Canton Network Releases CIP Draft Requiring Synchronizers to Burn CC for Traffic Fees

Canton Network has announced a tokenomics CIP draft titled "Universal Burn and Synchronizer Pricing." The draft proposes that all production synchronizers on the Canton mainnet, including dedicated synchronizers, must pay network traffic fees in USD, settled on-chain by burning Canton Coin (CC). The deployment and operation of dedicated synchronizers will shift to a permissionless model, with their activities included in the validator and application reward scope. The activities of global synchronizers have already resulted in CC burns, while dedicated synchronizers previously paid Digital Asset under commercial software licensing, a fee that will gradually be eliminated as Digital Asset open-sources the core network. In the draft, the price for global synchronizers remains unchanged at $60 per MB, with the test environment still available for free; dedicated synchronizers can receive price discounts based on throughput and may choose to pledge CC for long-term usage commitments in exchange for additional discounts, with specific pricing curves and parameters to be proposed in subsequent CIPs. The draft anticipates that the first phase will be implemented in Q1 2027, when the universal burn mechanism goes live; the second phase is expected to be implemented in Q3 2027, when the pricing curves and discounts take effect.