Cardano Improvement Proposals

Cardano Improvement Proposals (CIPs)

A Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP) is a formalised design document for the Cardano community and the name of the process by which such documents are produced and listed. A CIP provides information or describes a change to the Cardano ecosystem, processes, or environment concisely and in sufficient technical detail. In this CIP, we explain what a CIP is; how the CIP process functions; the role of the CIP Editors; and how users should go about proposing, discussing and structuring a CIP.

The Cardano Foundation intends CIPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new features, collecting community input on an issue, and documenting design decisions that have gone into Cardano. Plus, because CIPs are text files in a versioned repository, their revision history is the historical record of significant changes affecting Cardano.

Note For new CIP, a reference template is available in .github/CIP-TEMPLATE.md

Cardano Problem Statements (CPS)

A Cardano Problem Statement (CPS) is a formalised document for the Cardano ecosystem and the name of the process by which such documents are produced and listed. CPSs are meant to complement CIPs and live side-by-side in the CIP repository as first-class citizens.

Note For new CPS, a reference template is available in .github/CPS-TEMPLATE.md

Communication Channels

Extend or discuss ‘ideas’ in the Developer Forums, Cardano’s Official Developer Telegram Group or in #developers in Cardano Ambassadors Slack.

CIP editors will review discussions and progress in bi-weekly meetings held on Discord, then transcribe and summarise them in the BikweeklyMeetings folder.

CIP Editors meetings are public, recorded, and published on Youtube: do join and participate in discussions/PRs of significance to you.

Note To facilitate browsing and information sharing for non-Github users, an auto-generated site is also provided at cips.cardano.org.

Reviewed Proposals

# Title Status
1 CIP process Active
2 Coin Selection Algorithms for Cardano Active
3 Wallet key generation Active
4 Wallet Checksums Proposed
5 Common Bech32 Prefixes Active
6 Stake Pool Extended Metadata Draft
7 Curve Pledge Benefit Proposed
8 Message Signing Draft
9 Protocol Parameters (Shelley Era) Active
10 Transaction Metadata Label Registry Active
11 Staking key chain for HD wallets Active
12 On-chain stake pool operator to delegates communication Draft
13 Cardano URI Scheme Proposed
14 User-Facing Asset Fingerprint Active
15 Catalyst Registration Transaction Metadata Format Active
16 Cryptographic Key Serialisation Formats Active
17 Cardano Delegation Portfolio Active
18 Multi-Stake-Keys Wallets Draft
19 Cardano Addresses Active
20 Transaction message/comment metadata Active
21 Transaction requirements for interoperability with hardware wallets Draft
22 Pool operator verification Active
23 Fair Min Fees Draft
24 Non-Centralizing Rankings Draft
25 Media NFT Metadata Standard Active
26 Cardano Off-Chain Metadata Draft
27 CNFT Community Royalties Standard Draft
28 Protocol Parameters (Alonzo Era) Active
29 Phase-1 Monetary Scripts Serialization Formats Active
30 Cardano dApp-Wallet Web Bridge Active
31 Reference Inputs Active
32 Inline Datums Active
33 Reference Scripts Active
34 Chain ID Registry Draft
35 Plutus Core Evolution Active
36 Catalyst/Voltaire Registration Transaction Metadata Format Proposed
37 Dynamic Saturation Based on Pledge Proposed
40 Collateral Output Active
42 New Plutus Builtin: serialiseBuiltinData Active
49 ECDSA and Schnorr signatures in Plutus Core Proposed
52 Cardano Audit Best Practice Guidelines Proposed
54 Cardano Smart NFTs Draft
55 Protocol Parameters (Babbage Era) Active
58 Plutus Bitwise Primitives Proposed
59 Terminology Surrounding Core Features Active
60 Music Token Metadata Active
67 Asset Name Label Registry Proposed
68 Datum Metadata Standard Proposed
71 Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Proxy Voting Standard Proposed
74 Set min-pool-cost to 0 Proposed
75 Fair Stake Pool Rewards Inactive
80 Transaction Serialization Deprecation Cycle Active
82 Improved Rewards Scheme Parameters Inactive
83 Encrypted Transaction message/comment metadata (Addendum to CIP-0020) Active
381 Plutus Support for Pairings Over BLS12-381 Proposed
1852 HD (Hierarchy for Deterministic) Wallets for Cardano Active
1853 HD (Hierarchy for Deterministic) Stake Pool Cold Keys for Cardano Active
1854 Multi-signatures HD Wallets Draft
1855 Forging policy keys for HD Wallets Active
9999 Cardano Problem Statements Active

Last updated on 2023-03-15

💡 For more details about Statuses, refer to CIP-0001.

Proposals Under Review (CIP)

Below are listed tentative CIPs still under discussion with the community. They are listed below for easing navigation and tentatively allocating numbers to avoid later clashes.

# Title
38? Arbitrary Script as Native Script Spending Conditions
39? Language Annotated Address
45? Decentralized WebRTC dApp-Wallet Communication
46? Merklised Plutus Scripts
48? Extended NFT metadata
50? Shelley's Voltaire Decentralization Update
56? Treasury Donation
57? Plutus Smart-Contract Blueprint
62? Governance API for dApp Connectors
69? Plutus Script Type Uniformization
70? Rejected Ideas w.r.t Spending Policies
72? DApp Registration
73? Oracle Datum Standard
76? Hash-Checked Data
77? Verified Stake Pool Identity
79? Implement Ouroboros Leios to increase Cardano throughput
80? Transaction Serialization Deprecation Cycle
81? Tiered Pricing Protocol
84? Cardano Ledger Evolution
85? Sums-of-products in Plutus Core
86? NFT Metadata Update Oracles
87? Maybe Datum
88? Native Asset Policy Registration/Information Certificates
89? Beacon Tokens & Distributed Dapps
90? Extendable dApp-Wallet Web Bridge
91? Don't force Built-In functions
92? First-class errors in Plutus
1694? A proposal for entering the Voltaire phase

Proposals Under Review (CPS)

Below are listed tentative CPSs still under discussion with the community. They are listed below for easing navigation and also tentatively allocating numbers to avoid clashes later on.

# Title
1? Metadata Discoverability and Trust
2? Pointer Addresses
3? Smart Tokens
4? Spending Script Redundant Execution

Last updated on 2023-03-15

Stalled / Waiting For Authors

The following list contains proposals that have been under review and for which actions are now awaiting updates from their original authors. Proposals stalled for several months without any updates from their authors and will eventually be closed. However, authors are invited to re-open pull requests or open new ones should they want to bring the discussion back to life.

Last updated on 2023-03-15

Editors

Matthias Benkort
@KtorZ		 Sebastien Guillemot
@SebastienGllmt		 Robert Phair
@rphair		 Ryan Williams
@Ryun1