Cardano dismisses speculation of abandoning its scaling initiative, Hydra

Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Cardano, has dismissed rumors that the Hydra layer-2 scaling project for the network has been abandoned. On March 18, Hoskinson clarified on social media that developers are still actively working on the project and labeled the rumors as “pure FUD” (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). The Hydra protocol, which was launched in May 2023, aims to improve transaction processing capacity and lower costs on the Cardano blockchain. It is an integral part of Cardano’s scaling roadmap known as “Basho.” These rumors surfaced after an integration announcement with Hyperledger Firefly, a scaling solution for building and scaling Web3 applications. However, Hoskinson assured his followers that the team is highly productive, motivated, and actively working on improving the protocol. This is not the first time Hoskinson has defended Hydra against misinformation. In October, he addressed criticism regarding network scaling and highlighted Hydra’s role in developing middleware for decentralized applications on Cardano. Despite recent gains in decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked, Cardano still trails behind competitors like Ethereum, Tron, BNB Smart Chain, and Solana.