IOR Cardano Vision Work Program 2026: Mid-Year report (Draft)
Dear Cardano community,
Input Output Research (IOR) is pleased to submit the draft of the IOR Cardano Vision and Work Program 2026 Mid-Year report to Intersect this July.
Cardano Vision launched in January 2025 as a multi-year initiative grounded in peer-reviewed science, designed to secure Cardano’s long-term leadership in scalability, sustainability, and security. As we cross the mid-way mark of 2026, this report provides a comprehensive overview of the progress, academic outputs, and milestones delivered during the first half of the year (H1).
Our work continues to operate across Software Readiness Levels (SRL), bridging the gap between formal models, rigorous proofs, and eventual real-world implementation by the builder ecosystem.
Over the last six months, IOR has advanced critical research streams that reinforce Cardano’s structural position. We are proud to report that we have published [X] papers during the first half of 2026, tracking steadily toward our annual targets.
Highlights from H1 2026 include:
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The MEV and mempool partitioning assessment, delivered in Q1 with an interactive visualizer, found that only around 2.6% of mainnet transaction volume is realistically exploitable to front-running.
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Zero-knowledge (ZK) verification infrastructure for Cardano layer 1 (L1), delivered in Q2, including a Groth16-to-BLS12-381 converter and a cost estimator for Halo2 proof verification.
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Peras voting-certificate research handed over to the implementation team, alongside the earlier Leios handover.
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The Fee Market Design specification progressed to a draft Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP1194), the program’s first CIP-ready recommendation of the year.
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Fee market simulations show a reduction in urgent transaction latency by around 18% and lift retained value by around 7 percentage points under congestion conditions.
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A trustless, multi-party atomic-swap implementation, delivered in Q2 and validated across Bitcoin and Cardano testnets.
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The Governance domain-specific language (DSL) is progressing ahead of plan, with an end-to-end proposal-and-voting flow tested on a local devnet.
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Proof-of-personhood research confirming that key zero-knowledge components can be verified on-chain using Cardano’s native cryptographic capabilities
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The Cavefish light-client prototype, delivered in Q1, with the research paper now under submission.
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Continued dissemination through the regular Cardano R&D Sessions and the launch of a new partner technical-workshop series, launched in July with a focus on zero knowledge (ZK) verification.
The Cardano community’s active participation and peer review are essential to ensuring our science-led research translates into practical guidance for builders, DReps, and SPOs alike.
The IOR team now invites you to review the full draft report and share your feedback here on the Cardano Forum. Your insights are invaluable as we refine these frameworks and coordinate our priorities for the remainder of 2026.
Review period: July 16 to July 30, 2026
Draft report link: Cardano Vision 2026 Mid-Year Progress & Transparency Report (Draft)
We look forward to your thoughts and questions.