Cardano Treasury

IO & Partners: Enhancing Plutus - Performance, Correctness, and Usability

IO & Partners: Enhancing Plutus - Performance, Correctness, and Usability: ₳2.61M paid of ₳11.5M from Cardano's treasury, through Intersect Treasury Contracts 2, in 20 payments. The next payment unlocks 30 Nov 2026.

Approved by IO & VacuumLabs: Enhancing Plutus - Performance, Correctness, and Usability.

About the project

Formal specification and correctness. Build a property-based conformance testing framework extending the current test suite, enabling alternative Plutus evaluators to verify correctness against the canonical implementation. Run a systematic security and correctness audit of security-critical code (Plutus evaluator and costing). Formalize built-in types and functions in the Plutus metatheory. Developer tooling. Deliver a new compiler and optimizer architecture that improves code optimization, produces clearer source-level error messages, and reduces boilerplate. Simplify development environment setup, removing the need for tools like Nix or manual dependency installation. Performance. Deliver Plutus optimizations that reduce script overhead by roughly 25%.

Payments

  1. m-0: M1.1 MS 0 - Project kickoff & resource mobilisation — ₳2.61M, Paid 6 Aug 2026
  2. m-1: M2.1 MS 1 - Poseidon Builtin — ₳998K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Nov 2026
  3. m-2: M2.2 MS 2 - UPLC Casing on Builtin Data — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Jan 2027
  4. m-3: M2.3 MS 3 - Implement CIP-0156 multiIndexArray — ₳998K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Nov 2026
  5. m-4: M2.4 MS 4 - Costing, Verification, Docs for CIP-0156 — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Jan 2027
  6. m-5: M2.5 MS 5 - Implement CIP-0168 BuiltinValue Functions — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Nov 2026
  7. m-6: M2.6 MS 6 - Costing, Verification, Docs for CIP-0168 — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Jan 2027
  8. m-7: M2.7 - MS 7 Exploring Laziness and Memoization in UPLC — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 29 May 2027
  9. m-8: M2.8 - MS 8 - Investigate Removal of the UPLC Scope Check — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Nov 2026
  10. m-9: M.3.1 MS 9 - Plutus Conformance Property Testing Framework — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Jan 2027
  11. m-10: M3.2 - MS 10 - Comp. Property Test Suite for UPLC Conf. — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 29 May 2027
  12. m-11: M3.3 - MS 11 - Formalize Plutus Programmatic Builtins in Agda — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Jan 2027
  13. m-12: M3.4 - MS 12 - Integrate Formalized Builtins Plutus Conf. Test — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 29 May 2027
  14. m-13: M3.5 - MS 13 - Security & Correctness Audit of Plutus Evaluator — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Jan 2027
  15. m-14: M3.6 - MS 14 - Security Audit of the Plutus Costing Model Imp. — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 29 May 2027
  16. m-15: M4.1 - MS 15 - Proof-of-Concept standalone Plinth compiler — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Nov 2026
  17. m-16: M4.2 - MS 16 - Imp. Plinth dev. exp: less boilerplate (pragmas) — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Jan 2027
  18. m-17: M4.3 - MS 17-Imp. Plinth dev. exp: less boilerplate, diagnostics — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 29 May 2027
  19. m-18: M4.4 - MS 18 - Multi-GHC Version Support & Documentation — ₳404K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Nov 2026
  20. m-19: M4.5 - MS 19 - Zero-Setup Plinth: Removing Nix & C Library Req. — ₳451K, Scheduled, unlocks 30 Jan 2027