Woof - two Dev Fund proposals: EVM-side compliance & risk infrastructure for Canton (seeking feedback + Champion)
Two open Dev Fund proposals from Woof - EVM-side compliance and risk infrastructure for Canton
Hi all - Woof is preparing two submissions to the Canton Protocol Development Fund. The pack is intentionally narrow and verifiable: we’re senior EVM engineers (active Compound DAO contractor team), and our proposals occupy two infrastructure layers that the EVM side of Canton needs before mainnet DeFi can scale safely.
Before opening PRs against `canton-foundation/canton-dev-fund`, we want to share the drafts here, calibrate scope, and surface any concerns we may have missed.
About Woof
Senior EVM engineers for DeFi, and an active Compound DAO contractor team across multiple funded cycles.
Selected delivered work for Compound (verifiable via on-chain governance and the partnership reports): new-chain deployments (Optimism, Mantle) as part of Compound’s Growth Program, 60+ asset listings across 12 markets, a from-scratch protocol front-end, AAVE v3 → Compound migration logic, Chainlink SVR integration, the CAPO price oracle, and the reserve-growth tracking stack.
Open-source artifacts (all public under github.com/woof-software)
We do not present ourselves as DAML protocol experts. Both proposals are scoped accordingly - the EVM / Solidity side specifically, with explicit complementarity to DAML-side counterparts.
We’ve validated the core pattern end-to-end in two public PoCs - EVM-side `onlyKYC` gating (canton-compliance-poc, green CI) and a DAML counterpart executed on a live Canton ledger (canton-localnet-poc, logs + DAR committed). Details in the repos.
Proposal 1 - Compliance Middleware SDK for EVM Developers on Zenith
Submission target: first in sequence. Coordinated with Compliledger (TokenProof team) before submission.
Compliledger’s TokenProof (PR #231) provides the planned on-ledger ComplianceGuard primitive on the DAML side with a working PoC. Their proposal explicitly does not address the Solidity surface. We propose the EVM-side complement - Solidity contracts deployable on Zenith that consume ComplianceGuard via external_call(), plus three reference DeFi dApps (Compound-shaped permissioned lending, ERC-4626 compliant vault, KYC-gated AMM).
Coordinated with TokenProof. We raised the boundary with the Compliledger team (@Mharris40) on PR #231, and they confirmed the two efforts are complementary, not overlapping and are open to coordinating on ComplianceGuard interface stability as both progress. We’ll keep our Solidity wrappers adaptable to their interface; if their design later covers the Solidity side directly, we’ll revise rather than duplicate.
We’ve checked adjacent EVM↔CIP-0056 work (#453 transport layer, #190 off-ledger decisioning) - both compose with us rather than overlap; happy to coordinate. Details in the proposal.
Ask: ~800,000 CC, 6 months, 2 milestones.
Proposal 2 - Canton Risk Engine
Submission target: second in sequence, after community feedback on Proposal 1 lands. Independent positioning - no required counterparty coordination.
The proposal extracts three risk-management patterns developed during Woof’s contribution to Compound’s risk infrastructure - the Configurator pattern (on-chain parameter governance), CAPO oracle (price-induced risk handling), and Reserve Growth tracking model (operational risk visibility) - and ships them as Canton-native public goods. Four-layer delivery: on-chain Risk Parameter Registry on Zenith, off-chain Simulator, Risk Visualization Dashboard, two reference integrations (ERC-4626 vault + simple lending market).
Why this is needed now. At least 6 lending / vault proposals in the open queue require risk parameter management before mainnet: Mystic (PR #99), Cantopy (PR #235), D2 Finance (PR #144), Margarita CC20 (PR #186), Meria (PR #65), Institutional Yield Segmentation (PR #44). None of them propose to solve risk parameter management themselves.
Risk Engine sits in a distinct layer from adjacent risk work (SafeVault, Risk Ratings, Collateral Control Plane, Hacken) - on-chain parameter management specifically; details in the proposal.
Unique provenance. CAPO + Configurator + Reserve Growth is Woof-specific code and operational experience contributed to Compound. These are open-source patterns (Compound’s stack is open-source), so we have full rights to generalize them as Canton public goods - and we are uniquely positioned to do so because we built them.
Ask: ~1,000,000 CC, 6 months, 3 milestones.
Total package
| # | Proposal | CC | USD (@ 0.15) | Months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Compliance Middleware SDK | 800,000 | $120,000 | 6 |
| 2 | Canton Risk Engine | 1,000,000 | $150,000 | 6 |
| Total | 1,800,000 | $270,000 | staged |
Submissions will be staggered ~4–6 weeks apart, not bombed at once. The committee can evaluate each in context, and we can incorporate feedback between submissions.
Strategic positioning
Woof brings EVM-side compliance and risk infrastructure to Canton’s Zenith layer. Compliance Middleware makes CIP-0056 compliance natively callable from Solidity dApps on Zenith, complementing TokenProof’s planned on-ledger primitive. Canton Risk Engine extracts risk-management patterns developed during Woof’s Compound work (Configurator + CAPO + Reserve Growth) as Canton public goods. Together they provide the institutional-grade safety layer for EVM-side Canton DeFi.
What we are asking from the community
- Potential first integrators for Canton Risk Engine - Mystic, Cantopy, D2 Finance, Margarita, Meria - public signal that you would evaluate integration would strengthen Proposal 2.
- SIG Champion volunteers:
- Token Standards SIG - for Compliance Middleware SDK.
- DeFi Protocols & Liquidity SIG - for Canton Risk Engine.
- Any feedback welcome - particularly from adjacent DAML-side projects (SafeVault, Risk Ratings, Collateral Control Plane, Hacken) regarding layer boundaries, and from any team with in-flight work we may have missed in our queue scan.
We aim to open the first GitHub PR (Compliance Middleware SDK) within 1–2 weeks of this post, contingent on coordination outcomes and community feedback. The Risk Engine draft will follow once community feedback on the first proposal has been incorporated.
Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Mykola Ilchuk
Head of R&D, Woof
