Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson is creating a new programming language for the blockchain that aims to combine transaction requests with cryptographic proofs. The project remains in development, with no official name, technical documentation or release date announced.
Hoskinson revealed the initiative in a post on X on Sunday, explaining that he is personally developing the language alongside Lucas Rosa, an Input Output Global software engineer who helped create Aiken, a major smart contract language used within the Cardano ecosystem.
Rather than leaving the entire project to his engineering team, Hoskinson is directly involved in building a tool that could influence how developers create the next generation of Cardano applications.
The language is expected to bring together three key technologies: transaction intents, proof-carrying data and Groth16 cryptographic proofs.
Transaction intents allow users to specify the result they want instead of detailing every action needed to achieve it. For instance, someone trading tokens could set a requirement that a swap only execute if the final price meets a particular threshold. The application would handle the steps needed to fulfil that request.
Proof-carrying data adds cryptographic evidence to information, allowing other applications to confirm that it satisfies specific rules without repeating the calculations used to generate it.
Groth16, meanwhile, is an established zero-knowledge proof system capable of producing small proofs that can be verified quickly. It allows a system to demonstrate that a condition has been met without exposing the sensitive information behind the proof.
Integrating these features could enable Cardano developers to build applications that handle complex transactions, enforce specific conditions and share verified data between services. Instead of repeating all the underlying computations, the network could verify a compact proof confirming that the required rules were followed.
Cardano currently offers two prominent options for smart contract development: Plutus, which is based on Haskell, and Aiken. Input Output Global’s privacy-focused blockchain, Midnight, also has a dedicated programming language called Compact for developing applications that process confidential data.
Despite the announcement, important details about Hoskinson’s latest project remain undisclosed. He has not revealed the language’s name, released public source code or specified when developers will be able to begin using it.
