Hoskinson Goes Polyglot: Cardano Founder Hand-Crafts a Language for Intentions and Proofs 🧪

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson disclosed Tuesday that he is personally developing a new programming language for the blockchain, the first of its kind designed to handle intents and proof-carrying data (PCD) using Groth16 proofs. "I'm actually personally developing a programming language for Cardano. It's the first of its kind enabling intents + PCD via Groth16 proofs," Hoskinson wrote, sharing the update publicly without specifying a release timeline.

Groth16 is a zk-SNARK proving system developed by Jens Groth that allows a party to demonstrate knowledge of a witness satisfying an arithmetic circuit without revealing the underlying data. Proof-carrying data extends that capability by allowing proofs to be attached to and verified across sequential computations, enabling developers to chain verifiable steps inside a single application.

Intents, in the blockchain context, refer to a proposed transaction model in which users declare the outcome they want, such as a token swap at a target price, and let a solver or network of solvers determine the optimal execution path. Combining intents with PCD and Groth16 proofs is intended to allow the validity of each step in that execution to be verified cryptographically.

Hoskinson's announcement adds to a slate of technical work he has publicly tracked in recent months across the Cardano ecosystem, though he did not name collaborators or a working title for the language. The disclosure was first shared on his social channels and has since circulated among developer forums. Cardano's native token, $ADA, traded on reported volume after the post without a formal statement from Input Output, the research and engineering firm Hoskinson co-founded. No additional figures, funding totals or launch dates accompanied the announcement.