When Canton launched the Protocol Development Fund the purpose was simple: create an open and transparent way for the community to fund technical work that benefits the Canton ecosystem as a whole.

Now 42 projects have been approved and work is underway across the protocol, developer tooling, security, governance, and open-source infrastructure. Milestones are being reviewed, deliverables are being accepted, and payments are being minted on-chain.

This first report provides a snapshot of what the community has approved, what has been paid so far, and what the funded projects are working to deliver.

At a glance

• 42 CC-denominated projects approved, representing 290.0 million CC in total commitments.
• 62.2 million CC paid or minted to date against accepted milestones and approved recurring work.

The difference between these figures is expected. Approval establishes the maximum amount available to a project; it does not release the full award upfront. Payments are made as milestones are completed and accepted.

What the community is building

The projects approved so far cover a wide range of work that the network and its developers need.

• Protocol performance and resilience: logical synchronizer upgrades, ISS-based BFT, scalability and performance work, contract keys, and traffic accounting.
• Developer experience: Go and Python contributions, C#/.NET and Rust SDKs, Daml training and developer assistance, package management, dApp tooling, wallet tooling, and local development environments.
• Security and open infrastructure: security reviews, package analysis, open-source maintenance, indexers, reference wallets, data standards, settlement patterns, and decentralized governance tooling.

Much of this work happens behind the scenes, but it is important to Canton’s continued growth. It makes the network easier to build on, safer to operate, and less dependent on any single contributor.

Milestones

The Development Fund process is public from the initial proposal through payment.

The public Proposal Lifecycle Board tracks proposals as they move through assignment, review, revision, technical input, and voting. Once a project is approved, its deliverables are followed on the separate Milestone Board, where work progresses through implementation, milestone review, approval, and completion.

Payments are released as the agreed work is accepted. The community can then use public dashboards like Lighthouse to verify Development Fund grants minted on-chain. 

These resources make it possible to follow a project from its original proposal through approval, delivery, and payment.

Development Fund 2.0: setting clearer priorities

The first six months also showed where the process needs to improve. Having this open fund attracted a large number of proposals, and the community has limited time available to evaluate them. In the initial form of the Dev Fund all the proposals were individual initiatives, some being great ideas that responded to a clear need for the community, while others were niche projects that might not become a priority in the community for  years to come. To help focus the proposals we are launching Development Fund 2.0, which has at its fore the 2026–2028 technical vision and roadmap  with RFP areas, with a target of directing 80% of the Development Fund budget to roadmap-aligned proposals while preserving up to 20% for strong individual initiatives. The updated proposal template asks applicants to:

• Clearly define the problem they are solving.
• Provide evidence that the work is needed.
• Explain how the proposal fits Canton’s architecture.
• Identify a community champion.
• State the requested funding and project duration.
• Tie payments to milestones that deliver measurable value.

The fund will remain open to community ideas. The change is intended to give applicants clearer direction on work that is most likely to benefit Canton.

What comes next

The Development Fund’s next phase will focus on whether funded work is being used and whether it is delivering value to the wider ecosystem. Under Development Fund 2.0, new proposals will be evaluated more closely on demonstrated need, expected adoption, and measurable impact.

The process remains open like before. Builders can review the Development Fund repository, follow the two public boards, comment on proposals, or submit work that delivers a shared benefit to the Canton ecosystem.

The fund was created to help Canton’s technical foundation keep pace with the network’s growth. The first six months show that the mechanism is working as priorities are being surfaced publicly, work is being funded transparently, and completed milestones are translating into real on-chain payments.

Appendix: paid projects through the Development Fund 2.0 roadmap

This appendix includes every project with at least one payment or on-chain mint recorded as of August 24, 2026. Approved is the project’s maximum commitment, or the annualized amount for ongoing maintenance. Paid/minted to date is the cumulative amount released so far. Some projects remain in progress, so the descriptions below cover the full approved scope rather than only the milestones completed to date.

These projects were approved before Development Fund 2.0. They have been grouped under the closest area in the new roadmap for ease of reference. The groupings should not be read as a retroactive determination that a project responded to a published RFP.

Governance, Identity & Network Coordination

Project and recipient	Approved	Paid/minted to date	What the funded work adds
Traffic-Based App Rewards — Digital Asset	9,550,000 CC	3,000,000 CC	Links featured-app rewards to actual network traffic for clearer alignment and attribution.
SV Governance dApp — Avro	2,500,000 CC	800,000 CC	Separates governance voting from node operations and demonstrates external wallet signing.

Financial Markets, Standards & Verification

Project and recipient	Approved	Paid/minted to date	What the funded work adds
Token Standard V2 — Digital Asset	12,000,000 CC	4,800,000 CC	Advances privacy, performance, and institutional settlement features in the token standard.
x402 Protocol Integration — FTP	1,100,000 CC	400,000 CC	Adds Canton settlement support so APIs and AI agents can pay with CC.
Concordia — Unlockit	1,400,000 CC	90,000 CC	Provides reusable private allocation, governance, and auction building blocks.
Canton Payment Streams — Deepthi	2,100,000 CC	150,000 CC	Adds reusable private payment streams, vesting schedules, and batch payouts.

Developer Experience, Tooling & Education

Project and recipient	Approved	Paid/minted to date	What the funded work adds
Daml Open Source Maintenance — Digital Asset	12,000,000 CC	5,000,000 CC	Maintains Daml, its SDK, libraries, developer tools, and documentation.
Splice Wallet Kernel Maintenance — Digital Asset	4,800,000 CC	2,000,000 CC	Maintains shared wallet, dApp, and gateway tooling used for connectivity.
Go SDKs and Python DAZL Contributions — Noders	2,260,000 CC	1,000,000 CC	Supports adopted Go and Python tooling, compatibility work, hardening, and maintenance.
Canton Network dApp SDK and Tooling — Digital Asset	8,170,000 CC	1,500,000 CC	Turns the dApp standard into production SDKs, components, connectivity, and tests.
Canton DevKit — Bit Dynamics	1,900,000 CC	800,000 CC	Simplifies local setup, debugging, observability, and Token Standard V2 testing.
Wallet Gateway Reference Implementation — Digital Asset	6,700,000 CC	800,000 CC	Provides shared routing between dApps, institutional wallets, and validator infrastructure.
PartyLayer — Cayvox Labs	300,000 CC	200,000 CC	Adds reusable hooks, UI, and transaction tooling for production wallet experiences.
Rust SDK for Canton Network — NODEJUMPER	1,300,000 CC	90,000 CC	Starts a production-grade Rust SDK for network and market infrastructure teams.
Denex Localnet — Denex	8,500,000 CC	1,000,000 CC	Makes local Canton networks easier to configure, inspect, and operate.

Protocol, Infrastructure, Scalability & Resilience

Project and recipient	Approved	Paid/minted to date	What the funded work adds
Logical Synchronizer Upgrades — Digital Asset	12,000,000 CC	6,000,000 CC	Makes protocol upgrades less disruptive and reduces coordination for node operators.
ISS-Based BFT — Digital Asset	20,000,000 CC	6,500,000 CC	Builds multi-leader ordering to improve throughput and fault tolerance.
Scalability, Performance, and Robustness — Digital Asset	20,350,000 CC	4,920,000 CC	Removes scaling bottlenecks and improves network capacity and reliability.
Contract Keys — Digital Asset	11,150,000 CC	3,875,000 CC	Restores stable contract identifiers that simplify dApp logic and migrations to Canton.
Open-Source Validator Indexer (PQS) — Digital Asset	7,800,000 CC	3,900,000 CC	Opens SQL-based validator data access for operations, compliance, and audit reporting.
Canton Open Source Maintenance — Digital Asset	24,000,000 CC	10,000,000 CC	Keeps the Canton protocol stable, secure, and able to evolve.
Splice Open Source Maintenance — Digital Asset	12,000,000 CC	5,000,000 CC	Sustains shared Splice components, including Validator, Scan, CNS, and token tooling.

Security, Assurance & Incident Readiness

None of the 23 projects in this appendix maps primarily to this category. Security work is nevertheless included in several protocol and open-source maintenance grants above.

Individual Initiatives

Project and recipient	Approved	Paid/minted to date	What the funded work adds
CCTools — CCTools	500,000 CC	375,000 CC	Helps users discover Canton projects, track rewards, and explore governance.