Cardano refutes rumors it abandoned its scaling project Hydra

Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson has hosed down rumors that suggesting its Hydra layer-2 scaling project for the network had been abandoned. 

On March 18, the IOHK chief executive took to X to confirm that developers had not given up on the project.

“I’m seeing some videos claiming that Hydra has been abandoned,” he said before adding, “It is just pure FUD.”

The Cardano-based protocol Hydra was launched in May 2023 and designed to enhance the transaction processing capacity and decrease transaction costs on the Cardano blockchain. It has been seen as a component of Cardano’s roadmap under “Basho” — which is all about scaling.

However, YouTube channel The Cryptoviser uploaded a video on March 17, claiming that Cardano had “pivoted away from Hydra,” based on Hoskinson announcing an integration with Hyperledger Firefly, a scaling solution that involves delivering a tech stack for enterprises to build and scale Web3 applications, on March 13.

“The team has never been more productive and motivated, there is great community engagement and new papers on the way for enhancements to the protocol,” Hoskinson wrote to his 980,000 followers on X in denying the rumors. 

It wasn’t the first time Hoskinson has had to publicly defend “FUD” over Hydra.

In October, Hoskinson posted a video touting the properties of Hydra as a scaling solution for Cardano, defending against FUD over network scaling, or lack of it.

He refuted criticism regarding throughput at the time, arguing that “Cardano is not a TPS system. It’s a transaction-per-transaction system.”

He added that Hydra had “pivoted a little” and developed middleware for developers to build decentralized applications (DApps) for Cardano.

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Hoskinson again went on the defensive on March 18, lashing out at what he called a “wave of FUD” about its collaboration with digital ID platform World Mobile and its scaling roadmap.

“Man, it’s raining FUD this weekend, and I’m not sure about the origin. I guess it’s that time of the cycle where everyone freaks out about Cardano’s potential and roadmap, so they throw a wave of FUD at us.”

Cardano has seen gains in decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked (TVL) this year, with the figure hitting an all-time high of $520 million on March 14, according to DefiLlama.

However, the network remains way behind its competitors, Ethereum, Tron, BNB Smart Chain and Solana, which have a TVL of $72 billion among them.

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