Cardano Founder Reveals What’s Next for Hydra After Doom

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson reveals what is next for Hydra after Doom.

Amid crypto’s quest for mass adoption, blockchains are increasingly trying to improve scalability. Among the chains moving the needle in this regard is Cardano.

In December 2024, the network gained significant recognition by shattering the maximum theoretical transactions per second (TPS) record as it showcased the capabilities of its scalability protocol Hydra through a Doom gaming test.

Now, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has offered insights on what’s next for Hydra after Doom.

Hydra Coming to Real Applications

In a video shared with followers on Wednesday, January 8, Hoskinson disclosed that while Doom offered a great way to showcase Hydra’s capabilities, the gaming tournament would come to a close on January 20.

With the end of Doom, Hoskinson reveals that the goal will be to get Hydra integrated into Layer 2 protocols like Anastasia Labs’ Midgard and Sundae Labs’ Gummiworm. From here, the hope is to get Hydra’s capabilities integrated into real applications, including DeFi, payments and gaming experiences.

Interestingly, Hoskinson notes that Anastasia Labs and Sundae Labs have already kicked off work in this regard, with developments around their own Hydra infrastructure.

The Cardano founder noted that there are also plans to initiate a three to six-month research and development collaboration effort between these firms and Input Output, the blockchain’s primary developer.

Meanwhile, Hoskinson contended that there is still lots of work to be done, including unlocking communication between Hydra Heads, which refer to instances of the protocol, integrating zero-knowledge technology, and building out the Hydra Tail protocol. He stressed that the goal was to keep improving Hydra year after year and not to hit some lofty threshold.

What You Need To Know About Hydra Doom

Hydra Doom was a Cardano initiative designed to test its scaling protocol at the extreme using a multiplayer first-person shooter game where every frame represented a transaction, and players were incentivized to deploy multiple Hydra Heads.

In December 2024, this culminated in Cardano recording over 1 million TPS, the highest of any blockchain by far. For context, Chainspect data shows Internet Computer (ICP) as having the highest maximum theoretical TPS with a record near 210,000. Aptos and Solana come second and third with records of 160,000 and 65,000, respectively.

It will be worth watching to see whether Cardano will be able to raise the bar even higher as the Doom tournament continues.

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