IO & VacuumLabs: Enhancing Plutus - Performance, Correctness, and Usability
**Proposal as pdf: [https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=Qmd7G7L6xinunTLU9JorPLYyFCLGRarXEn7RngdNYgNH3B](https://ipnso-com.ipns.dweb.link/?cid=Qmd7G7L6xinunTLU9JorPLYyFCLGRarXEn7RngdNYgNH3B)** This proposal strengthens Cardano’s smart contract platform across three critical and closely connected areas: language capabilities, formal correctness, and developer experience. It funds targeted expansion to the Plutus language with new syntactic forms and new primitives to reduce script costs, improve expressiveness, and unlock more efficient contract patterns; formal specification, conformance testing, and structured security review to support correctness as node diversity grows; and a better compiler and tooling experience that lowers setup friction, improves error reporting, and makes smart contract development more accessible. Together, these workstreams make Plutus cheaper to use, more trustworthy to build on, and easier for developers to adopt, helping Cardano support a broader range of applications while also providing stronger foundations for alternative node implementations and other ecosystem tooling. This is a technical collaboration with Input Output and VacuumLabs, distributing Plutus stewardship across expert teams. Intersect administers funds via milestone-based smart contracts with independent oversight. All unspent funds return to the Treasury. **Treasury Ask:** ₳11,877,575
Reasoning
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
IO and VacuumLabs asked for 11,880,000 ADA to enhance Plutus across performance and correctness.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
Plutus is where smart contracts live. If it is slow or awkward, developers leave for chains where it is not, and no amount of marketing fixes that.
What specifically concerns me
Plutus improvement has been funded repeatedly across cycles. At some point continuous enhancement needs to show up as developers choosing Cardano who otherwise would not have. That is the metric, not internal benchmark improvements.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Tie the next ask to developer adoption numbers. How many teams shipped on Plutus this year versus last. That converts an engineering line item into an argument anyone can follow.