The protocol considerably increases scalability, which ensuring low latency of Cardano blockchain.
Furthermore, the protocol also utilizes does not consume large memory of network’s nodes.
The protocol also facilitates creation of apps for micropayments, insurance dealings, voting, and other purposes that necessitate real time trades or low tariffs.
As per IOHK spokesperson, the foundation backing Cardano, Hydra is the outcome of a five-year European Union-funded partnership research endeavor, and could hypothetically boost processing ability to million transactions per second.
Such an output is, as per the spokesperson, in surplus of the prevailing era of global payment platforms.
In Hydra, all clients linking to the network produces 10 heads, which are output pathways for info and trades. Due to that, the platform functions quicker and minimizes its latency on scaling.
Simulations conducted by the University of Edinburgh indicate that every Hydra head can process roughly 1,000 trades per second, but as per the media release, the validation ability can be increased. The media release states:
“With 1000 heads the network could theoretically scale to a million transactions per second – comfortably in excess of current global payment systems such as VISA.”
Additionally, as per the announcement, Hydra is nearing the theoretical maximum number of trades feasible within the restrictions of network celerity, number of stakeholders and geographical distance. The document reads:
“Essentially, the bottleneck becomes the network connection between the participants, not the protocol.”
Aggelos Kiayias, Director of Edinburgh University’s Blockchain Laboratory, gave his opinion on the project:
“Solving the scalability question is the holy grail for the whole blockchain space. The time has come to apply a principled, evidence-based approach in designing and engineering blockchain scalability solutions and this research is a decisive step in this direction.”
Latest info indicates that the Ethereum Foundation has dropped its plan related to second-layer solution, without any kind of official announcement.