ink!

About ink!

ink! is a Rust-based smart contract language designed for the Polkadot ecosystem, enabling developers to build, test, and deploy contracts on Substrate-based networks. It runs on RISC-V and the PolkaVM, providing interoperability across Polkadot and Kusama parachains. As of January 2026, the project notes that ink! is no longer actively maintained or developed, with details documented in a Polkadot Forum post. The project community remains engaged through tutorials, documentation, and examples to support existing deployments and exploration of Polkadot’s contract capabilities.