Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Cardano, has dismissed rumors suggesting the abandonment of its Hydra layer-2 scaling project for the network. The IOHK chief executive addressed the issue on March 18, clarifying that developers are still actively working on the project despite speculation suggesting otherwise.
“I’ve noticed some videos circulating claiming that Hydra has been abandoned,” Hoskinson stated, refuting the claims as mere fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). A screenshot of Hoskinson’s post on X confirmed his statement.
Hydra, the Cardano-based protocol, was launched in May 2023 with the aim of enhancing transaction processing capacity and reducing transaction costs on the Cardano blockchain. It is a crucial component of Cardano’s roadmap, particularly under the “Basho” phase, which focuses on scaling.
However, on March 17, YouTube channel “The Cryptoviser” uploaded a video suggesting that Cardano had shifted its focus away from Hydra. This was based on Hoskinson’s announcement of an integration with Hyperledger Firefly, a scaling solution geared towards providing a technology stack for enterprises to build and scale Web3 applications, made on March 13.
Hoskinson reassured his 980,000 followers on X that the team is highly productive and motivated, with active community engagement and plans for protocol enhancements in the pipeline. He emphasized that the rumors of Hydra’s abandonment were unfounded.
This isn’t the first time Hoskinson has had to address FUD surrounding Hydra. In October, he posted a video highlighting Hydra’s capabilities as a scaling solution for Cardano and defending against criticism regarding network scaling. He clarified that Cardano operates on a transaction-per-transaction basis rather than focusing solely on transactions per second (TPS). Additionally, he mentioned Hydra’s evolution to provide middleware for developers to build decentralized applications (DApps) for Cardano.
Recently, on March 18, Hoskinson once again faced criticism, this time regarding Cardano’s collaboration with the digital ID platform World Mobile and its scaling roadmap. He condemned what he referred to as a “wave of FUD” surrounding these issues.
Despite challenges, Cardano has witnessed growth in decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked (TVL) this year, reaching an all-time high of $520 million on March 14, according to DefiLlama. However, it still lags behind competitors like Ethereum, Tron, BNB Smart Chain, and Solana, which collectively boast a TVL of $72 billion.
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