Hydra
๐ Introduction
Hydra is the layer-two scalability solution for Cardano, which aims to increase the speed of transactions (low latency, high throughput) and minimize transaction cost.
This repository contains the proof-of-concept implementation for the Hydra Head
protocol. It is a developer preview that
we've put together, marching towards a production ready solution. It contains a
hydra-node
, which runs a simplified (coordinated) Hydra Head protocol,
connects to other hydra-nodes, interfaces the Cardano blockchain and provides an
API to clients such as the included example terminal user interface hydra-tui
.
โ ๏ธ โ ๏ธ โ ๏ธ This is still prototypical and exploratory work shared here for your interest.
It is NOT ready for production (yet).
๐ Getting started
The quickest way to get a hydra-node
running is to use our docker
images.
docker pull ghcr.io/input-output-hk/hydra-node:0.8.1
docker run --rm ghcr.io/input-output-hk/hydra-node --help
More information (including a demo) available on user manual
๐ Features
Proof of concept:
- Coordinated Hydra Head protocol
- Single Head per hydra-node
- Network statically configured, direct TCP connections
- WebSocket, message-based API Server
- Terminal user interface client
- Cardano-node integration via Direct connection
- Running on testnet
- Persisted Head state
Later:
- Audited and mainnet ready
- Multiple Heads per hydra-node, managed via API
- Support for external wallets (e.g. hardware wallets)
- Optimistic Head closure and incremental de-/commit protocol extension
- Relay-capable, mesh network
๐ค Contributing
The best way to contribute right now is to provide feedback. Give the demo a test drive and have a look at our documentation. Should you have any questions, ideas or issues, we would like to hear from you:
- #ask-hydra on the IOG Discord server
- create a Github Discussion or Issue
- or ask on Cardano StackExchange using the
hydra
tag
When contributing to this project and interacting with others, please follow our Contributing Guidelines and Code of Conduct.
Thanks for visiting and enjoy