Recently, I noticed a pretty important move happening with Cardano. They are preparing two major technical upgrades for the second half of this year, seemingly aiming for a big breakthrough in scalability.

First, the Ouroboros Leios testnet is scheduled to go live in June. This plan has been in preparation by the Cardano team for a long time, with the core goal of solving throughput issues. According to current simulation data, Ouroboros Leios can increase the network transaction processing capacity to between 200 and 1,000 transactions per second, depending on transaction size. If a more aggressive Linear Leios version is used, it could even exceed 1,000 TPS.

To fully push forward the Ouroboros route, the Cardano official decision is to halt development of Acropolis and reallocate those resources to the Leios development plan. At the same time, they are also canceling the tiered pricing implementation. As a result, approximately 410 million ADA will flow back into the ecosystem fund. From a resource allocation perspective, they are betting on the Ouroboros technical direction.

Another upgrade is the van Rossem fork, expected to launch in late June. This update will introduce Protocol Version 11, mainly improving Plutus performance, ledger consistency, and node security. Interestingly, this fork does not require a hard fork, so integration should be smoother.

Overall, Cardano is entering a technical turning point in the second half of the year. If the simulation data for Ouroboros Leios can be validated on the mainnet, it will significantly enhance the network’s competitiveness. Recently, the interest in ADA on Gate has also been rising, so those interested can keep an eye on it.