Idea / Pre-RFC: Null-free pointers
Rust Internals [Unofficial]
February 21, 2026
SkiFire13:
> If I understand it correctly the original motivation was to be able to use the ecosystem based on references with objects that sit at address 0.
Ecosystem compatibility is not the primary goal - the zeroable reference primitive is about closing the gap where no reference-like primitive can represent a valid hardware address. Ecosystem adoption can follow incrementally.
Discussion in the ATmosphere