Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Developing New Programming Language

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson announced on Sunday that he is personally developing a new smart contract programming language for the network ¹. Hoskinson revealed the initiative in a post on X, confirming that he is collaborating on the project with Lucas Rosa, a software engineer at Input Output Global who previously co-created Aiken ¹.

The planned language focuses on three cryptographic and execution primitives: transaction intents, proof-carrying data, and Groth16 zero-knowledge proofs ¹. Transaction intents allow users to outline desired state changes while delegating execution paths to applications, while proof-carrying data enables external systems to verify computational validity without re-executing state calculations ¹. The integration of Groth16 systems generates succinct proofs that verify transaction constraints without disclosing underlying private details ¹. By combining these components, developers could create protocols that coordinate complex transactions and pass verifiable states across services, leaving Cardano to validate compact zero-knowledge proofs ¹.

Cardano's Expanding Developer Stack

The development marks an addition to an ecosystem that already supports multiple purpose-built development environments ¹. Cardano developers currently deploy smart contracts using Haskell-based Plutus as well as Aiken ¹. In addition, Input Output Global previously created Compact, a specialized language designed for confidential smart contracts on its privacy-focused Midnight network ¹.

Hoskinson has not yet released the project's name, public codebase, or expected launch timeline ¹. At the time of writing, native asset $ADA traded at $0.2189, down 0.4% over 24 hours.