Anastasia Labs

Overview

Anastasia Labs is a software consultancy that builds and reviews smart contracts, the self-executing programs behind blockchain applications. Companies hire the firm to design a protocol from the ground up, or to have outside engineers check contract code before it handles anyone's money. It also publishes much of its own tooling as open-source code that any developer can pick up.

Anastasia Labs works on Cardano and writes contracts in the languages built for that chain, including Plinth, Aiken, Plutarch and Helios¹. Alongside paid engagements, the firm maintains developer tools under open-source licenses, and other Cardano teams build on them².

Key Features

• A second opinion before code goes live. Anastasia Labs audits smart contracts by reading the code by hand, running automated tests against the rules a contract is meant to hold to, and using proof tools that check code against a written specification¹.

• Ready-made building blocks for contract developers. Anastasia Labs publishes open-source pattern libraries for Aiken and Plutarch, two Cardano contract languages, so developers import common patterns rather than writing them again^3,4.

• Course material the Cardano Foundation publishes. The Cardano Foundation developer portal teaches its smart-contract design-patterns lesson out of the Anastasia Labs Aiken library⁵.

• Transaction handling for app builders. Lucid Evolution is an open-source TypeScript library that assembles, balances, signs and submits Cardano transactions on an application's behalf².

• A layer 2 network for Cardano, in pre-alpha testing. Midgard is a second network Anastasia Labs is building to process Cardano transactions off the main chain, with fees paid in ADA rather than a separate token. Soft confirmation lands in seconds; hard finality, when a block can no longer be reversed, takes 3 to 7 days⁶.

What to Expect

The site is short and built to start a conversation rather than to run a product. You land on a services grid covering security audits, smart contract development, protocol design and technical consulting, then a section linking out to the firm's own projects, a team grid you can filter by role, and a calendar for booking a call¹. An about page explains where the name comes from: Anastasia's Mate, a checkmate pattern in chess that depends on pieces working together⁷.

Developers get more out of the open-source side than the marketing pages. The Lucid Evolution documentation walks through installing the library, connecting a wallet and putting together a first transaction⁸. The pattern libraries, a repository of worked example applications, and the rest of the firm's public code sit on the Anastasia Labs GitHub organization, which describes itself as a Haskell Web3 consultancy⁹.

Organizations weighing the firm up have an independent record to read. Project Catalyst, Cardano's community grant program, publishes the proposals Anastasia Labs has put forward, what each was funded to deliver, and where it stands¹⁰. Engineers are named individually on the team page with links to their own repositories and accounts, so you can see who would do the work¹. Hiring runs through a careers page for remote engineering roles¹¹.