Cardano to add native BLS12-381 support in Protocol Version 11

The Cardano Foundation said Plutus smart contracts now have native support for BLS12-381 elliptic-curve cryptography, a change aimed at lowering the cost of verifying large numbers of signatures on-chain. According to the announcement, the feature allows thousands of signatures to be verified at low cost without relying on off-chain services. The mechanism uses signature aggregation to compress multisignature approvals into a single proof, keeping on-chain verification costs constant. The functionality is scheduled to go live with Protocol Version 11, which is planned for release in May 2026. The foundation said the upgrade is intended for use cases including multisig custody and cross-chain bridges. CryptoBriefing was cited in the original report.