With the future release of Goguen, Cardano - the first, third-generation blockchain to emerge from a scientific & peer-reviewed philosophy - will introduce smart contracts to the main Cardano blockchain. Specifically, developers will be able to write smart contracts for Cardano using Plutus.
What is Plutus?
Plutus is a programming language that allows smart contracts to be developed and deployed, and has been designed with three key audiences in mind that align with Cardano’s vision: developers, enterprises and academia. Today, anyone can deploy test contracts that are developed in the Plutus Playground - a lightweight, web-based environment to test smart contracts without maintaining a full development environment on the blockchain. The Plutus platform grants developers an unrivaled smart contract experience.
Why?
Plutus has been designed to be clear, concise and convenient. Most importantly however, Plutus is much safer than previous alternatives to smart contract development. Still, what exactly makes Plutus such a safe, secure programming language platform, and why is this important?
Why is Safety Important?
Safety is important as Cardano smart contract developers want to ensure their program does exactly what they want it to do without any side effects. This means minimizing the risk of errors occuring. Errors are common in many programming languages used on a daily basis. Cardano aims to minimize these errors so that the transfer of value via smart contracts is achieved with a high degree of assurance. This reduces the chance of loss of funds, unexpected problems, and unforeseen complications. While errors that occur in our favorite messaging apps or social media websites may result in our message not being sent or a picture not being posted, an error that occurs in a blockchain environment where valuable assets are on the line requires a higher degree of safety. In fact, EMURGO has also been supporting Syre - a tokenless invoice based protocol to make sending cryptocurrencies like ADA easy and worry-free for users by removing any concerns about confirming recipient wallet addresses through the dLab/EMURGO accelerator.
