Blockchain firm IOHK launches first open source project “Cardano Rust”

IOHK, the company behind the top 10 cryptocurrency Cardano, has expanded the reach of its technology to a wide range of third-party developers with the launch of its first open source project.

The company has launched Cardano Rust – a toolbox for developers who want to build products for its blockchain. It will provide developers with a library of functions that they can use to seamlessly build and integrate their decentralized applications for Cardano – including products for mobile devices.

While the code is written in Rust – a lightweight, portable, and fast programming language compatible with web, iOS, and Android platforms, the project plans to support other programming languages such as C and Javascript, offering the potential to greatly expand the worldwide Cardano community. The Rust project operates in tandem with the Cardano settlement layer, which is written in the Haskell programming language.

“It’s been incredible to watch Cardano take shape over the past year. The Rust project now connects Cardano to a wealth of developers and opens the door for further growth of the Cardano community,” Charles Hoskinson, Chief Executive Officer of IOHK, said. “We’re excited to see what applications developers create for the Cardano ecosystem as it becomes the leading technology in the industry.”

The release comes as Cardano marks the first anniversary of the launch of its blockchain and the ADA cryptocurrency, which is currently listed on over 30 exchanges.

According to the official release, the first product IOHK has released under the project is a wallet for the ADA cryptocurrency. The wallet runs on a user’s device as a fast, flexible, standalone application and uses a command-line interface. With a development kit included, the CLI wallet can also be used by developers as the basis to build decentralized applications.

“Rust-Cardano is an API for the Cardano blockchain, written in Rust, the Cardano-CLI is a command-line interface and wallet for Cardano built on top of this library,” Lars Brünjes, IOHK Director of Education, said. “With these tools in hand, it will be easy for developers to write software targeting the Cardano infrastructure for many different platforms – including mobile – and we can't wait to see all the amazing things the community will create with them.”