Digital Asset Proposes That Every Canton Synchronizer Burn CC, With Volume Discounts for Dedicated Ones
A draft CIP by Yiannis Varelas and Shaul Kfir would replace license fees on dedicated synchronizers with Canton Coin burn at the Global Synchronizer's list price, make running one permissionless, and add volume and commitment discounts.
A draft Canton Improvement Proposal shared on 9 October 2026 would change how all traffic on Canton MainNet is paid for. Under "Universal Burn and Synchronizer Pricing", written by Yiannis Varelas and Shaul Kfir, every synchronizer running production workloads would burn Canton Coin (CC) for its traffic, not only the Global Synchronizer. The draft was posted to the cip-discuss mailing list for feedback. It has no CIP number yet and has not been voted on.
What changes
Today only traffic on the Global Synchronizer, which the Super Validators (SVs) run, burns CC and earns rewards for the apps and validators that generate it. Traffic on dedicated synchronizers, previously called private synchronizers or subnets, burns nothing. According to the draft, it has historically been paid for through license fees to Digital Asset.
The proposal would:
- make every production synchronizer burn CC at the Global Synchronizer's list price, currently $60 per MB, or about $1 per typical transaction before rewards;
- let apps and validators earn rewards on that traffic wherever it runs, weighted by the CC actually burned;
- make running a dedicated synchronizer permissionless, with no license.
SVs cannot see traffic on synchronizers they do not run, so each operator would publish aggregate traffic reports on the Global Synchronizer. The draft says these reports would at first "rely on the operator being honest", and that a future CIP may tighten enforcement.
Discounts for high volume
The Global Synchronizer would keep one price at every volume. Dedicated synchronizers would get a published volume curve, plus three optional discounts for operators who commit to a level of throughput for a year or more and back it with CC collateral: one for committing, one for posting more collateral and one for loyalty. Every number would be an on-chain parameter that SVs can change with a two-thirds vote.
The draft asks SVs to approve only this framework. The figures would come in a second CIP. An appendix, which the authors say is illustrative and not up for approval, sketches the current thinking:
| Sustained throughput | Gross price per typical transaction |
|---|
| Up to 1 TPS | List price, about $1 |
| 10 TPS | 50 cents |
| 100 TPS | 25 cents |
| 1,000 TPS | 12.5 cents |
In the same appendix, collateral worth 20% of a year's fees would earn 50% off the volume price, and collateral worth 100% would come to about 74% off.
