Opened 24-02-2026 by vadasnorbert, last activity 4mo ago
Proposal file:
/proposals/Technology-and-ecosystem-development-for-a-multi-VM-capable-Canton.md
Zenith proposes a recurring Development Fund grant to build, maintain, and evolve a production-grade EVM-compatible execution environment for Canton, advancing its multi-VM polyglot vision.
/proposals/Showing 1 to 2 of 2, oldest first.
Due to the recurring nature of funding, this proposal introduces a quarterly reporting framework.
Each quarter, Zenith submits a Quarterly Review Report to the Tech & Ops Committee covering all three metrics below, including live technical demonstrations as needed.
The Quarterly Review Report shall be submitted no later than 30 days following the end of each calendar quarter. Upon submission, the committee shall have 30 days to review the report and raise any material shortfalls. If no such shortfalls are raised within this period, the report shall be deemed accepted.
If the committee identifies material shortfalls, Zenith has 30 days to present a remediation plan. Failure to remediate within this period may result in suspension or termination of future disbursements.
Focus: Ensure the EVM execution environment for Canton is stable and secure, and follows upstream Ethereum development.
Deliverables:
Note: If necessary, Zenith may decide to defer EVM upgrades to preserve network integrity, and adjust upgrade timelines in the event of force majeure.
Focus: Ensure production reliability and security.
Deliverables:
Focus: Builder adoption and ecosystem growth.
Deliverables:
Acceptance criteria:
Acceptance criteria:
Acceptance criteria:
Authors: Norbert Vadas, Teemu Päivinen, Heslin Kim, Henri Kämäräinen
Status: Submitted
Created: 2026-02-24
Updated: 2026-04-07
Zenith requests a recurring Development Fund grant with an initial term of 12 months to develop, maintain and evolve the EVM-compatible execution environment being delivered under CIP-0091, as long-term, production-grade infrastructure for Canton Network.
Enabling Canton's Polyglot vision, Zenith allows Canton participants to deploy native EVM applications that are atomically composable across Canton subnets, with all activity settled on Canton MainNet. Building and sustaining it as a production-grade requires predictable operational funding, which this recurring grant provides.
We have strong, validated interest from top-tier DeFi protocols and other counterparties to bring billions of dollars in assets on-chain as RWAs, and we believe that this is highly complementary to Canton’s institutional positioning.
Zenith is committed to being a long-term holder of Canton Coin, and given the approval of CIP-105 (Super Validator Locking & Long-Term Commitment Framework) in March 2026, a significant portion of Zenith’s SV rewards must now be locked to maintain Super Validator weight. This locking mechanism materially limits the liquid rewards available to fund ongoing development operations. This Development Fund grant proposal is therefore designed to complement Zenith’s SV rewards, ensuring that Zenith can sustain continuous development, maintenance, and evolution of Canton’s EVM- and SVM-compatible execution environments, as a strategic long-term partner.
This proposal establishes a structured, quarterly evaluation framework covering:
As stated in CIP-0091, Zenith is building an EVM-based execution environment for Canton that enables Canton participants to deploy native EVM applications, with atomic composability across Canton subnets, settled on Canton MainNet. The external_call() primitive, implemented by Zenith, is the Daml-native mechanism underpinning this composability between Canton-native contracts and EVM-based smart contracts.
This recurring grant funds continued development of a production-grade EVM environment for Canton. Specifically, Zenith commits to:
All EVM transactions are routed through Canton, with subsequent settlement and finality on Canton MainNet. This design ensures that the EVM environment is not value extractive to Canton, as all activity flows through Canton directly.
The EVM environment for Canton runs in a trusted execution model where the Canton participant serves dual roles:
Atomic composability is enabled by the external_call() function implemented by Zenith in Daml (PRs submitted already). This function allows Daml contracts to invoke a deterministic, locally running EVM execution service and receive results back within the same atomic transaction. Specifically, it is used to:
Zenith’s work directly advances Canton’s polyglot vision by delivering an EVM-compatible execution extension for Canton, strengthening global composability.
It allows developers to write applications in Solidity for EVM that are atomically composable with Canton-native applications, making Canton's regulated financial infrastructure accessible to Ethereum’s developer ecosystem for the first time.
This aligns with Canton’s ecosystem priorities to broaden developer participation, expand Canton’s addressable market, and attract new builders and users.
To maximize value alignment and to function as a value additive runtime extension to Canton, Zenith routes all EVM activity through Canton.
Through the EVM compatibility built by Zenith, isolated Hyperledger Besu chains will have a migration path to running EVM applications that are atomically composable with Canton.
No backward compatibility impact.
The external_call() primitive is fully backwards compatible:
external_call() is a new, opt-in primitive; only DARs that explicitly reference it depend on the feature.Due to the recurring nature of funding, this proposal introduces a quarterly reporting framework.
Each quarter, Zenith submits a Quarterly Review Report to the Tech & Ops Committee covering all three metrics below, including live technical demonstrations as needed.
The Quarterly Review Report shall be submitted no later than 30 days following the end of each calendar quarter. Upon submission, the committee shall have 30 days to review the report and raise any material shortfalls. If no such shortfalls are raised within this period, the report shall be deemed accepted.
If the committee identifies material shortfalls, Zenith has 30 days to present a remediation plan. Failure to remediate within this period may result in suspension or termination of future disbursements.
Focus: Ensure the EVM execution environment for Canton is stable and secure, and follows upstream Ethereum development.
Deliverables:
Note: If necessary, Zenith may decide to defer EVM upgrades to preserve network integrity, and adjust upgrade timelines in the event of force majeure.
Focus: Ensure production reliability and security.
Deliverables:
Focus: Builder adoption and ecosystem growth.
Deliverables:
Acceptance criteria:
Acceptance criteria:
Acceptance criteria:
Grant Cessation Clause: If Zenith successfully closes its Series A (with confirmation of capital call), this grant will immediately cease. Zenith will notify the Committee promptly upon closing.
Funding request: 2,000,000 CC per month on a recurring basis, benchmarked against the core Canton protocol maintenance grant (PR #48).
Term: Initial 12-month period, with quarterly reviews and automatic renewal subject to satisfactory performance.
Review and off-ramps: Quarterly evaluation by the Tech & Ops Committee (or Core Contributor Group) based on the proposed quarterly reporting framework including published release notes, repository activity, SLO achievement (critical vulnerabilities mitigated within 48 hours, external PRs reviewed within 5 business days), and ecosystem deliverables. The Committee may suspend or terminate future payments after any quarter if performance falls short.
Payment schedule: Monthly disbursements at the end of each month, starting upon approval. Payment may be delayed if the Committee raises a performance challenge and voting members approve the delay.
SV reward alignment:
For the duration of the Ecosystem Grant:
Monthly budget breakdown:
Zenith’s monthly funding request reflects the operational resources required to sustain a production-grade EVM execution environment on Canton. The costs are driven by a dedicated cross-functional team spanning engineering (7), product (1), and business development (2), marketing (1), and operations (2).
Together, these components enable continuous protocol maintenance, Ethereum compatibility, operational resilience, and ongoing ecosystem growth, positioning Zenith as long-term infrastructure rather than a one-off delivery.
Volatility handling
The monthly grants are denominated in Canton Coin (CC) using an initial reference price of 0.15 USD per CC.
For every month, the 30-day moving average (MA) of the CC/USD price will be evaluated.
Example:
Upon each quarterly review period, Zenith will collaborate with Canton Foundation on:
Canton's Polyglot vision aims for global composability, privacy, and regulatory compliance across execution environments. Zenith addresses EVM-compatibility, with plans to extend this to SVM-compatibility (subject to the approval of a separate grant submitted), connecting the two largest ecosystems and developer communities in Web3 with Canton Network.
Considering the growing interest from EVM applications to becoming composable with Canton, Zenith:
EVM compatibility is not a one-time feature implementation but needs consistent maintenance. Ethereum and the EVM evolves continuously, through hard forks, EIPs, tooling changes, and security improvements, and staying up-to-date requires sustained engineering effort.
The predictable operational funding through this grant ensures continuous, production-grade EVM-compatibility for Canton through a robust, fully maintained EVM execution environment.
While the current grant proposal focuses primarily on the productionization, maintenance, and further evolving of EVM execution environments for Canton, Zenith is equally committed to driving growth and adoption that benefit both Canton and Zenith. Ambitious adoption milestones are already part of CIP-0091, including: 1. onboarding enterprise deployments with over $10M TVL to Canton via Zenith; 2. generating 10M $CC burn (per 0.5 weight) through EVM transactions; and 3. reaching over $1B of RWAs issued.
In the past three months, Zenith has conducted hundreds of conversations, including active pilot discussions, with a diverse range of counterparties across two key verticals:
Based on the demand pipeline, Zenith is confident it can meet its adoption and growth milestones, along with consistently increasing user activity, to Canton through Zenith.
Zenith is committed to enabling and strengthening Canton’s polyglot vision by delivering and maintaining production-grade EVM compatibility.
Through CIP-0091, Zenith is a core stakeholder in realizing Canton’s EVM compatibility. The external_call() primitive is already implemented and under active testing, with transaction processing between Canton and the EVM environment being demonstrated on March 3. This proposal formalizes and sustains infrastructure elements that are already functional and advancing.
Zenith combines deep EVM and SVM expertise with hands-on experience implementing deterministic execution within Canton’s architecture. Our 13-person team works exclusively on bringing the EVM execution environment to Canton with atomic composability.
The recurring grant provides Zenith with the stability needed to proactively:
Our objective is not a short-term collaboration, but a strategic, long-term alignment to build and deliver EVM-compatibility for Canton, while also ensuring operational stability for Zenith.
Rebuilt from the recorded board moves (complete history). get_dev_fund_lifecycle(number) gives the same in the MCP.