Cardano's Dijkstra Era: Three Innovations to Boost Network Performance

Cardano is moving forward with its technical roadmap as it prepares for the Dijkstra era, which will introduce three key innovations to improve the network's performance. The van Rossem intra-era hard fork, activated on July 18, laid the groundwork for this transition and improved Plutus performance, ledger consistency, and node security.

The first phase of the Dijkstra era will deploy Nested Transactions, a mechanism that optimizes resource management and reduces network load. Linear Leios, a linear version of the Ouroboros Leios protocol, will also be introduced, aiming to increase network throughput while maintaining security and decentralization.

Peras will enhance transaction finality by speeding up the time required for a transaction to be considered irreversible. The Haskell Node team is currently working on delivering the first two phases, Nested Transactions and Linear Leios, on the mainnet by the end of 2026.