In a discussion with Cardano community member Big Pey, Fergie from Input Output Global’s (IOG) research division revealed the full scope of Cardano’s proposed roadmap through 2030. The plan, spanning nine research areas and 34 workstreams, seeks to establish Cardano as a leading blockchain platform capable of supporting global-scale decentralized applications, advanced tokenomics, and post-quantum resilience.
The multi-year research agenda, now open for community feedback, is designed to run parallel with Voltaire-era governance and aims to deliver foundational breakthroughs in protocol design, scalability, interoperability, and security. “The proposal that we have out for the community for discussion and debate… reflects a one-year program, but that one-year program sits within a five-year Cardano vision,” Fergie explained.
Cardano’s Ouroboros Mega And Leios
At the heart of the roadmap is Ouroboros Mega, described as the final major upgrade of Cardano’s consensus protocol lineage. Following iterations from Classic to Praos and Genesis, Ouroboros Mega comprises seven specialized workstreams intended to advance Cardano’s settlement speed, fairness, and resilience.
The streams include Peras for faster settlement, Leios to increase throughput, fair transaction processing for smaller stake pool operators (SPOs), Byzantine-resilient networking, multi-resource consensus, proof of useful work, congestion control, and sharding. “These are core capabilities that allow us to strengthen the protocol, making it faster, fairer, and more secure,” Fergie emphasized.
With Ouroboros research dating back to 2015 and over 3,000 academic citations, IOG views Mega as a capstone of years of protocol development. “This work has catalyzed a market cap that’s tens of billions of dollars. It really tells the story of what research does,” Fergie noted.
Leios—one of the most anticipated innovations—targets throughput increases necessary for global adoption. While technical specifics remain under wraps, Leios is already moving from research into prototyping. “The objective is to get high throughput, more blocks being processed faster, to provide more scale into the Cardano network,” Fergie confirmed, acknowledging that full development could take another year or two.
Leios sits among six innovation streams prioritized for fast-tracked development, including anti-grinding security measures, fast BFT for partner chain finality, recursive SNARKs aggregation (OurSnark), and Proof of Restake, which aims to strengthen consensus mechanisms.
Quantum Readiness And Global Adoption
IOG’s roadmap also directly addresses long-term technological threats and opportunities, including the rise of quantum computing. A dedicated post-quantum research area is included, prompted by major developments from firms like Google and Microsoft. “Every time there’s a big announcement from Google or Microsoft, we get a lot of interest in those [quantum] workstreams,” Fergie noted.
Zero-knowledge capabilities represent another pillar of the plan. “We have strategic projects around ZK-Labs, Halo 2, and other applications of zero-knowledge proofs,” Fergie added. These are designed to enhance privacy, scalability, and verification efficiency across Cardano’s ecosystem.
The roadmap expands Cardano’s scope beyond financial applications, envisioning it as a “world operating system” for decentralized applications and digital governance. Tokenomics, global identity, and democracy research form critical parts of the plan, reflecting the network’s ambitions to support digital nation-states and on-chain democratic systems.
“Tokenomics is still very under-researched. The tokenomics we have in Cardano needs foundational research to develop a pathway for sustainability over the next 10 to 20 years,” Fergie warned.
IOG asserts that its blockchain research network is the largest and most prolific in the industry, with 238 academic papers published to date—50 of which have been foundational to Cardano’s development. “Last year we produced 37 papers involving 77 researchers and attended 25 leading academic conferences,” Fergie stated.
The research network spans in-house experts, embedded academics at global universities, and specialized blockchain labs in Edinburgh, Tokyo, and Wyoming. Collaborations extend to Stanford and over a dozen institutions worldwide. “By those metrics, we would argue that we’re the leading blockchain research group worldwide,” Fergie claimed.
The 2030 vision is currently under review by the Intersect Product Committee, with a proposed budget covering 20 research and six innovation streams for Work Program 2025. “We’re mindful that Voltaire introduces new decentralized governance challenges, especially around budget approvals. The 2025 budget is likely to be signed in Q2 but could be delayed,” Fergie admitted.
Despite the complexity, IOG stresses that the shift toward decentralized governance is necessary. “It’s more important to do things right and do them well than rush these things,” Fergie said.
With the research proposal live on Intersect’s forums and research working group pages, IOG is actively seeking community input. “We’re inviting discussion, feedback, and criticism. We know we don’t do everything as well as we could, and we’re open to improving,” Fergie stated.
At press time, ADA traded at $0.7685.
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