TL;DR:
- Canada successfully completed the first tokenized bond trial for C$100 million settled on a distributed ledger alongside its largest banks.
- The project involved the Bank of Canada, RBC, TD Securities and EDC, and covered the full bond lifecycle, from issuance to settlement.
- Lawmakers are working to regulate Canadian dollar stablecoins and create a new crypto asset custody framework led by CIRO.
Canada is advancing the modernization of its financial infrastructure. The North American country completed the first experiment in tokenized bond issuance, trading and settlement on a distributed ledger. The Bank of Canada and a group of the country’s leading lenders executed the trial under the so-called Project Samara, which involved RBC Dominion Securities, RBC Investor Services Trust and TD Securities, the capital markets division of Toronto-Dominion Bank.
The instrument issued was an Export Development Canada security valued at C$100 million —equivalent to approximately US$73 million— with a maturity of less than three months. The transaction was conducted within a closed group of investors and covered the full bond lifecycle: issuance, bid submission, coupon payments, secondary market trading and final redemption.
Project Samara: Real-Time Settlement
The platform was operated by RBC and used tokenized versions of the wholesale Canadian dollar, created and managed by the Bank of Canada itself. These digital funds circulated on the same ledger as the bonds, allowing transactions to settle entirely within the system without the need for additional intermediation. The most significant outcome of the experiment was demonstrating that a single platform based on blockchain technology can support the full lifecycle of a debt instrument.
Project Samara will continue conducting additional tests aimed at evaluating different issuance, trading and settlement scenarios on distributed ledger technology.
Canada Moves Forward on Regulatory Matters
The experiment unfolds against a backdrop of growing regulatory activity in the country. In the November budget, the federal government announced plans to introduce legislation for stablecoins backed by the Canadian dollar, to be overseen by the Bank of Canada, with a focus on reserve backing, redemption policies and risk management. Meanwhile, the country’s investment regulator, CIRO, presented last month a crypto asset custody framework aimed at strengthening the standards applicable to trading platforms.
