Development Fund Proposal
Author: Silvan Sperl, Program Director, DEC Institute
Status: Submitted
Created: 2026-07-30
Label: regulatory-compliance
Champion: DEC Institute — Associate Member
CANTON FOUNDATION | PROTOCOL DEVELOPMENT FUND
Proposal: Canton Business Learning Program
3 Modules, 180 Minutes | Developed for and owned by the Foundation
| Field | Detail |
|---|
| Applicant | DEC Institute (DEC Education Services AG, Zug, Switzerland) |
| Champion | DEC Institute — Associate Member |
| Funding requested | USD 34,000, fixed price, paid in Canton Coin against milestones |
| Duration | 3 months from approval |
| Intellectual property | All rights in the deliverables assigned to the Canton Foundation |
| Contact | Silvan Sperl / Program Director / s***@decinstitute.orgCc: Arno Pernthaler / Co-Founder / a***@decinstitute.org |
Abstract
The request: USD 34,000, fixed price, payable in Canton Coin against three acceptance-gated milestones over three months.
What is delivered: A three-hour business-level learning program on the Canton Network: three sixty-minute modules of video and slides, knowledge checks, a self-assessment worksheet, a certificate of completion and all editable source files. All rights assigned to the Foundation on acceptance of each milestone.
The gap it fills: Canton's technical resources are strong. There is no business-level pathway into the ecosystem: no structured account of the economic rationale, institutional use cases, governance model, adoption strategies and implications of participation. The person inside an institution positioned to advance the case has vendor material and episodic press coverage to work with, and neither survives a risk committee.
Why now: Production activity is live and the DTCC Tokenization Service opens to broader participation in October 2026. Mid-tier banks, regional custodians, asset managers and infrastructure providers are forming positions on Canton now and most will never be the subject of a direct engagement.
Who it is for: The client's internal champion (e.g. specialists in digital asset teams, project leads etc.) who must carry the proposition through commercial, risk, compliance, third-party risk, legal, technology and treasury review. Each module is scoped to stand alone so that it can be forwarded to the function that needs it.
Promotion: DEC promotes the completed program to its own network of more than 7,500 banking and financial-services learners through its newsletter and social channels, at no additional cost. Further distribution activity is not in scope of this proposal but can be discussed separately.
What success looks like: Not raw enrolment but institutional take-up: min. 10 financial institutions putting groups of staff through the program within twelve months of publication and identifiable progression from the program into the ecosystem's technical resources.
Why DEC: A Swiss-based but global education and certification body co-founded by a consortium of leading blockchain-focused universities and industry players, operating the CDAA® and CBA® charters through Pearson VUE and edX. DEC also delivers MiCA certification programs to crypto-asset service providers across Europe, so the regulatory vocabulary and compliance framing this audience expects is daily work rather than a new competence. DEC has also delivered business-level programs for other enterprise-focused Layer 1 ecosystems under the same commissioning and ownership model. Learn more about DEC Institute and its members here: https://decinstitute.org/about-us
Specification
1. Objective
Objective
To produce, for the Canton Foundation, a three-hour business-level learning program that equips staff and decision-makers at financial institutions to evaluate the Canton Network on informed terms, to build the internal case for a first project and to enter the ecosystem's technical and implementation resources from an informed position.
In scope
Curriculum design; subject-matter research and scripting; slide and visual design; video production using AI-avatar presentation; knowledge checks and a self-assessment worksheet; certificate of completion template and issuance logic; transcripts and closed captions; delivery of all source files; two review cycles with the Foundation; promotion of the completed program to DEC's learner network as described under Co-Marketing. English.
Explicitly out of scope
Translation into additional languages; live or instructor-led delivery; content updates beyond the delivery term; paid media, event-based marketing and distribution activity beyond that set out under Co-Marketing, which can be discussed separately; hosting, under the base case (see Hosting).
What this is not
This is not a developer curriculum and does not duplicate the ecosystem's technical documentation, developer guides, quickstarts or operator resources. It precedes them. Nor does it promote, endorse or feature any individual application on the network, since use cases are presented at category level.
Target Audience
Primary: The internal champion described under Motivation. These are specialists in digital-asset, innovation, markets-technology and strategy functions at banks, custodians, asset managers and other established financial institutions, positioned to initiate an evaluation but not to authorise one.
Secondary: The gatekeepers they must bring with them, namely business owners, executive sponsors, risk and compliance, third-party risk, legal, technology and treasury. The modular structure is designed so that the relevant module can be forwarded directly to each.
Prerequisites: General financial-services literacy. No blockchain background is assumed and no technical prerequisites apply. The program is designed to be comprehensible to a senior professional encountering the subject for the first time, without being condescending to one who is not.
Learning Outcomes
On completion, a learner is able to:
- Describe how the Canton Foundation governs the network, including the role of Super Validators and the CIP process, to the standard a third-party risk assessment requires
- Identify which of their own institution's workflows correspond to live Canton use cases
- Articulate the return-on-investment drivers of a Canton-based deployment in terms recognisable to a treasury or finance function
- Explain Canton's privacy model and articulate how it differs from public-chain and single-vendor DLT approaches
- Explain the function of Canton Coin within the network's operation and characterise its implications for a regulated institution
- Describe the participation models available to their institution and the effort profile associated with each
- Outline the internal stakeholders, objections and sequencing involved in initiating a first project
Outcomes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 are assessed through knowledge checks embedded in the corresponding module. Outcomes 3 and 7, which are applied to the learner's own institution and cannot be assessed by knowledge check, are supported by a structured self-assessment worksheet delivered with Module 3.
2. Implementation Mechanics
Curriculum Architecture
Three modules of sixty minutes, thematically distinct, sequenced so that each resolves the objection raised by the one before it and scoped so that each can stand alone when forwarded to a single internal function.
Module 1: The Canton Network and Its Governance (60 min)
Why Canton exists: the siloed-systems problem in capital markets and the cost it imposes. The architecture explained in commercial terms, covering synchronizers, sub-transaction privacy and atomic composability, without code. What "privacy-enabled open blockchain" means in operational practice for a regulated institution, and what it rules out. Governance: the Foundation's mandate and structure, the role of Super Validators, the CIP process and what network decentralisation means when assessed as vendor risk.
Primary internal audience when forwarded: risk, compliance, third-party risk.
Module 2: The Institutional Business Case (60 min)
Live use cases walked through at category level: collateral mobility and intraday repo; tokenized funds and money-market instruments; tokenized deposits and payments; tokenized treasuries and the DTCC initiative. The return drivers behind them: capital efficiency, intraday liquidity release, reduced settlement and reconciliation cost, continuous operation. Participation models compared, covering validator, application provider and application user, with the effort and cost profile of each. Build-versus-join as a framing for the institution's own decision.
Primary internal audience when forwarded: business owner, executive sponsor, treasury.
Module 3: Economics, Risk and Adoption (60 min)
Canton Coin: its utility within the network, the fee mechanics it supports, why the network requires a native unit and what that does and does not imply for a regulated balance sheet. This segment runs approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Risk, compliance and regulatory positioning. Building the internal business case: which stakeholders to align and in what order, which objections to expect and how they are answered, how a first deployment is typically sequenced and what a realistic initial scope looks like.
Primary internal audience: project leads, decision makers.
Weighting: Value proposition, privacy model and business case carry approximately two thirds of total runtime. Canton Coin is treated as a substantive but contained segment rather than a standalone module. For this audience it is a question to be answered accurately, not the proposition being made.
Approach
Instructional design
Each module is built backwards from its assessed learning outcomes. A curriculum blueprint mapping every outcome to segment, script section and knowledge check is delivered and accepted before any production spend is committed.
Content development
Scripts are researched against primary sources, including Foundation publications, CIPs, network documentation and public institutional announcements, then submitted to the Foundation for factual review at Milestone 1.
Production
Video is produced using AI-avatar presentation with slide-based visual support. This choice is deliberate. It holds production cost per finished hour materially below live-presenter equivalents, and it makes future updates economically viable, since a revised script can be reproduced without rescheduling filming.
Assessment
Knowledge checks are formative rather than gating. They confirm comprehension and reinforce retention without creating a pass/fail barrier that would deter senior learners from completing.
Portability
All source files are delivered alongside the finished output. Packaging follows open standards: MP4 video, native slide sources, transcripts and caption files, and a SCORM 1.2 package, all delivered under the base case. The Foundation must be able to host, edit, re-cut and redistribute the material without dependency on any platform, including DEC's own.
Deliverables
All deliverables are transferred to the Foundation together with editable source files, as required for the assignment of rights described under Ownership and Licensing.
| # | Deliverable | Format |
|---|
| 1 | Curriculum blueprint and learning-outcome map | DOCX / PDF |
| 2 | Full scripts, three modules | DOCX / PDF |
| 3 | Slide decks, three modules | PPTX + PDF |
| 4 | Produced video, 3 × 60 min | MP4 |
| 5 | Transcripts and closed captions, three modules | DOCX (+ SRT / VTT) |
| 6 | Knowledge check bank | XLSX |
| 7 | Self-assessment worksheet (Module 3) | DOCX / PDF |
| 8 | Certificate of completion template and issuance logic | Native format |
Hosting
Option A: content handover (base case, included in the funding request)
All deliverables and source files are transferred to the Foundation, which hosts the program on its own infrastructure and controls distribution entirely.
Option B: managed hosting (optional, priced separately)
DEC hosts and configures the program on LearnWorlds. This comprises two components:
- One-off implementation. Build of the course website and branded pages within the LMS, enrolment and access configuration, certificate issuance setup and testing: USD 4,000
- Annual charge. Hosting, learner accounts, certificate issuance, completion reporting and platform maintenance: USD 1,800 per year
Option C: hosting via edX.org (optional, subject to edX approval)
DEC already publishes preparatory professional certificates on edX and can propose the program for hosting there. This places the material on an established global learning platform with its own audience and discovery, rather than on Foundation or DEC infrastructure. Fees, revenue arrangements and editorial requirements would be defined in collaboration with edX, but DEC cannot commit to this route in advance. It is offered as an option to explore if the Foundation wants third-party reach.
Neither Option B nor Option C forms part of the USD 34,000 request and ownership of the material is unaffected under any of the three.
3. Architectural Alignment
Does not apply.
4. Backward Compatibility
Does not apply.
Milestones and Deliverables
| Milestone | Week | Deliverable | Acceptance criterion | Payment |
|---|
| M1 | 3 | Curriculum blueprint and full scripts for all three modules | Foundation reviewer confirms that scripts cover the agreed learning outcomes and are factually accurate on network specifics | 25% (USD 8,500) |
| M2 | 9 | Three modules produced: video, slides, knowledge checks | Each module delivered at agreed runtime and accepted on content and production quality. Divisible into three equal sub-milestones if the Committee prefers | 50% (USD 17,000) |
| M3 | 12 | Final review, source files, sign-off | Package tested successfully in the target environment; all source files delivered; all review comments closed | 25% (USD 8,500) |
Payment at each milestone is released only against accepted deliverables. Rights in each deliverable vest in the Foundation on acceptance of the corresponding milestone. Two revision rounds per milestone are included. Should a milestone be rejected, DEC remediates at its own cost before resubmission.
Foundation review turnaround
The twelve-week schedule assumes the Foundation returns consolidated comments within five business days of each submission. Where a review cycle takes longer, the delivery timeline extends day for day and the fixed price is unaffected. DEC asks that a single Foundation reviewer be nominated at the outset to consolidate comments across the Foundation's functions, so that DEC works from one instruction rather than several.
Acceptance Criteria
The acceptance criterion for each milestone is stated in the milestone table above.
Indicators of success
Neither party controls institutional take-up, so DEC proposes indicators rather than guarantees, assessed twelve months after publication: financial institutions putting groups of staff through the program rather than isolated individual registrations; completions distributed across named institutions; identifiable progression into the ecosystem's technical resources or into a first conversation with a member firm; and reuse of the material by member firms, validators and application providers in their own institutional conversations.
These are reported by the Foundation from its own hosting data under Option A. Under Option B, DEC supplies completion reporting as part of the annual charge.
Funding
Total Funding Request: USD 34,000
Payment Breakdown by Milestone
- Milestone 1 (Curriculum blueprint and full scripts): 25% — USD 8,500 upon committee acceptance
- Milestone 2 (Three modules produced): 50% — USD 17,000 upon committee acceptance
- Milestone 3 (Final review, source files, sign-off): 25% — USD 8,500 upon final release and acceptance
Cost breakdown by line item
| Line item and component work | USD |
|---|
| Curriculum design and learning architecture• Module and segment sequencing across three sixty-minute modules, built as six to eight segments per module• Mapping of every learning outcome to segment, script section and knowledge check• Structuring of each module so that it stands alone when forwarded to a single reviewing function• Curriculum blueprint issued for Foundation acceptance before any production spend is committed | 3,500 |
| Subject-matter research and framework development• Research against primary sources: Foundation publications, CIPs, network documentation and public institutional announcements• Up to three structured working sessions with Foundation subject-matter experts covering governance, network architecture and Canton Coin• Pre-session preparation and question architecture; post-session consolidation• Extraction of transferable frameworks and translation of expert input into course-ready content | 5,000 |
| Script development and narrative design• Development of a coherent module-by-module narrative for three hours of delivery• Clarification of business relevance and positioning for each segment• Alignment of script to the assessed learning outcomes and to the visual material• Optimisation of script for AI-based delivery• Final structured master script documentation, submitted for Foundation factual review at Milestone 1 | 6,000 |
| Slide development and visual content• Creation of a course-specific slide template to Canton Foundation CI/CD, covering title, chapter and content slides• Approximately one slide per 1.5 to 2 minutes of runtime, in the order of 100 to 120 slides across the three modules• Original diagrams for the privacy and synchronisation model, governance structure, participation models and use-case flows• Slide design aligned to institutional presentation standards• Finalisation and refinement against consolidated Foundation feedback | 10,000 |
| Digital course production and delivery• AI-avatar configuration and narration calibration• Synchronisation of narration with the presentation material• Rendering and production of the final course modules• Quality control, final export, transcripts and closed captions | 7,000 |
| Assessment, certificate logic and review cycles• Knowledge-check bank covering each assessed learning outcome• Certificate of completion template and issuance logic specification• Two Foundation review cycles per milestone and final sign-off• Licence register for third-party assets and handover of all editable source files | 2,500 |
| Total | 34,000 |
This equates to approximately USD 11,300 per finished learning hour. The figure includes full assignment of rights: DEC retains no residual interest and charges no licence fee. The price is fixed, and DEC absorbs any overrun against the scope accepted at Milestone 1.
Volatility Stipulation
Project duration is under six months.
Payment currency. DEC accepts payment in Canton Coin. Milestone values are stated in USD, with the Canton Coin amount for each payment determined at the prevailing daily reference rate on the date that payment is executed. Given that the CC price can move materially over a three-month term, this holds the agreed value of the work constant for both parties and keeps exchange-rate exposure out of the delivery relationship. DEC is content for the reference rate source to be specified by the Foundation.
Co-Marketing
Promotion by DEC (included)
On publication, DEC promotes the program to its own network of more than 7,500 learners and professionals in banking and financial services, through its newsletter and social channels, at no additional cost to the Foundation. That audience is the program's target population: professionals in digital-asset, innovation, risk, compliance, markets-technology and strategy functions at banks, custodians and asset managers. DEC is open to discussing further distribution activity, including co-ordinated campaigns, outreach into its existing institutional client base and event-based promotion, as a separate arrangement.
Distribution by the Foundation
The Foundation holds the ecosystem relationships through which the program reaches member firms, validators and application providers, and it determines how and where the material is published. The two channels are complementary: DEC reaches individual professionals inside institutions, and the Foundation reaches the institutions themselves.
Motivation
The constraint on institutional adoption has shifted from technology to comprehension
Canton's viability as institutional infrastructure is no longer a question. In July 2026 DTCC began limited production trades of DTC-tokenized US Treasury and equity securities on Canton, with the full launch of its Tokenization Service scheduled for October 2026 and an industry working group of more than fifty firms behind it. JPMorgan's Kinexys is bringing its JPMD deposit token natively onto the network in phases through 2026. HSBC has completed a pilot issuing and atomically settling its Tokenised Deposit Service on Canton. Visa joined in March 2026 as the first major payments company to serve as a Super Validator. Broadridge's Distributed Ledger Repo settled an average of USD 357 billion a day in June 2026. Each of these engagements was secured through sustained, direct dialogue between the network's principal participants, the foundation's affiliated company Digital Asset, and the largest institutions in the market. That approach produced the proof the network required, but it is inherently limited in the number of institutions it can reach.
The population that must now be reached is different in character. Mid-tier banks, regional custodians, asset managers and infrastructure providers will not be the subject of a dedicated engagement and must form their own view of the network before any conversation begins. With production activity already live and the DTCC service opening to broader participation in October 2026, they are forming those views now. Whether they are able to do so accurately is a practical determinant of how quickly the participant base expands.
How institutions arrive at a decision on network participation
The adoption of shared financial infrastructure by a regulated institution is not a procurement decision. It is an internal review in which the proposition is tested successively by functions holding different mandates: a commercial owner assessing revenue or cost; risk and compliance assessing exposure, data treatment and counterparty composition; third-party risk assessing ownership and governance; legal assessing finality, enforceability and jurisdiction; technology assessing integration and operating burden; and an executive sponsor forming a view on the institution's overall position. Each can decline to proceed, and each requires the case in terms it recognises.
The proposition is carried through that process by an individual, most often a specialist within a digital-asset, innovation, markets-technology or strategy function, who holds subject-matter conviction but no authority to commit the institution. Their contribution is largely one of translation. Propositions fail more often at this stage than at the point of substantive assessment, because the case is never assembled in a form that reaches a decision-making forum.
The Canton ecosystem is well provisioned for the technical dimension of this. Documentation, developer guides, quickstarts and operator resources are comprehensive and actively maintained. What has no counterpart is a structured business pathway. Beyond the technical corpus, the individual carrying the proposition is left with material produced by commercial participants in the ecosystem, which institutional review functions discount on receipt, and with public reporting, which is episodic and offers no structured account of the network's design or participation model. The case is therefore assembled from partial sources, and the institution's assessment of the network comes to reflect the quality of that improvisation rather than the merits of the network itself.
Rationale
The case for a structured business pathway
A concise, professionally produced and independently authored account of the network addresses this directly. Three hours of structured material turns an interested individual into a capable internal advocate: someone able to put the network's privacy model, governance, economics and use cases to each reviewing function in the terms that function applies, rather than in the terms the network uses about itself. The Learning Outcomes above set out what a learner is able to do on completion. The material does not persuade the institution; it equips the person positioned to make the case.
The modular structure extends that effect. Because each of the three modules addresses a distinct set of institutional concerns (governance and privacy; the commercial case; economics and implementation), the material can be directed to the relevant reviewing function rather than remaining with the individual who completed it. The several functions engaged in an evaluation therefore encounter a consistent and accurate account of the network from a common source, rather than successive reconstructions of variable quality. A certificate of completion additionally establishes the learner's standing internally as an informed point of reference.
Positioned this way, the program operates as the front door of the Canton learning ecosystem rather than as a parallel offering. It precedes the technical documentation and implementation resources instead of competing with them. A business audience completes it, forms an accurate view and then either proceeds into technical learning and a first project or concludes that the network is not presently a fit. Both outcomes are preferable to an evaluation that stalls for want of a coherent account. Aggregated across institutions, the effect is to make a serious evaluation of Canton possible without a member firm or application provider having first made contact, decoupling the expansion of the participant base from the coverage capacity of the network's existing participants.
A proven model for accelerating institutional adoption
The approach proposed here is not speculative. DEC has developed business-level programs of this kind for other enterprise-focused Layer 1 ecosystems, commissioned on exactly the basis proposed here: a network foundation engaging an independent, accredited education and certification body to produce material aimed at executives and business professionals with no technical background, which the foundation then owns and publishes under its own name. In each case the business track was maintained separately from the network's developer resources and positioned as the route into the ecosystem ahead of the technical one, reflecting the same sequencing set out above. DEC is happy to discuss those engagements with the Committee directly.
At the moment, Canton has no comparable provision. Its learning resources are strong on the technical side and absent on the business side and there is at present no defined route by which a business audience enters the ecosystem. For a network whose proposition rests entirely on institutional adoption, and whose intended participants operate under more demanding governance requirements than a general enterprise base, that absence is the more consequential. Producing the material once, to a single standard, would additionally relieve application providers, validators and member firms of the need to reconstruct the same explanation independently for each institution they approach.
Ownership and Licensing
DEC acts as a contracted service provider
All intellectual property rights in the deliverables, covering scripts, slide decks, video, assessment items, graphics, certificate design and accompanying documentation, vest in the Canton Foundation on acceptance of the corresponding milestone. DEC retains no ownership interest and no right to reuse, resell, republish or adapt the material.
Warranties
DEC warrants that the deliverables are original work, that they do not infringe third-party rights and that DEC holds all rights necessary to effect this assignment. Third-party assets used in production, such as stock imagery, fonts, avatar and voice licences and music, are documented at handover in a licence register. The Foundation's position is therefore unambiguous, and no residual permission is required from any party.
Background IP
Excluded from the assignment are DEC's pre-existing materials, instructional-design templates, production methods and general know-how, none of which are specific to this project and none of which are required for the Foundation's unrestricted use of the deliverables. This is a standard carve-out and does not limit the Foundation's rights in the work.
Onward licensing is the Foundation's decision
DEC would note only that publishing under an open licence such as CC BY 4.0 or CC0 is what allows member firms, validators and application providers to embed the material directly in their own institutional conversations. That is the principal distribution mechanism available to an asset of this kind, and the ecosystem effect described under Rationale depends on it. The choice nonetheless sits entirely with the owner.
If the Foundation commercialises the program
The price under Funding is set on the assumption that the program is distributed without charge as an ecosystem asset, which is what the effect described under Rationale depends on. Should the Foundation instead elect to charge for access, whether by selling places directly or by licensing the material to third parties for a fee, DEC receives 25 per cent (25%) of the net revenue received. This does not qualify the assignment of rights: ownership, control and the decision whether to commercialise at all remain entirely with the Foundation, and no share is payable where the material is distributed free of charge.
Branding and Attribution
The Foundation owns the material and controls how it is presented. DEC's working assumption is white-label delivery: the program appears as a Canton Foundation asset, with DEC named in the production credits only.
DEC would raise one consideration for the Committee's decision, offered as information rather than as a request. The audience is institutional, and institutional audiences apply a credibility discount to material authored by a party with a commercial interest in the conclusion. A discreet line on the opening screen and the certificate, indicating that the material was developed by an independent, university-founded certification body, can reduce that discount. One formulation would be "Developed in partnership with DEC Institute". This matters most in the situation described under Rationale, where the material is forwarded to risk, compliance or third-party-risk functions who did not choose to receive it and who assess the source before the substance.
Whether that benefit justifies a second name on a Foundation-owned asset is the Committee's judgement. DEC will proceed on either basis.
Long-Term Maintenance
Canton evolves and content of this kind ages. Because the Foundation holds the rights and receives editable source files, it can revise, re-cut, extend or reassign the material at any time, using DEC or any other party, with no permission required and no dependency created.
DEC would be willing to undertake periodic review and refresh under a separate follow-on engagement. This is deliberately excluded from the present request so that the Committee is not asked to approve a recurring commitment alongside a fixed deliverable.
Team and Evidence of Capability
Delivery leads: Arno Pernthaler, Co-founder & CEO, and Silvan Sperl, Program Director.
Arno Pernthaler is a co-founder and Chairman of the DEC Institute. With a background in corporate strategy, frontier technologies, digital innovation, and blockchain product development, he has held senior manager roles at organizations including Swisscom Blockchain, Atomyze, and DFINITY Foundation. His work at DEC focuses on building professional standards, industry-recognized certifications, and educational frameworks that help individuals and institutions navigate the evolving digital asset ecosystem.
Silvan Sperl is Program Director at the DEC Institute, where he leads the development and delivery of professional education and certification programs in blockchain, digital assets, and Web3. He combines expertise in digital asset education with a background in international relations and banking, drawing on experience at AMINA Bank and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Institutional standing
DEC Institute is a Swiss-based but global education and certification body co-founded by a consortium of leading higher education institutions and industry players, among them the National University of Singapore School of Computing (NUS), the University of British Columbia (UBC), Politecnico di Milano, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, IIIT-Hyderabad and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. It operates the CDAA® (Chartered Digital Asset Analyst) and CBA® (Chartered Blockchain Analyst) professional charters, delivered in partnership with Pearson VUE across approximately 25,000 test centres worldwide. DEC also publishes preparatory professional certificates on edX reaching over 8,500+ learners worldwide.
Comparable delivery
DEC has produced business-level programs of this type for other enterprise-focused Layer 1 ecosystems, under equivalent commissioning, ownership and white-label arrangements, and for the same audience of executives and business professionals without a technical background. These engagements can be discussed with the Committee on request.
Relevant subject-matter depth
DEC's existing programs cover technical, business & economics, and regulation & compliance views related to digital-asset market structure, custody, tokenization, market integrity and the European regulatory perimeter, including MiCA-aligned certification for crypto-asset service provider staff. The institutional audience, regulatory vocabulary and compliance framing this project requires are the ones DEC works in daily.
Risks and Mitigations
| Risk | Mitigation |
|---|
| Content ages as the network evolves | Modular structure isolates change; Foundation owns editable sources and can update via any party |
| Factual or positioning errors on network specifics | Foundation review gate at M1, before any production expenditure is committed |
| Perceived bias toward particular applications | Use cases presented at category level; no application named as preferred; Foundation controls final content |
| Third-party asset rights unclear at handover | Licence register delivered at M3 as a named deliverable and acceptance condition |
| Canton Coin price movement over the term | Milestone values denominated in USD; CC amount set at the daily rate on each payment date |
| Scope creep during review | Two revision rounds per milestone specified; further changes handled as a separate request |
| Foundation review capacity delays the schedule | Five-business-day review turnaround assumed per cycle; timeline extends day for day beyond that; single named reviewer nominated at the outset |
| Low uptake after delivery | Standards-based packaging and Foundation ownership maximise reuse surface; DEC promotes the program to its own network of more than 7,500 financial-services learners at no cost; distribution rests with the Foundation, which holds the ecosystem relationships |
