Proposal: Korean TTA Blockchain Reliability Verification of the Canton Private Synchronizer
Development Fund Proposal Submission
Proposal file: /proposals/canton-tta-brv.md
Impact
Korean institutions are making their first DLT choices now, across three fronts at once: securities firms ahead of the January 2027 STO deadline, and banks and the Bank of Korea as KRW stablecoin and CBDC rails take shape behind it. Those choices lock in the underlying infrastructure for decades, and selection is defaulting toward Hyperledger Besu and Fabric.
This credential is what puts Canton in front of them before that default hardens. The Canton Foundation can verify (under NDA) that a Korean financial authority has confirmed the importance of this credential. The proposal puts 40% of the request behind that adoption actually happening: the final milestone pays only if the Bank of Korea, one of the seven largest financial groups, KSD, or one of the twelve largest securities firms adopts the verified synchronizer for CBDC, KRW stablecoin, or STO.
Summary
This proposal funds taking the Canton private synchronizer through Korea's TTA Blockchain Reliability Verification (BRV) ahead of Korea's incoming permissioned-DLT regime, making Canton the first non-Korean DLT (and first privacy-preserving sub-net architecture) to hold the credential Korean financial-infrastructure operators use to evaluate a permissioned chain. Because the result attaches to the software itself, it serves Korea's regulated-DLT rails as one: STO under the Electronic Securities Act, plus KRW stablecoin and Bank of Korea CBDC settlement under the Digital Asset Basic Act. Every participant inherits the credential, and we open-source a TTA-verified reference deployment under Apache 2.0 for reuse across APAC. Total request: 3,300,000 CC (~$330,000 USD at $0.10/CC) across three milestones, weighted 10% at TTA engagement, 50% at verification issuance, and 40% at first institutional adoption.
Checklist
- Proposal file added under
/proposals/ - Milestones and funding amounts defined
- Acceptance criteria included
- Alignment with Canton priorities described
Notes for Reviewers
Eligible funding category: Security reviews, audits, and hardening (the BRV evaluation tests consensus fault tolerance, key management, and ledger integrity of the Canton private synchronizer against the NCSC guideline), plus reference implementations other builders can reuse: the Apache 2.0 TTA-verified reference deployment (verified stack and configuration, reproducible metrics, and test/benchmark harnesses), a portable blueprint for analogous APAC verification regimes.
SIG alignment:
- Primary: Regulatory Compliance
- Secondary: Canton Protocol & Multi-Synchronizer (validates the private synchronizer's BFT consensus, deterministic finality, and privacy sub-net; aligns with the multi-synchronizer roadmap)
- Optional third: Node Deployment & Operations (verification environment, deployment/key-management posture)
Champion: Teagan Buckley, Canton Foundation.
Public-good framing: The grant funds a credential that attaches to the Canton private synchronizer software (not to Nodeinfra or any single operator) and a fully open-sourced (Apache 2.0) TTA-verified reference deployment reusable across APAC. Because it attaches to the software, the credential is inherited equally across STO, KRW stablecoin, and Bank of Korea CBDC and deposit-token domains under the same NCSC guideline, widening the benefit while scope and payment gates stay fixed to BRV of the synchronizer. Nodeinfra's commercial work (the STO issuance platform, securities-firm BD, and the law-firm legal-education engagement) is explicitly fenced into the proposal's Out of Scope section and funded separately; it appears in the Growth and Adoption section only as evidence the credential drives real adoption.
Acceptance criteria are objectively verifiable: All three milestone gates are independently checkable without grantee attestation: TTA confirmation that it is ready to begin BRV, verifiable by the Committee under NDA (M1); a publicly verifiable TTA-issued BRV result plus the published Apache 2.0 verified reference deployment (M2); and documentary evidence of institutional adoption — an executed agreement, a formal selection or award notice, or a live deployment — verifiable by the Committee under NDA where the counterparty requires it (M3). Each gate is binary, and M3 lapses unpaid if no qualifying adoption occurs within 18 months of result issuance.
Adoption accountability: Adoption is a payment gate, not a promise. Milestone 3 (40% of the request, 1,320,000 CC) pays only if one of 21 named Korean institutions adopts the verified private synchronizer for CBDC, KRW stablecoin, or STO within 18 months of result issuance:
- Bank of Korea (한국은행) and KSD (한국예탁결제원)
- Seven largest financial groups: KB, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, NH NongHyup, BNK, iM (formerly DGB)
- Twelve largest securities firms: Mirae Asset, Korea Investment, NH Investment, Samsung, KB, Hana, Shinhan, Meritz, Kiwoom, Daishin, Hanwha Investment, Kyobo
Broader ecosystem indicators (cross-jurisdiction artifact reuse, RFP citations) remain informational, reported publicly in the repo at 6, 12, and 18 months post-issuance.
Timing: The Korean STO law's January 2027 effective date is hard, and infrastructure-operator selection runs 6–12 months ahead of it. The Digital Asset Basic Act follows behind, bringing KRW stablecoin and Bank of Korea CBDC rails onto the same operators in the same window. The 5-month delivery window is matched to placing Canton in the selection pool before those decisions are locked. The 18-month Milestone 3 window spans both conversion waves: STO selections through 2027, and the KRW stablecoin and Bank of Korea CBDC rails that select behind them as the Digital Asset Basic Act phases in.