Cardano Community Cheers Hoskinson’s New “Faster Progress” Strategy

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has announced a shift in the project’s development model for 2025. This new approach introduces agile engineering teams, primarily to achieve faster execution of Cardano’s development goals. A key milestone for these teams is the delivery of the Ouroboros Leios protocol, now targeted for 2026.

Since its inception, Cardano has followed a , prioritizing safety and academic rigor. While this strategy ensured high standards in code quality and network stability, it came at the cost of slower feature rollouts and limited community involvement.

In his tweet, Hoskinson that the early model, although effective for secure development, isolated contributors and slowed Cardano’s growth. Hoskinson explained that the original development team didn’t want deadlines, prioritized ideal practices, and took a long-term view, often thinking about years or decades.

While this approach helped Cardano maintain strong security standards during widespread unsafe development in the industry, it also slowed progress and limited the project’s ability to grow and adapt.

Cardano now brings in smaller, independent development teams. This structural change aims to improve delivery speed and encourage more diverse contributions to the ecosystem. Groups like Aiken and Midgard are contributing to the ecosystem alongside IOG’s formal methods group, which continues to use Agda for secure implementations.

This multi-client and multi-team strategy allows competing ideas and designs to coexist, providing flexibility for new protocols and use cases. “We are opening up the ecosystem,” Hoskinson said, “augmented with small agile teams… while preserving the knowledge and rigor of our formal methods.”

In response to community concerns about the termination of key team contracts, Hoskinson offered a direct explanation. “Because I want Leios in 2026, not 2028,” he . “No more games or delays. Cardano needs to get to the next level.”

Notably, Ouroboros Leios is a key scalability upgrade expected to significantly enhance transaction throughput and network efficiency.

Cardano community members have responded positively to the changes. A commenter, Hudhra Nomi, the progress made in areas like scalability (Leios, Hydra), interoperability (IBC, Bitcoin integrations), and governance (Chang upgrade, New Constitutional Layer). “I think we’re moving much faster than before,” he said.