What is Plinth?
Plinth is the rebranded name for the high-level smart contract development language formerly known as Plutus Tx on the Cardano blockchain. This change was announced in early 2025 by Input Output Global, the primary engineering company behind Cardano
1234. The goal of the rebranding was to clarify the distinction between different components of the Cardano smart contract stack:
- Plinth: The high-level Haskell-based language for writing smart contracts on Cardano.
- Plutus Core: The lower-level execution layer that runs smart contracts written in Plinth.
The rebranding aims to reduce developer confusion, indicate the new and expanded capabilities of the language, and more clearly separate the language (Plinth) from the execution engine (Plutus Core)
23. Plinth continues to be integral for developers building decentralized applications (dApps) on Cardano.
Key Features of Plinth
- High-level language: Written in Haskell, suitable for advanced, type-safe smart contracts.
- Part of Cardano's multi-language push: Cardano is expanding support for multiple programming languages for smart contract development, with tools like Plinth, Plutus High Assurance, Aiken, and plu-ts5.
- Active development: Plinth is regularly updated and improved as seen in Cardano's developer reports674.
Summary
Plinth is not a cryptocurrency, blockchain, or protocol, but rather a programming language and development tool for building smart contracts on Cardano. It enables developers to write highly-secure, scalable dApps leveraging Cardano’s rigorous infrastructure.
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