The Confidential Settlement Layer for private markets
Atomic, private GP-led secondary closes on Canton.
02 — The problem
continuation closeAssets move old-fund→new-fund, exiting LPs are paid, rolling LPs get new units, secondary buyers wire in — sequentially, not simultaneously. A multi-week, lawyer-and-spreadsheet operation where any leg can fail mid-close.
Three legs settled. One failed. The close is now a legal problem, not an operational one.
03 — Why now
market · regulator · railsThe deal volume is here, the regulator has named the conflict, and the institutional settlement rail is live and funded — at the same moment.
04 — The product
ContinuumAssets, cash, and unit issuance settle all-or-nothing. No leg can strand the deal between two states.
Each LP's roll-vs-exit election stays sealed. No LP — and no operator — sees another's terms.
The LPAC and the regulator get a need-to-know disclosure window — provable fairness without leaking the book.
Built on Canton + Daml Finance. The settlement guarantee and the privacy guarantee are the same primitive.
05 — How it works
four steps · one closeThe GP publishes the continuation-vehicle terms to the deal contract.
Each LP submits a sealed roll-vs-exit election. No LP sees another's.
The secondary buyer commits a price the exiting LP cannot see.
Assets → new fund, cash → exiting LPs, units → rolling LPs + buyer. All-or-nothing.
Then the LPAC / regulator window opens for the fairness review. The operator stays blind throughout.
06 — Why Canton — the moat
not a database · not ZK| Requirement | Postgres | Eth + ZK | Canton |
|---|---|---|---|
| No shared book across parties | No | Yes | Yes |
| No party sees every election | No | Yes | Yes |
| Atomic multilateral DvP | No | Yes | Yes |
| Regulator can see — need-to-know | No | No | Yes |
| Compliant — not anonymity | Yes | No | Yes |
Atomic multilateral DvP + sub-transaction privacy + selective disclosure is Canton-native. No other rail clears all five rows.
“ZK is a non-compliant black box — privacy must be need-to-know, not anonymity.”— Yuval Rooz, CEO, Digital Asset
07 — Demo
five parties · one ledgerThe flywheel: a buyer pre-cleared on deal #1 reuses its on-chain eligibility credential and commits to deal #2 with zero re-onboarding — onboarded once, reusable across closes.
Storyboard mock on Canton LocalNet · live walkthrough: [ loom link — to record ]
08 — Market — honest
revenue pool, not notionalThe continuation wedge is a real, fundable business on its own. The reusable-participant network is what makes it venture-scale — repeat usage and switching costs, not a bigger fee.
Platform map — engine, then the network moat, then the headline-TAM wedges
09 — Business model
fee pool, not notionalCharged on each organized continuation close. Bound to the fee pool, never the notional.
Recurring access for fund admins and GPs running continuation-as-a-service.
Revenue share with the fund administrator who brings the GP relationships.
Comparable regulated-infra utilities
| Company | What | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Versana | Consortium utility · $9T loans | $125M+ |
| OSTTRA → KKR | Post-trade infra | $3.1B |
| Securitize | Tokenized-asset infra · 15–50bps | $1.25B |
Bind revenue to the fee pool, never the notional. The notional is the headline; the fee pool is the business.
10 — Go-to-market
cold-start-freeThe cold-start is asymmetric in our favour: secondary dry powder is at a record ~$300B+, deals are the scarce side — so the deal arrives first and capital follows. We land a fund administrator — Citco, Apex, Alter Domus — as the channel (the Versana rail-first playbook), reach their GP clients, and the network compounds from there. 6–12 month cycles, de-risked with paid pilots.
A single fund-admin design partner and one mocked-then-real continuation close. Deal #1 needs zero network.
Buyers cleared on deal #1 are reused across the administrator's book of GP closes — onboarded once.
Extend the same rail and participant base into SRT and Election.
11 — Moat & competition
incumbents are off-chainColler, Pantheon, Citco run this off-chain in spreadsheets and law firms. iCapital's Canton DLT is a pre-trade data layer — no settlement. Nasdaq's reusable-buyer workflow is off-chain and non-atomic. None settle atomically; none prove fairness without leaking the book.
The moat compounds once Continuum is the system of record — and the reusable-participant network is the switching cost.
12 — Team · build · vision
the askCanton MVP — Daml Finance Batch close, per-LP private elections, regulator observer window, multi-party UI.
The Confidential Settlement Layer for private markets. Continuation today; a reusable participant rail; SRT, Election, Private-Credit next.
“Privacy must be need-to-know, not anonymity.”— Yuval Rooz · the regulator must be able to see