Cardano's Leios Upgrade Hits Sixfold Throughput Gains, But Revenue Hinges on User Adoption
Cardano's Leios upgrade has achieved a significant breakthrough in scaling, demonstrating sixfold throughput gains. The network developer Input Output reported that during its first public testnet phase, Leios peaked at 26.8 transaction kilobytes per second, compared to the existing Ouroboros Praos system's ceiling of 4.51 TxkB/s.
Leios carried 54% of traffic reaching the chain and processed 18 times the transaction count seen on Cardano mainnet over the comparable period. However, it's worth noting that this traffic was artificially generated to stress the system rather than produced by users paying to transact.
The Leios upgrade is designed to remove the throughput ceiling that could prevent Cardano from generating enough transaction fees to make a transition in its economic model. The reserve contribution declines over time, leaving network activity to shoulder more of the cost of rewarding stake pool operators and delegators.