Cardano's Long-awaited Scaling Protocol Hydra Goes Live on Mainnet: Details

Cardano, as a Layer 1 blockchain protocol, is beating its own personal limits in terms of the launch of new functionalities. In a recent update, Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), the start-up behind the Cardano protocol, the first Hydra head has recently opened on mainnet, setting a whole new standard for scalability on the proof-of-stake (PoS) network.

As contained in a video insight shared by Sebastian Nagel, a developer working on the Cardano Hydra protocol, the goal driving the development of Hydra is to make the parent blockchain more usable by scaling its transactions. Hydra is considered a family of Layer 2 protocols that aims to support Cardano's adoption in areas where cheap and fast transactions are required.

The development of Hydra is considered one of the most important in the Cardano ecosystem for this year. The revelation that the first Hydra head is out on mainnet has excited a community that believes this will position Cardano as a formidable smart contract hub in terms of scaling and transaction costs.

Nagel noted that Hydra is the first of the protocols that will help Cardano achieve the ultimate scalability it desires. Nagel confirmed that Hydra head is not an upgrade and, as such, is not subject to any hard fork.

Driving scalability on L1 protocols

While Cardano is exploring avenues to make its network more scalable through Hydra, so too are other competing Layer 1 protocols doing all they can to achieve scalability around the clock.

The Ethereum network, for instance, is welcoming a series of Layer 2 solutions, including Polygon zkEVM, Optimism (OP) and Arbitrum (ARB), among others, to help in changing the future of the network to allow for more usability.

The race to dominate the smart contract and decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem is tough and, more recently, Sui Network has joined the race with a very high throughput of 300,000 transactions per second (TPS).

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Godfrey Benjamin