Cardano needs 43 TPS to fund staking, but bots outpace real users

Cardano’s staking rewards are 149.6 times larger than the network’s fee revenue. Across 73 epochs ending Sept. 1, 2026, the protocol recorded 493.7 million ADA in rewards against 3.3 million ADA in transaction fees. fact:F1 fact:F2

The gap means the network’s current economic engine does not run on user activity. It runs on reserve emissions. Bitquery’s full-chain count shows transaction volume fell by 72.46%, dropping from 90,294 transactions per day in 2022 to 24,869 in 2026. fact:F3

Activity quality shifted as volume dropped. Under Bitquery’s definition of wallets sending at least 3,000 transactions per month, bots’ share of traffic rose from 11.5% in 2022 to 32.8% in 2026. fact:F4

Closing the gap requires a specific throughput target. Scaling current 2026 traffic by the reward-to-fee ratio produces a requirement of 3.72 million transactions per day, or roughly 43.1 transactions per second. fact:F7 The network’s reserve, holding 6.13 billion ADA or 13.62% of maximum supply, is designed to shrink, forcing fees to cover a larger share of rewards over time. fact:F6

Cardano’s Leios upgrade aims to provide the capacity for this volume. Intersect’s planning document targets code completion in the fourth quarter of 2026, though the mainnet hard-fork date remains undetermined. The economic equation hinges on whether new capacity can attract paid activity, or if the network remains dependent on declining emissions. source:article