Charles Hoskinson States is at the centre of this story. Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano (ADA), has confidently stated that the network will achieve transactional speeds on par with the XRP Ledger following the full implementation of its Ouroboros Leios upgrade. This bold assertion, made in a recent interview with David Gokhshtein on “The Breakdown podcast” and reported today, July 4, 2026, signals Cardano’s ambition to significantly enhance its throughput capabilities.
The Ouroboros Leios upgrade is engineered as a major scalability improvement for Cardano’s existing proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. It aims to dramatically increase the network’s internal throughput by up to 60 times its current level. Importantly, this push for speed is designed to happen without sacrificing Cardano’s fundamental commitments to decentralization and security, a challenge often referred to as the blockchain trilemma.
Charles Hoskinson States: Leios upgrade targets massive throughput boost
The roadmap for the Leios upgrade is already well underway. The public testnet, named Musashi Dojo, officially launched on June 23, 2026, marking the protocol’s first operation in a live network environment. Cardano expects to deploy the Leios upgrade on its mainnet later this year.
The technical blueprint for this protocol upgrade, known as Ouroboros Linear Leios CIP, was finalized and officially merged in January 2026. This was a critical step, as the upgrade had transitioned into an active engineering phase in September 2025, moving from Input Output Research (IOR) to Input Output Engineering (IOE).
How Cardano’s Leios upgrade functions
Leios isn’t just about a simple speed bump; it involves a fundamental redesign of how Cardano processes transactions. The upgrade introduces parallel transaction processing capabilities, moving beyond traditional sequential methods. This crucial architectural shift allows for multiple transactions to be handled concurrently, significantly boosting the network’s overall capacity.
The new architecture employs a multilayered approach, dividing transaction processing into distinct stages. It adds endorser blocks (EBs) and utilizes committee-based validation. This design separates the resource-intensive task of creating input blocks (IBs) from their subsequent validation and linking with EBs.
This effectively creates “express lanes” for transactions, and by reapplying certified endorsement blocks, the system can skip redundant checks, which drastically reduces the overall rebuild work required for the blockchain.
Key details
Hoskinson’s projection of a 60x increase in Cardano’s internal throughput is ambitious, but initial simulations for Leios support these claims. Early tests suggest the upgrade could achieve between 200 and 1,000 transactions per second (TPS), depending on the average transaction size.
The first implementation, known as Linear Leios, is expected to push Cardano past 1,000 TPS. Optimistic estimations for Cardano’s final throughput post-Leios even suggest it might reach an impressive 10,000 TPS, with a phased rollout anticipated to deliver a 10x to 65x increase in overall throughput capacity.
For context, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is known for its efficiency, typically achieving transaction finality in just three to five seconds. It’s capable of handling approximately 1,500 TPS. In March 2026, the XRPL notably processed around 650 transactions during a period of peak activity, surpassing 120 TPS.
Cardano’s current TPS is significantly lower than XRPL’s capacity, with one source indicating a present rate of around 200 TPS.
Defending Midnight City amid criticism
Beyond the technical advancements of Leios, Hoskinson also addressed criticism leveled against Midnight City, another key Cardano-related initiative. Content creator Big Pey had previously labeled Midnight City as an example of wasteful spending within the ecosystem. The critic suggested that millions were invested in a project unable to attract new users and offering no immediate commercial returns, referring to this approach as the “Cardano Way.”
Hoskinson responded sharply, stating he had “lost all respect” for Big Pey as an entrepreneur. He criticized the content creator for failing to understand how consumer products evolve, even challenging him to revisit his comments in a year and apologize. This strong defense highlights the foundational belief in long-term strategic development over quick commercial payoffs.
Midnight Network’s privacy focus and institutional backing
Midnight City serves as an interactive showcase for the Midnight Network, a privacy-focused chain intrinsically tied to Cardano. The platform cleverly translates complex blockchain mechanics into a retro-futuristic 2D city populated by AI agents. These agents are programmed to generate transactions and simulate economic behaviors mirroring everyday consumer and business use.
Despite the criticism, institutional interest appears to be growing. Midnight has already secured Monument Bank, Google, and AlphaTON Capital, and is currently engaged in discussions with prominent investment banks across the United States and Europe. Hoskinson sees 2026 as a pivotal “beta year,” primarily focused on strengthening the infrastructure before aiming for broader mainstream adoption.
The project has also received significant backing, with a treasury proposal for ₳27,714,342 submitted to mature Ouroboros Leios into a mainnet-ready release candidate by late 2026.
Cardano’s future in the altcoin landscape
The successful deployment of the Cardano Leios upgrade later this year could dramatically reshape Cardano’s competitive stance within the altcoin market. A 60x increase in throughput would bring it into direct contention with established platforms like the XRP Ledger, which surpassed 2.7 million daily transactions as of March 2026.
This level of scaling is vital for any blockchain aspiring to widespread adoption and high-volume use cases.
The broader implications for ADA holders and the altcoin ecosystem are considerable. Cardano’s 2030 product strategy aims for a dramatic scale-up, targeting over 27 million transactions per month from its current rough estimate of 800,000, representing a 30x increase.
As XRP Ledger adoption trends higher, Cardano’s ability to compete on speed while upholding its core principles could draw new users and developers to its ecosystem. As of July 4, 2026, ADA is trading at $0.1772, up 4.85% in the last 24 hours, indicating some market optimism surrounding these ongoing developments.