Accelerating Cardano's scalability: how Leios’ development follows the sun

The Cardano ecosystem stands on the threshold of a transformative upgrade that could redefine what's possible on a proof-of-stake blockchain: Ouroboros Leios.

What makes this development compelling is not just the technical achievement it represents, but how blockchain’s global nature accelerates its progress. The continuous, collaborative approach to developing Leios demonstrates how distributed teams can work together across time zones to compress development timelines and deliver complex protocol upgrades efficiently.

Understanding Leios: from traffic jams to cruising freedom

Think of current blockchain limitations like a single-lane road during rush hour. Even if individual cars (transactions) are efficient, the road itself creates bottlenecks that slow everyone down. No matter how powerful each vehicle becomes, the single lane remains as the fundamental constraint.

The Leios Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP-0164), submitted in August 2025, proposes that Leios targets a throughput increase of 30 to 65 times compared to the current Ouroboros Praos consensus mechanism.

Block producers would create standard Praos blocks alongside larger secondary blocks containing additional transactions, which would undergo committee validation before ledger inclusion.

Leios’ development becomes even more impressive when considering the comprehensive security analysis that accompanies it. Teams have completed detailed attack surface analyses, defining terminology and taxonomy for potential vulnerabilities while categorizing major attack types and their mitigation strategies. This dual focus on performance and security exemplifies the methodical approach that has characterized Input | Output (IO)’s development efforts for Cardano from the beginning.

The 'follow the sun' development model: continuous innovation

At the heart of Leios's rapid development is the 'follow the sun' model – a distributed approach where independent teams continuously collaborate across time zones.

This approach compresses development timelines by enabling parallel progress on research, prototyping, and implementation. Unlike traditional development cycles, where one developer would see a task through end-to-end, the team developing Leios will adjust to sharing workloads and managing handoffs to adapt to a 24/7 development mindset. Leios and the 24/7 approach have empowered Input Output Engineering (IOE) to review its software development lifecycle operating model and release processes, enabling a more efficient, nimble, and transparent approach for the community.

The model's power lies in code sharing and iteration. Each team inherits completed work and access to fresh perspectives on complex problems.

Leios' potential impact across the Cardano ecosystem

For stake pool operators

Leios enables manageable infrastructure upgrades rather than requiring complete overhauls. SPOs can handle significantly higher transaction volumes while maintaining acceptable latency. The protocol's design optimizes network bandwidth usage, meaning existing hardware investments remain valuable even as throughput increases dramatically.

For developers and decentralized application (DApp) builders

Faster consensus and block propagation directly translate to reduced development friction. DApps currently facing constraints due to transaction processing delays will gain new capabilities, particularly in DeFi protocols and real-world asset tokenization, where transaction speed directly impacts user experience and economic efficiency.

For Cardano users

The most visible impact will be quicker transaction confirmations with acceptable latency. This improvement unlocks use cases that require near-instant settlement, from micropayments to high-frequency trading applications, while maintaining the security guarantees users expect from Cardano.

Ecosystem-wide positioning

Leios positions Cardano as a legitimate competitor to high-throughput chains, but with one crucial difference: the performance gains come without compromising decentralization or security. This distinction matters enormously for enterprise adoption and regulatory compliance, where these properties are fundamental requirements.

Current development status and timeline

The Leios project is advancing through several parallel tracks under community governance in 2025. Handover to Input Output Engineering (IOE) is imminent, marking the transition from research-focused development to full-scale implementation and integration. This milestone represents years of research and prototyping crystallizing into production-ready protocol specifications.

The upcoming Leios Dashboard site, demoed at Token2049,  will provide the community with real-time insights into development progress, testing results, and protocol behavior. This transparency tool will offer unprecedented visibility into IOE's ability to deliver software at pace in a transparent manner.

The broader implications

Leios demonstrates how blockchain development has matured from early experimental phases to globally coordinated engineering efforts. The project's success reflects lessons learned from previous Cardano upgrades, community governance evolution, and the growing sophistication of distributed development methodologies.

As Cardano approaches this next phase of scaling capability, the development methodology becomes as important as the technical achievement. The ability to deliver complex protocol upgrades through distributed collaboration establishes a template for future innovations that will continue expanding what's possible in decentralized systems.

The highway analogy extends beyond just transaction processing. Leios development represents the infrastructure for a future where:

• Blockchain capacity constraints no longer limit innovation

• Developers can focus on creating value rather than optimizing around throughput bottlenecks, and 

• Users experience the seamless, fast interactions they expect from modern digital systems.

All while maintaining the security and decentralization properties that make blockchain technology valuable.

For the latest on Leios development and technical discussions, follow the weekly progress summaries that document this remarkable engineering effort in real time.