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IOR shares Cardano Vision 26 Mid-Year report

Summary:

  • Cardano Vision 26, mid-year checkpoint: the first half of 2026 is complete, and Input Output Research (IOR) is sharing progress across all seven Cardano Vision 26 (CV26) work packages. This is the second of four funding milestones under CV26
  • Draft report open: IOR has submitted a draft mid-year report to Intersect. Community feedback is open on the Cardano Forum until July 30, 2026
  • On track: all seven work packages report on-track status at the halfway point, with both Scalability and Execution, and Applications, Adoption and Liquidity, ahead of plan
  • Delivered ahead of plan: four prototypes shipped in the first half of 2026, the Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) and mempool partitioning assessment, the zero-knowledge (ZK) verification infrastructure for Cardano layer 1, the Cavefish light-client prototype, and a working trustless multi-party atomic-swap implementation
  • Publication momentum: eight peer-reviewed papers were published in the first half of 2026, with a further nine in progress against a full-year target of around 38
  • Translation to engineering: Peras voting-certificate work has moved to the implementation team, alongside a new partner technical-workshop series carrying research specifications toward engineering

Input Output Research (IOR) is sharing its Mid-Year report for Cardano Vision 26 (CV26). This is the second of four funding milestones in the program, and it provides an opportunity to update key stakeholders and the wider Cardano community on progress across all workstreams.

IOR has submitted the draft mid-year report to Intersect in July, 2026. The report covers work performed from January through June 2026 across all seven CV26 work packages, and it details what shipped, what is on track, and where a small number of items carry watch-flags heading into the second half of the year.

We now invite the Cardano community to review the Cardano Vision 26 Mid-Year draft report and share feedback on the Cardano Forum until July 30, during a two-week consultation period prior to final submission.

Why this milestone matters

CV26 funding milestones are structured checkpoints, independent of the 42 deliverables IOR has committed to under the proposal. Meeting a milestone does not replace deliverable progress. It demonstrates it. This mid-year report shows how work across the portfolio is tracking against the plan and provides the community with visibility into where things stand before submission to Intersect.

A work program built around seven packages

CV26 organizes research and validation into seven work packages (WP), each with its own leads, programs, and deliverables committed to in the approved proposal:

  • WP1. Trust, Security and Reliability infrastructure: enterprise-grade resilience and continuous availability of the base layer.
  • WP2. Scalability and Execution Layer: increased throughput and execution capacity across layer 1 (L1) and layer 2 (L2), while preserving settlement guarantees.
  • WP3. Developer Platform and User Experience: reduced friction for builders and users.
  • WP4. Applications, Adoption and Liquidity: increased on-chain demand, capital inflows, and real-world usage.
  • WP5. Economic Systems and Incentives: aligned, sustainable economics across treasury, validators, and protocol revenue.
  • WP6. Governance, Identity and Social Infrastructure: robust coordination systems, decentralized governance, and identity primitives.
  • WP7. Delivery, Dissemination and Partnerships: the program's delivery backbone, covering coordination, reporting, and dissemination.

Whilst the deliverables committed to in the IOR proposal are independent of the funding milestones, this mid-year report is an opportunity to show progress across the full portfolio and demonstrate that delivery is on track ahead of the third milestone.

Progress across the work program

Trust, security, and reliability

The mempool and Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) assessment landed in Q1, mapping MEV vectors across the EUTXO model with an interactive visualizer. It found that only around 2.6% of transaction volume on mainnet is realistically exploitable, with front-running unprofitable under the tested scenarios. Work also progressed on Linear Leios security and performance analysis, post-quantum verifiable random function (VRF) design, and the Peras voting-certificate paper, which now moves toward implementation alongside a deployment-tailored technical report.

Scalability and the execution layer

The ZK verification infrastructure for Cardano layer 1 was delivered in Q2, including a converter between Groth16 proof systems and a cost estimator for verifying Halo2 proofs on-chain, closing a gap in Cardano's ZK tooling. A major architectural pivot in the pub/sub protocol work, prompted by a formal model that disproved an inherited design assumption, moved the network layer to a simpler, more robust architecture. Fee-market design and simulation work continued, with early results indicating that a priority lane could reduce urgent transaction latency by around 18% under congestion.

Developer platform and user experience

The Cavefish light-client prototype was delivered in Q1, with the research paper now under submission. The verifying optimizing compiler shipped its first certified release, alongside a published proof that its core optimization pass is correct. EasySM's architecture was revised mid-stream, moving its execution environment from Agda to Haskell to progress toward on-chain code generation.

Applications, adoption, and liquidity

A working, trustless, multi-party atomic-swap implementation was delivered in Q2, validated with up to 20 concurrent parties across Bitcoin and Cardano testnets. The Cardinal bridge specification, a trust-minimized Bitcoin bridge design, is now on eprint and under submission. Mithril bridge security work introduced two new circuit-friendly signature constructions, moving toward a recursively verifiable certificate chain.

Economic systems and incentives

Research identified structural issues in the current stake pool operator (SPO) reward mechanism and began work toward a fairer performance factor ahead of Leios. A new multi-resource restaking protocol was developed, improving on existing designs by supporting recovery after extended network disruption. A security framework for proof of useful work (PoUW) mining was also drafted.

Governance, identity, and social infrastructure

The governance domain-specific language (DSL) is ahead of plan, with a working prototype compiling to on-chain governance scripts and an end-to-end proposal-and-voting flow tested on a local devnet. Proof-of-personhood research found that key zero-knowledge components can be verified on-chain using Cardano's native cryptographic capabilities, with two remaining technical gaps being addressed.

Delivery, dissemination, and partnerships

The Cardano R&D Sessions continued on a quarterly cadence, with the CV26 overview session held on May 28, 2026. A new partner technical workshop series has launched to carry research specifications toward engineering handover, piloting from July with a focus on ZK and L2 verification, and scaling from September. Six ecosystem articles were published in the first half of 2026, including one translated into Japanese.

Communication and dissemination

To support this consultation period, IOR dedicated the second Cardano R&D Session on July 16 to the dissemination of the Mid-Year report. Research leads gave a live update on progress across all CV26 work packages and walked through the headline milestones and performance insights covered in this post, giving the community a direct opportunity to ask questions and raise feedback before the report is finalized and submitted to Intersect.

IOR continues to engage the community through the IOG blog, the library of research papers, social media on X and LinkedIn, community forums (Cardano Forum, Discord, Reddit), community events, and academic conferences.

Notable H1 2026 activity includes:

Looking ahead to the second half of 2026

The second half of 2026 turns H1 research into published outputs, prototypes, and CIP-ready recommendations. Priorities include completing the post-quantum security analyses, finishing the Linear Leios security analysis and node-security work, delivering the data-availability and sharding studies, formalizing the succinct-proof and zk-rollup results, producing bridge benchmarks and agent-chain proofs, advancing the SPO-incentive and PoUW analyses, and progressing the Governance DSL and proof-of-personhood work. The partner technical workshop series begins in September, carrying specifications toward the engineering handover.

Have feedback?

Your feedback on this mid-year report is vital to keeping the work program aligned with community priorities. Please review the draft and share feedback on the Cardano Forum before July 30:

Two week review period: July 16 to July 30, 2026

Draft report: Cardano Vision 2026 Mid-Year Progress & Transparency Report (Draft)

We look forward to your insights as we continue to advance Cardano's scalability, sustainability, and security. All plans and features are research-driven and subject to change.

Timelines and product features are not final and are not guaranteed; all future developments are subject to change. IO does not review, approve, monitor, endorse, or make representations with respect to third-party protocols or offerings.

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