IO: Hydra
**Proposal as pdf: [https://ipnso-com.ipns.inbrowser.link/?cid=Qmbk3jHKKLQ1VrniKaD7sGMscJxCKvoXqt1sQoEnRLTku4](https://ipnso-com.ipns.inbrowser.link/?cid=Qmbk3jHKKLQ1VrniKaD7sGMscJxCKvoXqt1sQoEnRLTku4)** **Hydra is the only production-grade Layer 2 on Cardano, already running live workloads for Delta DeFi, Masumi, Intersect, Vtechcom and others.** This proposal funds four workstreams - performance optimization, operational excellence, ecosystem support, and developer experience - delivering a feature-complete and hardened Hydra v2 so we offer a competitive scaling solution to existing builders and new builders adopt Cardano. Hydra delivers sub-second finality, near-zero fees, and high parallel throughput with L1-grade settlement. It unlocks verticals such as institutional and perpetual DEXes, agent-to-agent commerce, micropayments, gaming, point of sale, and verifiable information processing. The work aligns with the treasury's TVL, transaction, active-user, throughput, reliability, and protocol-revenue KPIs, and with Pillars 1, 2, 4, and 5. The ask is **₳5,100,781**. This will be milestone-gated, with independent third-party assurance and Intersect providing administrative treasury governance.
Reasoning
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
Input Output asked for 5,100,000 ADA for continued Hydra development, Cardano's layer 2 head protocol.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Scaling work has to eventually reach users. Hydra has been in development a long time and has taken fair criticism for the distance between the research and anything a normal person can use.
What specifically concerns me
That distance is exactly my concern, and it is my broader concern with Cardano overall. We fund brilliant engineering and then struggle to convert it into applications people touch. Throughput and interoperability decide which chains survive long term, so I am not going to vote against scaling infrastructure. But the value only lands when something is built on it.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Show me applications running on Hydra in production, not benchmarks. The measure of a layer 2 is what runs on it, and that is the number I will be looking at next cycle.