IOG Director of Software Architecture Nicolas Biri has expressed strong confidence that Cardano’s Ouroboros Leios upgrade will be delivered this year. His comments add to a growing sense within the Cardano ecosystem that the scaling solution could significantly boost throughput without sacrificing decentralization or security.
Confidence in Leios Launch
In a recent statement, Biri praised the engineering work led by Sebastian Nagel and his team. He noted that development is progressing well and reiterated his belief that the upgrade will be successfully delivered, potentially before the end of the year. This followed a projection from Charles Hoskinson, who said the Cardano community could have Leios in place by year-end. According to Hoskinson, the upgrade could position Cardano as the first third-generation blockchain to fully address the blockchain trilemma—achieving meaningful scalability while keeping decentralization and security intact.
Leios Progress
Ouroboros Leios is expected to become a key part of Cardano’s long-term scaling strategy. The protocol aims to increase network throughput and improve transaction efficiency through advanced parallelization techniques. Hoskinson has repeatedly indicated that Leios could launch this year and even proposed a round-the-clock development approach to speed things up. IOG recently confirmed that the project is approaching a critical milestone: the highly anticipated Leios testnet is scheduled for launch in June 2026.
Why Leios Matters
According to IOG, the upcoming testnet marks the transition of Ouroboros Leios from years of academic research and simulations into real-world deployment. The company says the protocol is designed to deliver a 10x to 65x increase in throughput, potentially enabling Cardano to process over 1,000 transactions per second. While the timeline for a full mainnet launch remains unclear, recent comments from both Hoskinson and Biri suggest that development is advancing steadily, and the ecosystem is optimistic about what’s ahead.
