Canton Foundation Allocates 5% of Future Coin Issuance to Protocol Development Fund

Key Facts

The Canton Foundation allocates 5% of future Canton Coin issuance to a protocol development fund, according to its grants program page. The allocation covers rewards for super validators, applications and validators, the foundation says. The fund supports core research and development that strengthens the protocol and network capabilities, alongside developer tools, security, audits, reference implementations and critical infrastructure. The foundation says the goal of the developer tools is to make it easier to build, test and operate on the network. These areas set out the fund’s published scope, while details of the RedStone grant included in the initial draft could not be verified from a reliable open source.

The grants mechanism states that the foundation’s Technology and Operations Committee evaluates and approves proposals, and that funding is allocated quarterly in Canton Coin and tied to clear milestones. The foundation said disbursements are made once achievement of the corresponding milestones in a proposal is demonstrated. Funding is therefore linked to progress under the agreed terms, rather than approval of an application alone. The foundation also says proposals are evaluated on their ecosystem impact, feasibility, security, scalability, and maintenance and distribution plans. The development fund repository says the voting group gives final approval to proposals.

The foundation allows community members to submit proposals, while applicants from outside its membership need the endorsement of a foundation member. After funding is awarded, the Technology and Operations Committee reviews the milestones the proposer says have been completed and compares them with the agreed acceptance criteria. The foundation says the decision on whether funding continues is made separately for each stage. These procedures make milestone completion part of the funding cycle itself, as disbursement depends on proof of achievement. The foundation posted its first protocol development fund report on its website on 22 October 2026.

The Canton Foundation previously announced on 24 July 2025 that RedStone had joined the Global Synchronizer Foundation. The foundation said at the time that RedStone would help set technical standards enabling Canton applications to exchange data securely while preserving the privacy controls required by regulated institutions. RedStone also describes itself as a network participant node and says its Canton oracle infrastructure was built to support Daml. The company said pricing data reaches only authorized parties through Canton’s disclosure mechanism. This earlier role links RedStone to the network’s data-sharing infrastructure, but does not substantiate the funding details or pricing tool design described in the draft.