Charles Hoskinson expects the Ouroboros Leios upgrade to multiply Cardano’s capacity by 60 times. That would put the network on par with the XRP Ledger for speed.
He explained the scope in an interview on David Gokhshtein’s “The Breakdown” podcast. Leios is designed to boost transaction throughput without sacrificing decentralization or security. The blockchain trilemma — scale without trade-offs — is what Cardano is trying to crack.
“Leios will be a 60x in terms of throughput inside the system, so we’re good, we’re as performant as XRP, and we still kept our principles,” Hoskinson said.
The XRP Ledger built its reputation on 3-to-5-second settlements and a max capacity of 1,500 transactions per second. In March 2026, it hit 120 TPS during a peak. Cardano wants to match that while keeping its original architecture intact.
The public Leios testnet, named Musashi Dojo, launched on June 23. Mainnet deployment is expected before the end of the year.
Hoskinson also pushed back hard on criticism of Midnight City, an interactive showcase for the Midnight privacy chain. Content creator Big Pey called it wasteful spending. Hoskinson fired back, saying Big Pey has no clue how consumer products evolve and challenged him to revisit the take in a year.
Midnight City translates blockchain mechanics into a retro-futuristic 2D city run by AI agents that generate transactions and economic behavior. Institutional interest is real — Monument Bank, Google, and AlphaTON Capital are already involved. Hoskinson calls 2026 a beta year before mainstream adoption kicks in.
