Introducing Cairo 1.0: Building a More Powerful and Secure Language for StarkNet

The Birth of Cairo

The birth of Cairo came from the recognition that developers around the world should have access to verifiable computation. Cairo empowers developers to harness the power of STARKs, and the developer community quickly embraced Cairo and started building a thriving ecosystem around it. Today, Cairo is the foundation of the flourishing StarkNet ecosystem, handling over 220 million transactions, minting over 65 million NFTs, and processing over $700 billion worth of transactions on Ethereum.

Cairo 1.0: A New Compiler and the Introduction of Sierra

Cairo 1.0 brings a new compiler that provides enhanced security features and allows developers to write contracts in a simpler and more expressive manner. The major addition in Cairo 1.0 is Sierra, which serves as the new intermediate representation layer between Cairo 1.0 and Cairo bytecode. Sierra ensures that every Cairo run (i.e., the Cairo program and its inputs) can be proven (see below). This guarantees that every Cairo run is verifiable.

Sierra is a crucial component for StarkNet as a permissionless network. It ensures that even recovered transactions can be included in StarkNet blocks, allowing StarkNet to maintain simplicity without adding complex cryptographic mechanisms. This opens up possibilities like Sequencer being able to charge a fee for recovered transactions, enabling StarkNet to prevent Sequencer DoS attacks effectively. Additionally, it enables the implementation of forced L1 transactions, inheriting Ethereum's full censorship resistance.

Language Features in Cairo 1.0

Improved Syntax

Cairo 1.0 brings several improvements to the programming language itself:

• Removal of "local" and "temporary" variables, now using "let" for all variables.
• Improved syntax for "if" statements.

Type Safety Guarantees

The compiler will use strong typing to enhance the code's safety. For example:

• Pointers will always point to initialized memory.
• Dictionaries will always be compressed, removing the responsibility of calling "squash_dict" from the programmer.

More User-Friendly Language Structures

Cairo 1.0 aims to make language structures easier to use. For example:

• Introducing "for" loops.
• Improved boolean expressions, integers with regular integer division, overflow protection for relevant types, and boolean conditions.

A Mature Type System

Cairo 1.0 introduces several features to enhance its type system:

• Abstract data types (similar to Rust's enums).
• Traits for defining behavior.

More Intuitive Libraries

Improved libraries for dictionaries and arrays.

Optimized Code Generation

No explicit declaration of local variable allocation required as it is auto-detected and completed automatically.

Better Compiler Integration

Improved IDE support, package management, and community contributions.

Conclusion

Cairo 1.0 offers improved expressivity, safety, and syntax, making it easier for developers to write StarkNet contracts. With the introduction of Sierra and other enhancements, Cairo provides a solid foundation for the future development of Starks and empowers developers worldwide to build verifiable computation applications on the Ethereum network.

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