Cardano's Peras proposal would cut waiting for near-certainty from hours to minutes

Cardano currently offers probabilistic settlement rather than hard finality. An $ADA transaction becomes progressively safer as more blocks are added on top of it, but near-certainty can take hours under the existing Ouroboros Praos protocol. A proposed upgrade aims to compress that wait to around two minutes.

What Peras Does

The proposal, filed as CIP-140 and called Ouroboros Peras, adds a voting overlay to the existing Ouroboros Praos chain selection mechanism, with stake-pool committees voting on recent chain tips so that sufficiently supported tips can reach settlement sooner. The protocol does not change how blocks are produced. The result is faster confirmation confidence without a redesign of the underlying consensus engine.

Peras is part of Cardano's broader Dijkstra era, a two-phase upgrade plan. While Leios primarily addresses throughput and transaction-processing capacity, Peras focuses on settlement speed and confirmation confidence. The two upgrades are intentionally separate: Linear Leios will increase throughput through supplementary Endorser Blocks alongside existing Praos Ranking Blocks, referencing additional transactions that the network can process after certification, allowing Cardano to expand transaction capacity without relying on larger blocks or faster slots.

Timeline and Governance

Phase 2, targeted for Q2 2027, will activate Peras (CIP-140), adding a stake-pool voting layer designed to accelerate settlement finality. Importantly, these are code-completion targets, not promised mainnet dates. Following pre-production testing, Cardano plans to submit a mainnet governance action for approval by DReps, stake pool operators, and the Constitutional Committee, with the upgrade proceeding to mainnet activation only after the governance process receives the required ratification.

The Leios side of the equation is also progressing. IOG has submitted a treasury proposal for 27.7 million ADA to mature Ouroboros Leios from a testnet prototype into a mainnet-ready release candidate by late 2026, with the upgrade expected to safely scale Cardano's throughput capacity by 10x to 65x through a phased rollout.

Together, the two upgrades form Cardano's most significant technical evolution in years, targeting both the speed and capacity limitations that have drawn criticism as rival layer-1 networks have scaled aggressively. Whether they ship on schedule will depend on testnet results and the outcome of on-chain governance votes.

Sources:
The Crypto Basic: Cardano Sets Two-Phase Roadmap for Dijkstra Upgrade Through 2027
Blockonomi: Cardano Sets Two-Phase Dijkstra Upgrade With Leios in 2026 and Peras in 2027
Cardano Improvement Proposals: CIP-140 Ouroboros Peras