Status: Draft Author: W Eric Saraniecki
1. Summary
This CIP proposes granting Visa participation as a Super Validator (SV) with Weight 10.
Given the strategic importance of Visa to the Canton ecosystem, its inclusion will bring credibility, alignment with global payment infrastructure, and meaningful contributions to network governance and adoption.
This CIP establishes an umbrella, milestone-based program through which Visa can receive SV Weight (up to 10) for initiatives that materially advance the Canton ecosystem.
This program contains confidential commitments to the ecosystem. Those commitments and milestones have been agreed with the Tokenomics and Accountability Committees and will be made available to the public when appropriate.
● Total Earnable Weight: 10 (max)
● Accrual Destination: Escrow, consistent with existing SV escrow mechanics
●Confidentiality: The Accountability Committee will review the milestones and inform SVs if they have been met
2. Motivation
Visa is one of the most important financial institutions in the world, operating at the center of global payments with unparalleled scale, reliability, and trust. As the backbone of electronic payments for consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and governments, Visa enables trillions of dollars of value exchange annually across borders, currencies, and use cases.
Visa’s network is foundational to modern commerce. Its infrastructure supports real-time authorization, settlement, fraud prevention, and risk management for millions of endpoints globally. Through decades of operational excellence, Visa has set the standard for resilience,
security, and interoperability in payments, making it one of the most trusted brands in financial services.
As the financial system evolves toward tokenization, programmable money, and on-chain settlement, Visa’s participation as a Super Validator represents a powerful convergence of traditional payment rails and next-generation financial infrastructure. Visa’s involvement signals institutional confidence in Canton as a settlement layer capable of supporting regulated, large-scale financial activity while preserving privacy, composability, and interoperability.
3. Deliverables & Milestones
The specific deliverables and milestones for Visa have been agreed privately with the Canton Foundation’s Tokenomics and Accountability Committees.
- Milestone Review Process: The Accountability Committee will confirm whether Visa has successfully met each milestone.
- Reward Mechanism:
Upon confirmation, rewards associated with milestones will be released from escrow. - Confidentiality: Visa’s specific commitments will not be made public until the Foundation and Visa determine it is appropriate.
4. SV Mechanics
● An extraBeneficiary PartyID associated with the “escrowed” Super Validator will be set up by the Foundation, or another SV node operator approved to provide SV rewards escrow services, with an SV Weight at the maximum earnable weight.
○ The Applicant is responsible for coordinating the process of setting up the escrowed weights with the GSF and the operator of the SV node.
○ The Applicant is responsible for all costs associated with the operation of the representative SV.
○ The representative SV will NOT mint rewards on a block-by-block basis. ○ All representative SV rewards will go to the Unclaimed Rewards pool.
● The Applicant is required to present proof of successfully completed milestones to the Tokenomics Working Group.
○ The Applicant is required to present a calculation for the number of Canton Coin it should earn for meeting the requirements of each milestone.
● If the Tokenomics Working Group agrees the milestone has been met and agrees with the calculation:
○ An announcement will be sent via the Tokenomics-Announce mailing list. ○ ⅔ of Super Validator Operators will assign a portion of the Unclaimed Rewards to be minted by the Applicant’s Validator.
○ ⅔ of Super Validator Operators will update their configurations to allow the Applicant to take over a portion of their SV Weight on a go-forward basis.
● If any milestones and associated rewards are not achieved by the deadline:
○ The Applicant will be notified by the Foundation that the deliverable has not been met.
Remaining SV Weight on the representative SV will be removed from SV operator configurations.
○ The Tokenomics Working Group will make a recommendation to the SVs regarding the disposition of the Unclaimed Rewards.
