Key points
- Plutus, the platform Cardano developers use to write and run smart contracts, moves from IO Labs to Midgard Labs.
- The team moves, with IO Labs and Midgard Labs collaborating on delivery throughout the transition.
- Midgard Labs already audits and writes Plutus smart contracts for other Cardano teams, and contributes tooling and open-source libraries across the Plutarch and Aiken ecosystems, two of the languages developers use to write them. Its chief executive, Philip DiSarro, helped bring Plutus tooling into Input Output’s own Plutus Pioneer Program.
- A parameter change agreed through Intersect this year has already increased Plutus's memory execution limits by a cumulative 25%, and that optimization work continues uninterrupted.
- Midgard Labs now joins Se7en Labs, Teragone, ICAN Group, and BlockPQR as the fifth specialist team building a core part of Cardano.
- The transition is coordinated openly through Intersect, as with every decentralization move before it.
From October 1, Plutus team is moving to Midgard Labs. Plutus is the engine developers use to write and run smart contracts on Cardano.
This transfer follows several similar moves across the Cardano ecosystem. Se7en Labs maintains the Daedalus wallet. Teragone runs Mithril. ICAN Group took over platform engineering, quality assurance, cryptography, and performance and tracing last month. BlockPQR handles ledger development. Plutus is the fifth major function to move to a specialized partner, expanding the group of independent teams maintaining Cardano.
What Plutus does
Plutus verifies Cardano smart contracts before they execute. When a transaction spends a script-locked output, Plutus checks whether the transaction satisfies the rules defined by the script author. It runs these checks through Plutus Core, the low-level language that all scripts compile down to. Developers interact with it using higher-level languages like Plinth (IO's Haskell-embedded language based on PlutusTx) or community languages like Plutarch and Aiken.
The team released version 1.68.0.0 on August 26, 2026, introducing initial Plutus V4 ledger API types ahead of the Dijkstra hard fork. The release included a single-command installer for Plinth and improved pattern matching on constructor data, which now dispatches directly rather than checking cases sequentially. This change improved script execution speed. The release also added two new built-in functions, assetCount and multiIndexArray, alongside their cost models through the Cardano Improvement Proposal process.
Earlier this year, an Intersect parameter change raised memory execution limits by a cumulative 25%, relieving pressure on large scripts that previously required workarounds like merkelization. That optimization work carries on under Midgard Labs.
Why Midgard Labs
Midgard Labs fits this work for three main reasons.
First, the team has hands-on experience with Plutus. Midgard Labs developed and audited Plutus smart contracts for ecosystem projects long before taking on core infrastructure. Its security work includes audits for Liqwid, MinSwap, SundaeSwap, FluidTokens, and Genius Yield. The Midgard Labs team has actively contributed to the development of Plutus over the past few years, including both direct code contributions to the Plinth codebase and heavy contribution to the CIP process, including authorship of CIP-0156, CPS-0013, CIP-0153, CIP-0132, CIP-0178, CIP-0160, and CIP-0112.
Second, Midgard Labs contributes to the tools developers use to write Plutus code. Its engineers build production code and open-source libraries in Plutarch and Aiken, two widely adopted languages for Plutus smart contracts, along with open design-pattern libraries that document production-grade design patterns for Cardano smart contracts. Maintaining these languages is closely tied to maintaining Plutus itself.
Third, Midgard Labs works directly on contract verification. The company is one of six organizations participating in Cardano's High Assurance program, which focuses on proving that smart contracts run as intended.
Decentralizing Cardano’s engineering
Cardano was designed to decentralize more than block production and governance. While DReps manage governance proposals and thousands of stake pools produce blocks, core software development is following the same direction. Responsibility is moving out of a single organization and into specialized independent teams.
This transition is part of a broader evolution in how Cardano is built. Midgard Labs joins Se7en Labs, Teragone, ICAN Group, and BlockPQR in this network of builders. Intersect coordinates this transition in the open, as it does with the others. Engineering continuity is preserved throughout the staged transition, while management responsibility moves to Midgard Labs.
Follow Midgard Labs on X to stay updated on Plutus milestones.
Learn more about IO Labs
Throughout this larger decentralization shift and beyond, IO Labs remains focused on building Cardano by:
- translating cryptographic and computer science research into functional prototypes by integrating IO Research and the Applied Research Center directly into engineering
- building rapid Web3 solutions for high-impact market opportunities
- functioning as an incubator, using design sprints, rapid prototyping, and technical due diligence to launch and spin out new projects.
Visit the IO Labs website to learn more.
