Cardano plans to introduce new Plutus primitives defined in five CIPs (CIP-109 | CIP-109). Built-in modular exponentiation for Plutus cores. CIP-132 | New Plutus built-in droplist; CIP-133 | Plutus support for multiscalar multiplication in BLS12-381. CIP-138 | Plutus Core Built-in Type – Array; CIP-153 | Plutus Core Built-in Type – MaryEraValue.
On May 8th, the Cardano Preview Test Network hardforked to protocol version 11. According to Intersect, this means that these new primitives introduced by previous Plutus cost model parameter updates are now available for testing.
Developer CTA 🛠️
On May 8, 2026, 00:00 UTC, the Cardano Preview Test Network was hard-forked to protocol version 11. This means that new primitives introduced by previous Plutus cost model parameter updates are available for testing.
The new Plutus primitives are defined as follows:
— Intersect (@IntersectMBO) May 11, 2026
As reported, momentum continues towards an intra-era van Rossem hard fork across nodes, infrastructure, and ecosystem adjustments, with node v11.0.1 now fully released and ready for the mainnet hard fork. The preview is now moving into its first live governance-driven activation stage.
Additionally, DB-Sync 13.7.0.5 has been promoted to a fully mainnet-ready release with compatibility with Node v11.0.1.
Cardano plans to update core functionality
The upcoming intra-era hard fork to protocol version 11 will introduce targeted improvements across Plutus performance. Plutus refers to Cardano’s native smart contract language, which is based on the Haskell programming language. An intra-era hard fork named van Rossem Hard fork is also being set up to enhance ledger consistency and node security.
As a result of the upgrade, all built-in functionality is available in Plutus V1, V2, and V3, extending the functionality of Plutus V1 and V2 scripts, and unifying the functionality available between versions.
New built-in and native types include CIP-138. An array type that adds efficient native on-chain array processing. CIP-153 | MaryEraValue type adds optimized multiple asset value operations. CIP-109 | Incorporating a module exponentiation important for advanced cryptography. CIP-132 |DropList built-in that allows efficient list manipulation. CIP-133 | Multiscalar multiplication via BLS12-381. This is especially useful for advanced cryptographic operations in zero-knowledge proof systems.
All of these new built-in features will be introduced in all Plutus versions. Overall, these changes are expected to improve script performance, reduce execution costs, and significantly expand the functionality that builders can achieve with Plutus.
