Multiple news outlets have announced that Cardano went live with its first Hydra Head. People seem excited about this development but what exactly is it and how does this affect you? Read on to find out
What is Hydra
There is a more technical explanation in the IOG website but in layman’s terms, Hydra is a series of protocols that will make the Cardano network faster. The Hydra Head is the first protocol that is being put in place. It works like a mini offline ledger that can be accessed by a small number of participants.
How Does it Affect Me?
As a Cardano investor, expect the following benefits:
1. Concept Validation – the successful running of the first Hydra Head on the Cardano Mainnet proves that the concept works and the team are on the right track. They can then safely move on to the next stage of development.
2. Transaction Speeds – the network as a whole would not yet have any noticeable speed increase. This should happen as more Hydra heads are added and transaction traffic are redirected to these heads freeing up the network, Nevertheless, the direct participants of the first Hydra Head should already see some transaction speed improvements.
3.. More Use Cases – with the validation of the Hydra concept, developers can now dream bigger. Having real-time transaction processing without any fear of network congestion is now becoming a reality. With final implementation of Hydra projected to be having transactions per second several times faster than Visa, the sky is the limit for future real-time transaction apps.
4. Price – for investors interested in price movement, the good news is the market has reacted positively to the news of the Hydra Head going live. Price has not gone up exponentially, but it has been seeing moderate gains over the last few days. Personally, I prefer long, consistent gains like this one as they tend to be better in the long run compared to large price swings which may just bring back the price to where it was before or sometimes even lower.
5. Usage – the good thing about this change is the general public do not need to do anything. As more Hydra Heads pop up in the future, the network speed will increase without any need of intervention from normal Cardano users.
Summary
In summary, the news of the first Hydra head on Mainnet is a positive one. This shows that the team is going in the right direction and paves the way to more increases in network speed as more Hydra heads goes live in the future. The market has taken the news positively with ADA price going up steadily. The beauty of all this development is you don’t need to do anything as all these changes are transparent to Cardano investors.
This is truly good news for all Cardano lovers!
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