Cardano co-founder explores Delimited continuations: What does it mean for Cardano? 

The co-founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, got the crypto world excited with just a hint towards the possibility that delimited continuations might be executed into the Cardano blockchain in 2025.

Earlier this month, on Dec. 22, Hoskinson had said 2025 will be ADA’s year. Now, many crypto enthusiasts believe delimited continuations might be the new technological addition that the co-founder had been hinting at. Although such a phrase does sound very hefty to consider, its impacts can indeed reflect a legitimate impression on the execution of Cardano (ADA) and the consequences of its developments and investments.

Next year, Cardano is going to heights it’s never been before. We got Bitcoin DeFi, Midnight, Patnerchains, all the DApp upgrades, Midgard, and some extra magic that we’ll call “the fire rises” pic.twitter.com/ITI6S7mHun

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) December 31, 2024

What are Delimited continuations?

Delimited continuations are a programming construct that allows a programmer to suspend an ongoing computation and later continue it. There is a potential for increased performance and customization in the running of ADA’s smart contracts programs designed to undertake actions fully automatically under certain conditions.

I had a two hour discussion last night about adding delimited continuations to Cardano. Any opinions?

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) December 31, 2024

Hoskinson brought into the limelight two significant use cases of delimited continuations for the ADA ecosystem. First, they may allow differentiation of on-chain (stored on the blockchain) and off-chain (external) computations in zero-knowledge proofs, which are extremely important to the Cardano project Midnight. Second, they can provide a new way of thinking about classical state machine architectures, making it easier to write and execute smart contracts.

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Why this matters to Cardano investors

This exploration for investors means that ADA is innovating in the blockchain space. Improving smart contract capabilities, as Hoskinson has been focusing on, fits into the broader goal of getting more decentralized applications on the platform. A more developer-friendly platform could increase adoption, and this may lead to increased demand for its native cryptocurrency, ADA.

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However, there are challenges. Speaking for his company, Hoskinson mentioned that delimited continuations aren’t an easy thing to implement. ADA uses the Plutus smart contract platform, whose computational rules are rigid than Haskell’s. This, Hoskinson says, might increase developmental costs and time, thus delaying the anticipated benefits by investors.

The issue is that while haskell is a lazy language, plutus is strict. This greatly complicates the actual implementation. We do have DC support in Haskell since GHC 9.6 thanks to Alexis’s hard work at @tweagio.

I suspect we could use freer monads as a path to DC support. It…

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) December 31, 2024

What the Cardano community thinks

This crypto community has already been weighing in. Developers like @bitcodyy on X see delimited continuations to optimize complex computations, providing DApp developers with flexibility. While others are rather cautious of its unintended consequences, namely having an even higher cost or issues with maintaining decentralization.

Delimited continuations on Cardano would open up some fascinating possibilities for optimizing complex computations and enhancing smart contract flexibility. Curious, what specific use cases or challenges were driving the discussion?

— ₿itcody ? (@bitcodyy) December 31, 2024

What’s next for Cardano?

For new investors, the answer is clear: ADA could stay ahead of time. This whole exploration into delimited continuations testifies to the blockchain’s ambition to at least stay parallel with platforms like Ethereum since the latter has an upper hand in its smart contract application.

Whether these innovations pay off is yet to be seen, but for someone who wants to invest in a blockchain technology that will be of interest in the long term, Hoskinson’s vision for Cardano makes it a project to keep a close eye on.

Meanwhile, the developments surrounding Midnight, Cardano’s zero-knowledge-proof solution, and delimited continuations could have an impact on the future of the platform’s ecosystem. The success or failure of Cardano’s pursuit of these cutting-edge ideas will probably define its place in the crypto market for years to come.

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