Cardano’s Layer-2 protocol Hydra recently achieved a significant milestone by surpassing 1 million transactions per second (TPS) during its Doom gaming tournament. The founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, took to social media on Dec. 4 to share screenshots confirming the network had crossed the 1 million TPS mark globally, as part of the ongoing tournament to test Hydra’s scalability.
Hoskinson explained that the high TPS was driven by processing each game frame as a transaction, showcasing Hydra’s capability to handle substantial transaction volumes. Official data shows a current TPS of 507 and a peak of over 807,000, positioning Hydra far ahead of competing blockchain networks like Solana and Ethereum. In fact, Hydra’s test outperformed Solana’s theoretical maximum TPS of 65,000 by over 100x, according to Chainspect.
Advocates like Josh Marchand, a software engineer at Sundaeswap, highlighted the limitless scalability potential of Hydra, stating that the beauty of Hydra lies in its capacity for horizontal scaling until running out of resources. However, critics like crypto analyst Goku pointed out that the transactions processed during the Doom tournament were not settled on Cardano’s mainnet but were part of a testnet simulation.
Launched last year, Hydra is a Layer-2 scaling solution aimed at enhancing Cardano’s scalability by boosting transaction speeds and throughputs while reducing latency and costs. Despite facing some criticism, Hoskinson has defended Hydra’s progress, with the Doom tournament serving as an effective showcase to demonstrate its capabilities.
The recent development aligns with a strong market trend for Cardano, which has experienced a significant surge over the past few weeks. ADA has surged over 250% in the last 30 days, reaching a two-year high of over $1.29 before retracing slightly to $1.18. The Cardano network is also witnessing increased DeFi activity, with the total value locked on the platform nearing a record $700 million. These advancements come as the platform continues to advance its decentralized governance efforts.
The ongoing discussions at the Constitutional Convention, as highlighted by the Cardano Foundation, underscore the importance of community-driven decisions and reflect efforts to build a more robust and resilient ecosystem.
As of press time on Dec. 4, 2024, Cardano is ranked #8 by market cap, with the price down 1.76% over the past 24 hours. Cardano boasts a market capitalization of $41.25 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $2.83 billion. In the broader crypto market, the total market value stands at $3.59 trillion, with a 24-hour volume of $284.02 billion and Bitcoin dominance at 54.64%.
In conclusion, Hydra’s achievement in surpassing 1 million TPS underscores its potential to revolutionize Cardano’s scalability and transaction processing capabilities, while the platform’s overall market performance and ecosystem growth signal a bullish outlook for the future.