Proposal: Arch–Canton Bridge — Leverage and Yield Infrastructure for CBTC

OPENPull Request
by mudman89001-04-2026Incoming
References:CIP-0056
View on GitHub ↗← All Proposals

Development Fund Proposal Submission

Proposal file: proposals/arch-bitcoin-capital-markets-stack.md

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Summary

This proposal requests $150,000 to build two public good infrastructure components that connect Bitcoin to Canton Network:

  1. Arch-Canton Bridge — a bidirectional, fee-free, open source bridge that mints CIP-56-compliant aBTC on Canton, enabling BTC holders to access Canton's institutional ecosystem and Canton participants to access Bitcoin liquidity.
  2. Canton Vault Standard — a standardized, composable vault interface written in Daml (analogous to Ethereum's ERC-4626), submitted as a formal Canton Improvement Proposal (CIP) for community adoption.

Both components are open, permissionless infrastructure available to any Canton participant at no cost. The $150K budget covers Canton-side Daml contract development, bridge relayer integration, testing, security audit, and documentation — executed by IntellectEU, a specialist Daml development firm with Canton production experience.

All underlying Arch-side infrastructure is already built and deployed. This proposal funds only the Canton integration layer.

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Key Details

  • Budget: $150,000 USD (payable in CC equivalent)
  • Scope: Canton-side Daml integration only — all five underlying primitives already exist on Arch Network
  • Daml development partner: IntellectEU (confirmed)
  • Milestones: M1A Bridge Testnet ($50K) → M1B Bridge Mainnet ($50K) → M2 Vault Standard CIP ($50K)

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Checklist

  • [x] Proposal file included
  • [x] Budget and milestones specified
  • [x] Daml development partner confirmed (IntellectEU)
  • [x] Reviewer feedback addressed

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Changes in this revision

  • Narrowed scope from 5 components to 2 — focused on the two genuine public goods (bridge + vault standard). Commercial services (DEX access, lending, capital markets integration) repositioned as unfunded ecosystem benefits that Arch builds and maintains at its own cost.
  • Reduced budget from $250K to $150K — reflects the tighter scope
  • Reduced milestones from 4 to 3 — M1A (Bridge Testnet), M1B (Bridge Mainnet), M2 (Vault Standard CIP)
  • Cleaner public goods framing — addresses reviewer concern about commercial benefit positioning
  • Added DA Utility compatibility — explicit Credential Utility and Registry Utility alignment
  • Added Ecosystem Benefits section — downstream value of the public goods clearly separated from funded deliverables