that even as Cardano nears completion of its core roadmap, innovation continues to be a central tenet of its development philosophy.
The dedication to continuous advancement is evident in their development approach. For instance, Cardano’s smart contract language, Plutus receives three optimizations to make contracts both cheaper and faster to execute, enhancing the developer and user experience significantly.
Leios testnet progress and phased deployment
The journey to mainnet deployment for Leios involves a meticulously planned public testnet process. The “Musashi Dojo” testnet is structured into five distinct phases, each designed to rigorously test different aspects of the upgrade.
These phases are named Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Void. Earth focuses on design validation, while Water is dedicated to parameter tuning. Fire involves real-world hardware testing, and Wind is allocated for adversarial stress testing, simulating extreme conditions to identify vulnerabilities.
The final phase, Void, prepares the system for its eventual mainnet activation through comprehensive pre-mainnet validation. This staged approach minimizes risks and ensures a stable rollout.
Input Output Global employs a