Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson is writing a new programming language for his blockchain. He says it will be the first to combine what a user wants a transaction to do with cryptographic proof that the rules were followed.
“I’m actually personally developing a programming language for Cardano,” Hoskinson wrote on X on Sunday, adding that he’s working on it with Lucas Rosa, a software engineer at Input Output Global who co-created Aiken, one of Cardano’s main smart contract languages.
That’s not something most founders do once their network is this big. Hoskinson runs a company full of engineers and is still choosing to write the tool future Cardano apps could be built on himself.
The language would support three tools: transaction intents, proof-carrying data and Groth16 proofs.
An intent lets a user say what they want done and leave the steps to the app. A trader could ask to swap one token for another only if the final price meets set conditions, without spelling out how to get there.
Proof-carrying data attaches cryptographic evidence to a piece of information, showing it follows certain rules. Another app can check that evidence without redoing every calculation behind it.
Groth16 is a widely used proof system that produces tiny proofs computers can check quickly. Those proofs can show a condition was met without revealing the private data used to meet it.
Together, they could let developers build apps that coordinate trades, check complicated conditions, and pass verified information between services, with Cardano checking a small proof at the end.
Cardano developers already write smart contracts in Plutus, which is built on the programming language Haskell, and in Aiken. Midnight, the privacy-focused blockchain built by Hoskinson’s company Input Output Global, has its own language, Compact, for apps that handle confidential data.
Meanwhile, Hoskinson hasn’t shared the new language’s name, any public code, or a date when developers can start using it.