CIP-0065: Add Layer Zero, Wormhole, and Chainlink as SVs at Weight 3 each

CIP-0065

Abstract

• Add Layer Zero, Wormhole, and Chainlink as SVs at Weight 3 each
• Create a bonus pool of Weight 5

Motivation

Building cross-chain bridges is difficult to do well. There are large investments in engineering, testing, and security audits to get it right. Accordingly, each bridge operator should be fairly compensated for their investment to connect to Canton.

In addition, it is common for one bridge to be considered the ‘preferred’ option of the chain. This can sometimes be expressed by giving that bridge the right to use the common name form of the bridged asset. For example, the ‘preferred’ version of bridged ETH on Canton could be referenced as ETH as opposed to ETH.link (Chainlink bridged ETH). In Canton, we have the option to grant the ETH Canton Naming Service registration to one of the bridges and that would create a similar outcome.

In this CIP, all three bridge options are being offered equivalent deals for supporting Canton. This CIP also introduces incentives for the bridge that deploys to production first and the one that hits scale first.

About Applicants in their own words:

Chainlink

• Chainlink is the global standard for connecting blockchains to real-world data, other blockchains, governments, and enterprise systems. Chainlink powers critical use cases across DeFi, banking, tokenized real world assets (RWAs), cross-chain, and more, and is widely adopted by major financial institutions, national governments, and top DeFi protocols, including Swift, DTCC, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Euroclear, Central Bank of Brazil, Fidelity International, UBS, Aave, GMX, Lido, and many more.
• In the Web3 space The Chainlink platform has operated in production for over half a decade and has secured over $75B+ in DeFi TVL at its peak and has enabled over $20 trillion in transaction value enabled as of March 2025. With 300+ engineers and dedicated monitoring teams, Chainlink Labs is uniquely positioned to offer the depth of support and execution strength needed to operate secure cross-chain and data systems at scale.
• In the Web3 space, Chainlink secures 92% of total value secured by general purpose oracles, enables 71% of the total DeFi Transaction Value secured by general purpose oracles and powers 55% of DeFi protocols secured by general purpose oracles. Chainlink also powers the biggest DeFi projects, including Aave, Spark, Compound, Venus, dYdX, GMX, etc, and has been integrated with more than 50 public/permissioned blockchain networks.
• Leading DeFi applications and regulated financial institutions alike are already using Chainlink’s offerings in key deployments, making it a widely used platform in DeFi and capital markets today.

Layer Zero

• LayerZero Labs is the leading blockchain infrastructure provider for cross-chain interoperability, allowing data and digital assets to move seamlessly and securely across blockchains. More than 300 omnichain applications are built on LayerZero’s immutable, censorship resistant and permissionless messaging protocol, which has executed over 140 million transactions and has secured in excess of $200 billion in value.
• LayerZero Labs is proposing to develop and support an Endpoint for the Canton network, ensuring full integration with the LayerZero mesh network of 125+ blockchains and fully supported OFT and OApp contract interfaces for assets and applications issued on the Canton network.
• LayerZero will deploy and integrate an Endpoint on Canton, providing full messaging capabilities and standardised interoperability between private Canton instances, the public Canton network and the broader LayerZero ecosystem.
• By leveraging the Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) and Omnichain Application (OApp) contract interfaces and the extensive experience in secure smart contract development, LayerZero Labs offers a robust, scalable, and compliant solution tailored to meet the requirements of the Canton Network builders in financial services.
• The OFT Standard has multiple benefits, including 1/ it simplifies liquidity management, 2/ eliminates fragmentation, and 3/ offers elastic scalability across a wide range of secondary markets and supports the distribution of assets and the unified communication of applications across systems.
• Today, LayerZero is utilized in production by industry leaders such as Ondo Finance, PayPal, USDT0, BitGo, Paxos and many others, showcasing its ability to meet security and compliance requirements at scale. With a proven track record of accounting for over 70% of cross-chain industry messaging volume in 2024, LayerZero Labs is committed to providing a best in class experience to the Canton Network, its members, and users.

Wormhole Labs

• Wormhole is the leading interoperability platform connecting traditional finance and the internet economy
• Interoperability provider for
  • Securitize
  • Uniswap
  • Lido
  • Sky
  • Agora
  • Transfero
  • M^0
• Stats
  • $55b of value secured by NTT
  • 1b messages sent
  • 200 applications using Wormhole
  • 6 runtimes supported
  • 30 blockchains supported

Deliverables for full SV Reward:

Deliverable	Acceptance Criteria	Deadline	Weight Earned
LayerZero to deploy and integrate a full Endpoint on the Canton Network	• Assets issued on the Canton Network Global Synchronizer can be natively bridged via OFT to any existing or future network supported by the LayerZero protocol <br> • Assets issued on any network supported by LayerZero can be natively bridged to Canton via OFT <br>• LayerZero supports the Canton Network Token Standard <br>• Full end to end production grade messaging is enabled in a point-to-point mesh to/from Canton and the 125+ blockchains LayerZero supports today	+ 12 Months	1.5
Wormhole integration with Canton Network	• Assets issued on the Canton Network can be natively bridged to any network supported by Wormhole via NTT <br> • Assets issued on any network supported by Wormhole can be natively bridged to Canton via NTT <br>• Wormhole supports the Canton Network Token Standard<br> • Wormhole enables full mesh end to end messaging in production with the rest of the chains it supports	+ 12 Months	1.5
Chainlink’s Cross Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) integration to Canton	• Chainlink enables CCIP service in production to connect the Canton Network Global Synchronizer with over 50 public and permissioned blockchains in a full mesh, at the highest levels of security and reliability <br> • Chainlink supports the Canton Network Token Standard <br>• Assets issued on the Canton Network can be natively bridged to any existing or future network supported by CCIP via CCT <br>• Assets issued on any network supported by CCIP can be natively bridged to Canton via CCT	+ 12 Months	1.5
Adoption (all applicants)	• Through GTM, education, and each company’s efforts routes an increasing amount of assets and applications to Canton	+ 180 Days from Product Integration	0.5 per 5 assets/applications using Canton via the bridge <br><br>Up to a Total of 1.5 ea
First to Production Incentive	• The bridge will have to pass a thorough security audit conducted by the GSF to qualify for this incentive. Scope will be determined by GSF in coordination with the applicant when they are ready <br>• The first bridge among those who passed the aforementioned security audit to facilitate movement and use of $10m of assets to/from Canton Network by an identifiable and independent third party will receive an SV Weight bonus starting at the time when the incentive is met. Only the volumes generated after the security audit has been passed and a 90 day burn in period will count	+ 180 Days from Product Integration	3.5 added to SV pool and awarded to the appropriate party at the time of achieving the incentive
Second to Production Incentive	• The bridge will have to pass a thorough security audit conducted by the GSF to qualify for this incentive. Scope will be determined by GSF in coordination with the applicant when they are ready <br>• The second bridge among those who passed the aforementioned security audit to facilitate movement and use of $10m of assets to/from Canton Network by an identifiable and independent third party will receive an SV Weight bonus starting at the time when the incentive is met. Only the volumes generated after the security audit has been passed and a 90 day burn in period will count	+ 180 Days from Product Integration	1.5 added to SV pool and awarded to the appropriate party at the time of achieving the incentive
First to Scale Incentive	• The bridge will have to pass a thorough security audit conducted by the GSF to qualify for this incentive. Each distinct crypto asset (BTC, ETH, SOL, UNI, etc.) may require additional security checks. Scope will be determined by GSF in coordination with the applicant when they are ready <br>• For each distinct crypto asset, the first bridge among those who passed the aforementioned security audit and checks to facilitate movement and use of $50m of that asset to/from Canton Network by an identifiable and independent third party will receive the default asset CNS entry for that asset at the time when the incentive is met Only the volumes generated after the security audit has been passed and a 90 day burn in period will count <br>• Default CNS entries are not granted in perpetuity and the preferred option status for a particular asset will be reassessed at least once a year with a focus on the security track record and cross chain transaction volumes. The specific criteria to renew a default CNS entry shall be determined by standard governance procedures	+ 180 Days from Product Integration	Default CNS awarded to the appropriate party at the time of achieving the incentive
Join the Global Synchronizer Foundation (all applicants)	• Fully onboarded as a General Member of the GSF <br> • Logo is on the website <br> • Support public announcement made	+ 45 Days	0

SV Reward Mechanics:

• An extraBeneficiary PartyID associated with the ‘escrowed’ Super Validator will be setup by the GSF with an SV Weight at the maximum earnable weight. This will not include the potential "First to Production" or "Second to Production" bonus weights.

  • The Applicant is responsible for all costs associated with the operation of the escrow SV
  • The escrow SV will NOT mint rewards on a block by block basis
  • All escrow SV rewards will go to the Unclaimed Rewards pool

• ⅔ of the Super Validator Operators will update their configurations to allow GSF to host the full weight to be earned by the given Super Validator

• Applicant is required to present proof of successful completed milestones to the Tokenomics Working Group

  • Applicant is required to present a calculation for number of Canton Coin it should earn for meeting the requirements of the milestone

• If the Tokenomics Working Group agrees the milestone has been met and agrees with the calculation, an announcement will be sent via the Tokenomics-Announce mailing List

  • The GSF will update the extraBeneficiary to an active PartyID controlled by that Super Validator.
  • ⅔ of Super Validator Operators will then assign a portion of the Unclaimed Rewards to be minted by the Applicant’s Validator, based on the calculation approved by the Tokenomics working group.

• If any milestones and associated rewards are not achieved by the deadline

  • Applicant will be notified they have not met a deliverable by the GSF
  • Remaining SV Weight assigned to the extraBeneficiary SV will be removed from the GSF node configuration, and the total SV weight of the GSF SV node will be reduced by the same amount by a vote of the Super Validators.
  • The Tokenomics Working Group will make a recommendation to the SVs on what to do with the Unclaimed Rewards

• Applicant is subject to CIP-0045 : SV Operating Requirements

  • If, at any time, the Applicant has been rewarded SV Weight > 2.5, they are required to operate their SV within 6 months of crossing that Weight. This SV node will join the network with an SV weight of zero (0) and may add weights as the SV completes the milestones listed in this CIP.

Copyright

• This CIP is licensed under CC0-1.0: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

Changelog

• 2025-06-02: Initial draft of the proposal.
• 2025-06-13: Approved CIP.
• 2025-07-10: Updated Deliverables.
• 2025-07-14: Approved CIP.