Charles Hoskinson Talks Cardano Upgrade Which Could Make It Faster Than Solana

By Ben Knight September 17, 2024 In Blockchain, Cardano, Solana
Cardano ADA coin symbol with crypto currency themed background design. Modern neon color banner for ADA or cardano icon. Blockchain technology, digital innovation or trade exchange concept.
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  • Cardano, one of the most popular and controversial blockchain ecosystems, has teased the implementation of Ouroboros Leios. 
  • This is set to be a new consensus algorithm that vastly improves Cardano’s transaction efficiency, potentially making the blockchain faster than Solana.
  • The upgrade may also contain “modern” features like tiered priority transactions.
  • Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson took to social media to discuss the development team’s progress and engage with the community.

Scalability in blockchain ecosystems has been a key issue ever since Bitcoin and Ethereum began attracting significant network traffic. The capacity to process thousands of transactions with instant finality is a desirable trait for modern protocols, as a lack of this infrastructure can cause slow settlement times and inflated tx fees. 

While Ethereum has turned to Layer-2s like Base and Arbitrum, Cardano has dutifully been working away on its next major upgrade – “Leois”.

Related: ‘Coming in Hot’ – Top Trader Predicts Rallies for PEPE and One Solana Rival, Says Hard To Be Bearish on Many Altcoins

Cardano Plans to Retain Decentralisation While Massively Improving Scalability

Ouroboros Leios is the logical evolution of “Praos” – the family of proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms that power the Cardano blockchain. As it stands, the current infrastructure “does not fully utilise the network and computational resources available on each node”. 

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Going into more detail, Charles Hoskinson and the team at IOHK wrote that:

Existing variants of the Ouroboros blockchain algorithm are limited in the throughput they can achieve…they are limited by…the nature of the data dependencies and communication dependencies within the distributed algorithm.

Leios whitepaper

In short, the current blockchain system on Cardano isn’t as efficient as it could be.  

That’s where Leios comes in – IOHK wants to create a consensus algorithm that massively improves transaction speeds while maintaining the current infrastructure’s emphasis on security.

Development Efforts to Ramp Up in Back-end of 2024

Leios is also set to contain “modern features” fitting a blockchain, including “tiered transaction fees” and “faster chain synchronisation”. 

Put it all together, Cardano founder Hoskinson believes Leios could push the network to become faster than Solana, without losing any decentralisation.

Of course, whenever Hoskinson takes to social media to say pretty much anything, he is quickly met with resistance.

Some users were sceptical that Leios was even real, considering it was announced back in 2022 and there have been little signs of development beyond a video on Hoskinson’s channel three months ago.

As you’d expect, Hoskinson hit back at these claims, telling the community to expect a ramp-up of activity in the final quarter of 2024.

In media pertaining to Leios, Hoskinson and the development team are quick to point out the complexity of implementing such an upgrade. He notes that “more than a dozen firms will likely be involved” in getting the new upgrade live, which may see some delays or issues given its scope.

However, could improving Cardano’s throughput to beat Solana – a network renowned for its speed – be the catalyst that sends ADA back on an upward trajectory?

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Ben Knight
Author

Ben Knight

Ben Knight is a writer and editor from Melbourne with a passion for all things music and finance. He enjoys turning complex topics – especially the technical details of cryptocurrency – into digestible bites that anybody can understand. He acquired his Master’s in Writing, Editing and Publishing from RMIT in 2019 and has run his own creative writing business ever since.

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