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About Input Output
Input Output is the core research and development house behind Cardano, responsible for the design and implementation of Ouroboros consensus, the node client, Plutus and Aiken contract tooling, the Lace wallet and the Mithril light client. Cardano runs proof-of-stake Ouroboros Praos, assigning block production by stake, separating settlement from computation and verifying scripts and ledger rules with formal methods. The firm also develops Midnight, a privacy partner chain that combines zero-knowledge proofs with a dual-ledger design for selective disclosure.
Its role is the translation layer from protocol research to shipping code, with output entering the ecosystem as open source and papers while commercial projects build on those components. Ouroboros Leios raises throughput through endorser blocks and committee validation; CIP-164 has been merged and the related proposal passed a DRep vote with 84%. Throughput has long sat at roughly a dozen transactions per second, and Hydra scales through separate heads whose liquidity is fragmented from one another.
On 22 April 2026 Input Output filed nine treasury proposals asking for roughly half of the previous cycle, centred on the Leios consensus upgrade; on 23 June the Musashi Dojo public testnet for Leios opened, the first time the protocol ran on a live network, with IO operating the chain and independent stake pool operators running Leios-enabled block producers.
Input Output's second-quarter delivery also included stable node releases 10.7.1 and 11.0.1, LSM cutting resident memory by about 65%, Mithril's zero-knowledge proof work moving from prototype to testnet, and two Hydra node releases adding partial fanout. On governance, DReps ratified IO's 2026 vision proposal with 74.96% support, and a revised stake pool incentive design was presented ahead of a planned CIP this year. IO also closed out the Acropolis and tiered pricing initiatives, returning 4.1 million unspent ada to the treasury. Treasury voting closed on 24 May, and IO stressed that the ask was under half the previous cycle with every milestone tied to third-party assurance. Leios adds endorser blocks and committee validation on top of Praos, targeting a 10 to 65 times throughput increase.
Input Output plans to complete mainnet hard fork readiness for Leios within the year, lift throughput from roughly 800,000 transactions a month toward 27 million, and fill out application capacity with Dijkstra era features and layered scaling.
Charles Hoskinson — Founder & CEO; Ethereum co-founder; founded IOG in 2015 and leads Cardano development.
Jeremy Wood — Co-founder; led early engineering and delivery; has left the company.
Tamara Haasen — President; shapes culture, operations and global expansion.
Gerard Moroney — Chief Commercial Officer; PhD from the University of Liverpool; career in technology consulting and programme management.
Aggelos Kiayias — Chief Scientist; chair in cybersecurity and privacy at the University of Edinburgh.
Jay Angelo — Chief Legal Officer; 15+ years of legal leadership in technology, media and telecom.