Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano, has officially joined the Starstream Working Group, describing the project as a potential core element of Cardano’s future.
His involvement underscores a growing institutional focus on enhancing blockchain performance through new execution environments.
The working group has recently experienced rapid growth, expanding by approximately 50% in just two weeks, according to Sebastien Guillemot, co-founder of Paima Studios and an early driver of the Starstream initiative.
Starstream has the potential to become a core component of Cardano’s future https://t.co/d7IR5VjYyv
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) May 7, 2025
New Virtual Machine Targets UTXO Scalability
Starstream introduces a UTXO-based virtual machine that offers significantly higher capability and simpler integration than previous iterations. According to Guillemot, the design aligns with zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography, a critical advancement for privacy-preserving computation.
Notably, Cardano’s existing extended UTXO (eUTXO) model has faced implementation challenges with advanced cryptography. Starstream resolves this using a WebAssembly-based VM that generates a ZK proof for every smart contract interaction.
This verifies computations without revealing underlying data, directly addressing previous limitations. The system enhances performance through near-free transaction batching, simplifying use cases including oracles, gaming, real-world assets, and stablecoins.
Other Recent Developments on Cardano
Beyond the progress surrounding Starstream, the Cardano ecosystem has seen several notable advancements in infrastructure and cross-chain capabilities.
A key initiative gaining traction is Midnight, a sidechain developed by Input Output Global (IOG) with a core focus on data protection and privacy.
According to recent remarks from Charles Hoskinson, Midnight could be a foundational platform for blockchain-based equity issuance. This came during a discussion held on May 1 with Midnight CEO Eran Barak. Hoskinson highlighted that privacy, programmability, and interoperability are critical to bringing traditional stock markets onto blockchain systems.
Meanwhile, Cardano’s native wallet Lace has reached an important technical milestone with the release of version 1.22. This update, rolled out to users in the beta program, introduces native support for Bitcoin. This marked the wallet’s first major move into multi-chain territory.
Users can now send, receive, and manage Bitcoin assets directly from the Lace interface, expanding the wallet’s utility beyond the Cardano ecosystem.
