How Cardano’s Marlowe Protocol Makes Smart Contracts Accessible

Published: May 31, 2023 │ 8:30 PM GMT

• Cardano is revolutionizing its smart contracts. 
• The POS chain has released a new update that makes creating smart contracts easier. 
• The Marlowe framework will enable anyone to create dApps on Cardano without prior programming experience. 

Cardano is on track to become one of the most successful crypto projects this year. The network’s development team is working relentlessly to expand the network and enhance its capabilities to surpass its competitors. 

The Proof-of-Stake (POS) chain has made remarkable progress this year, introducing a flurry of innovative solutions, protocols, and projects. Building upon this momentum, the network has deployed the Marlowe protocol, which will revolutionize Cardano smart contracts.

Making Smart Contracts More Accessible

Following a thorough internal and external audit, IOHK, the team behind Cardano, has successfully launched the highly-anticipated Marlowe update on the Cardano mainnet for developers to test. 

Cardano has seen significant growth in development this year with the introduction of over 1,000 Plutus V1 smart contracts. Now, the POS chain looks to maintain momentum with Marlowe by introducing innovative tools that make creating smart contracts substantially easier and highly secure.

What is Marlowe? 

Marlowe is an ecosystem of tools and domain-specific languages that enables users to create dApps designed for financial contracts. The infrastructure leverages the existing Plutus framework and couples it with user-friendly tooling that supports all skill levels. 

1/ 🧵 Exciting news! #Marlowe is now available on mainnet for early adopters to start testing and providing feedback. It's a safe and intuitive way to create and deploy smart contracts on #Cardano. Let's dive into what makes Marlowe special.👇 pic.twitter.com/lp8AIRCEPr

— Marlowe (@marlowe_io) May 30, 2023

According to the Cardano development team, unlike traditional smart contract toolkits, Marlowe does not require prior programming skills to create dApps. Anyone can create a blockchain app using its easy-to-use interface with greater security, certainty, guarantees of termination, and behavior correctness. 

This is because Marlowe’s design ensures its smart contracts are finite by eliminating recursion or loops. Every contract is carefully programmed to have a defined lifetime and includes a timeout on all actions. Additionally, Marlowe ensures that it retains no assets when a contract is closed, and the value within the contract is effectively conserved. This careful attention to detail in the design of Marlowe contracts enhances their efficiency and reliability.

Some of its other features include compatibility with JavaScript and Haskell, reusable contract templates, and easy integration with Marlowe runtime APIS, among others. 

Besides the domain-specific language is its intuitive plug-and-play smart contract builder and simulator, The Marlowe Playground. The tool is simple, visual, and modular, allowing users to instantly build, simulate, and analyze their Marlow contracts. 

Currently, the framework is in its early stages; however, the Cardano team has invited developers worldwide to provide feedback and improve Marlowe to be even more accessible than it already is. 

On the Flipside

• Cardano currently only has 20 DeFi protocols on its network. 
• Charles Hoskinson believes that by the summer of 2023, Cardano could surpass Bitcoin, Ethereum, and every other cryptocurrency in decentralization. 
• A report published on December 30 by Santiment highlighted Cardano as the top protocol in terms of development activity.
• According to DefiLlama, Cardano is 16th in DeFi rankings with a TVL of $174 million. 

Why This Matters

Cardano’s new update showcases its commitment to pushing out exciting new solutions. The community is excited about the Marlow update and believes it could be a game-changer for Cardano. As Cardano climbs the DeFi ladder, the new smart contract toolset could be crucial in pushing the network to new heights. 

Read more about Cardano’s new experiment: 

Why Cardano’s On-Chain Poll Experiment Is Important for Decentralization 

Read why Cardano’s transactions spiked: 

Cardano Transactions Spike 1.5M as SNEK Rallies to All-time High