Introducing Ouroboros Phalanx – breaking the economics of grinding attacks
Phalanx aims to enhance Ouroboros with stronger randomness generation, preventing grinding attacks and delivering faster, more reliable transaction settlement
22 October 2025 9 mins read
Summary:
- Ouroboros Phalanx strengthens Cardano’s consensus foundation by addressing a subtle but important vulnerability in randomness generation known as grinding attacks
- By introducing verifiable delay functions (VDFs) and extending how randomness is built across epochs, Phalanx makes such attacks exponentially more costly and practically infeasible
- This upgrade not only…
Always secure and safer than ever, thanks to next-level smart contract verification on Cardano
Traditional smart contract verification checks high-level code and trusts the compiler. In this second blog post in the formal verification series, we explain how we can verify the actual compiled bytecode that runs on-chain, catching bugs that other approaches miss
14 October 2025 12 mins read
It is now possible to formally verify smart contracts at the exact level they execute on Cardano nodes – working directly with Untyped Plutus Core (UPLC) rather than reasoning over abstract models or surface loop.
By directly targeting UPLC, contracts can be verified regardless of the source language, including Plinth, Aiken, Plutarch, or any future language that targets the…
Input | Output Research invites community feedback on mid-year research progress
New Fundamental Research and Technology Validation draft reports detail breakthrough advances in Cardano scaling, security, and blockchain innovation under Work Program '25. The Cardano community is now invited to review these drafts on Cardano Forum
29 August 2025 8 mins read
Cardano Vision launched in 2025 with the Work Program 2025 (WP25), a five-year research initiative designed to secure Cardano’s long-term leadership in blockchain.
Today, Input | Output Research (IOR) proudly releases draft versions of its WP25 mid-year reports for Fundamental Research and Technology Validation, marking significant progress in Cardano’s evolution as a leading…
From idea to implementation: a look into IO's research and development
The latest breakthroughs from Input | Output’s R&D department are shaping the future of Cardano with innovative solutions and rigorous academic research
26 August 2025 7 mins read
As blockchain technology evolves into a foundational layer for global infrastructure, rigorous research and development are crucial to ensure robustness, scalability, and relevance. At Input | Output (IO), research is not confined to theory – it is the engine behind secure, high-performance systems like Cardano.
IO uses evidence-based engineering to construct resilient systems…
Unlocking zero-knowledge proofs for Cardano: the Halo2-Plutus verifier
Learn about an open-source prototype bringing zero-knowledge proofs to Cardano for private, scalable, and interoperable applications
26 August 2025 6 mins read
In the rapidly evolving world of blockchain technology, zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) are a cornerstone for enhancing privacy, scalability, and security. The Halo2-Plutus verifier is an open-source project spearheaded by Input | Output Research (IOR) as part of an Intersect agreement driven by the Technical Steering Committee priorities. This tool bridges the advanced…