Cardano Unveils Leios: The Revolutionary Improvement That Could Surpass Solana and Ethereum in Speed and Stability
Cardano has unveiled Leios, a groundbreaking protocol improvement that represents the culmination of eight years of research and promises to revolutionize network performance. This upgrade introduces a highly sophisticated multi-level block structure, comprised of input, sort, and backup blocks, potentially putting Cardano ahead of its main competitors in terms of processing speed.
Lab simulations suggest that Leios would be capable of handling tens of thousands of transactions per second (TPS), positioning Cardano as a direct rival to Solana, which currently leads the industry with theoretical peaks of 65,000 TPS, although it suffers from periodic outages and network instability. The current blockchain landscape offers striking contrasts: Ethereum only processes between 15 and 30 TPS on its core layer, while Avalanche claims to reach 4,500 TPS in lab tests, although these figures are rarely reflected in real-world environments.
One of Leios's most notable features is its adaptable "tick-tock" deployment framework, which allows for a conservative initial rollout followed by progressive performance optimizations. This phased approach seeks to avoid the stability issues that have plagued other high-speed networks.
Leios is not a standalone upgrade, but rather part of a broader expansion of the Cardano ecosystem, which includes complementary technologies such as Hydra, Mithril, and the anticipated Starstream rollups. Together, these tools are designed to support a wide range of applications, from decentralized finance (DeFi) to artificial intelligence integration. The development schedule indicates that Leios could be completed by the end of 2025, with full deployment planned for 2026.
