Built by many.
Owned by all.

The next evolution of Input Output Engineering.

Cardano Decentralization

Cardano's protocol and governance are already decentralized. Now its engineering is too. The node, Plutus, Hydra, Daedalus, the tools developers rely on: more of it is built and owned by specialist partners every quarter, each working alongside IO Labs with Intersect keeping the whole thing coordinated. Built by many. Owned by all.

Explore what we build

Working with trusted specialist partners across the ecosystem

Decentralization, made real.

Cardano's protocol is decentralized. Its governance is decentralized. Now its engineering bench is too. Specialist partners scale delivery across dedicated layers of the stack, working alongside IO Labs and administered through Intersect. Same accountability, broader bench, faster shipping. Meet the teams.

Explore what we build

Live infrastructure. Scaling fast.

Products, protocols, and infrastructure live on Cardano. More shipping across 2026.

Ouroboros Leios

The next consensus protocol for Cardano. Higher throughput, parallel block production. In active development by IO Research and IO Engineering.

Ouroboros Leios

Hydra

Cardano's L2 scaling protocol. Off-chain state channels for high-throughput, low-cost transactions, settled with Cardano's security.

Hydra

Cardano High Assurance

Formal verification for production Cardano. Automated tooling that proves smart contracts behave as intended, integrated across the major contract languages. Delivered by IO Research with Lantr, Harmonic Labs, SAIB, Midgard Labs, No.Witness Labs, and TxPipe.

Cardano High Assurance

Daedalus

Cardano's full-node desktop wallet. Self-custodial, with the entire chain on your machine.

Daedalus

Mithril

Lightweight, certified snapshots of the Cardano blockchain. Faster node bootstrapping and trustless data for light clients. Stewarded by Teragone Solutions.

Mithril

LayerZero & USDT

Native USDT on Cardano via LayerZero. Cross-chain liquidity, settled with Cardano's security.

LayerZero & USDT

USDCx

Stable on-chain dollars on Cardano. Native USDC for the whole ecosystem. Live.

USDCx

Core Tech

The core stack every Cardano application runs on.

Core Tech

Plutus

Cardano's native smart contract platform. Functional, formally verifiable, production-grade. Co-developed by IO Engineering and VacuumLabs.

Plutus

Cardano Upgrades

Pay transaction fees in any native asset, not just ada. Unlocks micro-payments, stablecoin-only flows, and friction-free onboarding. In active development.

Cardano Upgrades

Developer Experience

An initiative that unites seven coordinated workstreams to make building on Cardano fast, intuitive, and rewarding from the very first command. With unified tooling, clear documentation, and a smooth onboarding path, developers can move from idea to live DApp quickly and confidently, accelerating what the whole ecosystem can build next.

Developer Experience

Maintenance

Continuous engineering and security for the Cardano node. Upgrades, patches, and protocol hardening that keep mainnet running. Delivered by IO Engineering with Bcryptic, Dquadrant, Quviq, and Ensurable Systems.

Maintenance

IO Labs

Research to production, under one roof.

IO Labs is where IO's research, applied engineering, and creative engineering come together under one roof. It carries work across the full technology readiness spectrum: foundational cryptographic research, validated through applied engineering, hardened into production-ready code, then built into the ventures and open-source contributions the wider ecosystem runs on. Evidence-based, open, and built to last. Beyond Cardano, IO Labs works with teams across the industry on the problems no single team should solve alone: post-quantum security, consensus research, and the open questions that belong to everyone.

Learn More

Momentum on Cardano

Growth on Cardano's network.

See what we build

122.7m +

On-chain transactions

2,696

Active stake pools

1,062

Registered DReps

11.1m +

Tokens

Built by many.Owned by all.

Cardano Decentralization

Working with trusted specialist partners across the ecosystem

Live infrastructure. Scaling fast.

Ouroboros Leios

Ouroboros Leios

Hydra

Hydra

Cardano High Assurance

Cardano High Assurance

Daedalus

Daedalus

Mithril

Mithril

LayerZero & USDT

LayerZero & USDT

USDCx

USDCx

Core Tech

Core Tech

Plutus

Plutus

Cardano Upgrades

Cardano Upgrades

Developer Experience

Developer Experience

Maintenance

Maintenance

IO Labs

Momentum on Cardano

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Built by many.
Owned by all.