Cardano's Layer 2 solution Midgard achieves significant progress, according to Charles Hoskinson, who declares that all anticipated milestones have been met.
In a significant step forward for the Cardano scaling roadmap, the functional operation of Midgard, a Layer-2 project, has been announced. Midgard, a Cardano-native optimistic rollup, aims to let developers redeploy existing dApps without rewriting for a new execution environment.
Midgard's functional node supports live pathways for settling state on Layer-1 and finalizing state commitments. This design ensures ultimate security and finality derive from the L1, as the canonical state of Midgard is anchored to Cardano's base layer.
The public Catalyst page emphasizes isomorphism with Cardano's eUTxO model, suggesting that dApps could potentially redeploy to Midgard using the same code and tooling. Midgard's X profile characterizes it as "tokenless," avoiding cross-chain bridges, and focusing on developer ergonomics.
Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, has shown interest in Midgard, tying it to the network's broader scaling narrative. Hoskinson's post signals executive-level attention on Midgard's progress, and the mention of Midgard's positioning and engineering artifacts provides additional documentary evidence of Midgard's progress.
Midgard's engineering artifacts have been progressing under a transparent grant framework through Cardano's community treasury process. Anastasia Labs received ₳500,000 from Cardano's community treasury for an open-source build-out of Midgard, with milestone plans ranging from architecture specifications to an L2 node MVP.
Transactions on the Midgard Layer-2 can be executed at lightning speeds with low latency. The results of transactions on Midgard are displayed in real-time in a wallet (a fork of Lace).
The next engineering checkpoints for Midgard include the delivery of L1 deposits and withdrawals, and the forced transaction inclusion mechanism, a significant upcoming feature designed to mitigate sequencer censorship in rollup ecosystems.
At press time, ADA traded at $0.8759. The Midgard project within the Cardano network serves as an essential component for enabling Layer-2 roll-up technology by providing efficient data indexing and querying capabilities, achieving improved scalability, faster access to on-chain data, and seamless integration with decentralized applications.
As Midgard continues to progress, it could materially change Cardano's throughput profile if progress is sustained. The public Catalyst page, last updated in mid-2025, lists workstreams and partial disbursements related to Midgard's development.
The functional operation of Midgard is a testament to the ongoing efforts to scale Cardano and enhance its capabilities for developers and users alike.
