Road Map Ouroboros Leios / Input Endorsers

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Hi together!

I already found the explanatory threads about input endorsers. But does anyone know, if there is a road map up to the full introduction of input endorsers?

During the last bullrun, 3…4 years ago, many users were hyped by the introduction of smart contracts and the first DEXes on Cardano. Only to realize few weeks later, that the network’s throughput is not yet suitable for that.

Solana & Co sacrifice decentralization and consensus security for getting higher scaling, compared to Cardano. However, the typical DEX users do not seem to care about that.

I would appreciate to see Cardano being successful on the long run. But if there will be congestion issues again during the currently starting bullrun, all the highly sophisticated science and development will be worthless, and Cardano will disappear at some point.

After some googling around, I have not been able to find some kind of planning, at which point in time input endorsers will be ready to be used on the main chain. To my understanding, the Chang hard fork is only one of the conditions to be fulfilled.

Please correct me if I am wrong, and thanks in advance for answers!

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I’m not working on consensus or scaling personally but I can confirm a similar pipelining effort is being documented in Cardano’s CIP standards process here:

while outlining general approaches to improving transaction frequency and latency here:

(cc @bwbush) Once these methods & problem statements are confirmed by people working in the Consensus field, you will see them posted as officially recognised standards proposals. Work on Leios, though it might be proceeding as described in Design Report attached here, is currently abandoned as far as this standards process is concerned:

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Thanks for your fast answer!

Both sounds interesting! I just read quickly over the IOG article on Ouroboros Peras.

Before reading in more detail, I am sure, that I do not completely get it yet. However, it seems to me, that a fast settlement does not have any impact on TPS. It only means, that the waiting time is decreased, until you can be “sure” that no reorg will have an impact on your transaction anymore.

This is also interesting! It is actually no improvement proposal, but a detailed statement and explanation, why something has to be done, and that there shall be a systematic approach.

Ouroboros Leios, in fact input endorsers, are still the only approach I know, which would have a significant impact on scaling, i.e. TPS. If the work on it is really stopped at the moment, this would be a pity.

I am usually active in a Bitcoin focused forum, but have been interested in Bitcoin and Cardano since 2020. Within the last years, I did not really follow the technological evolution of Cardano.

But my vision has always been, that Bitcoin becomes the digital gold, as well as a fast and privacy-focused electronic cash, by help of second layers like e.g. Lightning. There has to be a maximum focus on safety and decentralization on layer 1.

Cardano on the other side should in my eyes not compete on the “money” use case. But as a smart contract platform with sufficient throughput, and only as much drawback on decentralization and safety as neccessary. This is already an USP, as most other projects do not focus on consensus safety, formal code verification, possibility to operate a own node etc., but on scaling only.

That is why I am really surprised after three years, that the development focus is not really on scaling, but on things like governance. Decentralized governance is surely important on the long run, but if Cardano does not get fast enough, nobody will use it.

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Does anyone else have more information on that, in particular if the work is proceeding, and what are the next steps, until input endorsers could really be used?

I am not into the new governance process yet. But does IOG and the team around Prof. Aggelos Kiayias still have independent financing, or are they already trying to get financed first over the Cardano treasury? In the second case, Ourobors Leios would depend on voting already, if I understand correctly.

I would also be very interested in the general opinion of others! I think scaling is a major, while not the most important, issue for a smart contract platform. So it should get much more attention, shouldn’t it? After the Alonzo hard fork in 2021, the congestion issue was really disappointing.

If some would instead see ADA as a BTC replacement, this could be different, of course. But as explained already, that is not my personal vision about Cardano.

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I think in one of Charles’ AMA he mentioned that IOG were already building an Agda specification for Leios which will speed up implementation just like the Agda spec did for Peras. But I think he said that Leios on mainnet would still be a bit over a year away.

Something that is good about the current situation is that there is a degree of pressure to scale using layer 2 solutions like Hydra, Midguard, Gummiworm, ZK roll-ups etc. These solutions don’t bloat the base layer resulting in blockchain growth to Petabytes like Solana.

In the long run it seems good that options such as Hydra can provide solutions for stock market high frequency trading with only the commits and de-commits being recorded on the Cardano base layer. This contrasts starkly with Solana where all the micro bot trades, as well as all node gossip conensus transactions, are stored in its base layer chain. It seems impossible to have inclusive accountability on Solana with its blockchain already hundreds of TB in size.

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Input endorsers are a key component for Cardano’s scalability, but their full introduction on the main chain is not yet complete. The Chang hard fork is an important step in this direction, but we will still have to wait for Cardano to go through the testing and optimization phases before rolling out this feature on a large scale.

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