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Canada has completed a pilot program testing the use of distributed ledger technology in bond markets, culminating in the issuance of the country’s first tokenized bond, according to a Friday announcement from the Bank of Canada.
The experiment, known as Project Samara, involved the Bank of Canada, Export Development Canada, Royal Bank of Canada and TD Bank Group, and explored if blockchain-style infrastructure could streamline bond issuance, trading and settlement.
As part of the pilot, Export Development Canada issued a $100 million Canadian dollar ($73.6 million) bond with a maturity of less than three months to a closed group of investors. The security was issued, traded and settled on a distributed ledger platform, with payments processed using wholesale central bank deposits rather than commercial bank money.
The platform, built on Hyperledger Fabric, let participants manage the full lifecycle of the security, including issuance, bidding, coupon payments, redemption and secondary trading, while integrating separate ledgers for cash and bonds to enable near-instant settlement.
The pilot highlighted trade-offs in adopting distributed ledger systems for capital markets. Participants reported improvements in operations and data integrity, but also identified governance, regulatory and integration challenges.
Researchers said the results showed distributed ledger systems could improve settlement efficiency and reduce counterparty risk, though broader adoption may be slowed by infrastructure and regulatory hurdles.
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Tokenized bonds gain traction among governments and banks
Canada’s pilot program adds to a growing list of experiments by governments and financial institutions that explore how blockchain-based systems can reshape the issuance and settlement of traditional financial assets.
An early example came in 2018, when the World Bank issued a two-year A$110 million “Bond-i” debt instrument arranged by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The issuance is widely considered the first bond whose creation, allocation and lifecycle management were recorded on a blockchain.
In 2022, the Monetary Authority of Singapore launched Project Guardian to study how distributed ledger technology could be used in wholesale financial markets. Early industry pilots explored decentralized finance applications for lending and borrowing tokenized bonds and deposits on public blockchains.
In 2023, Hong Kong issued a tokenized green bond using distributed ledger infrastructure, with the issuance facilitated by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. The program was expanded with additional digital bond offerings in 2024 and 2025.
The World Bank issued a Swiss franc digital bond on the SIX Digital Exchange in 2024 with settlement using wholesale central bank digital currency provided by the Swiss National Bank.
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