Digital Transfer Agent (DTA) Technical Standard
The Chainlink Digital Transfer Agent (DTA) technical standard defines how transfer agents and fund administrators can expand their operations onchain to support tokenized assets, while facilitating adherence to applicable regulatory frameworks.
The Chainlink DTA technical standard leverages multiple time-tested Chainlink capabilities to provide the easiest and most reliable path for market participants to launch their own onchain transfer agency services and capture the emerging opportunity of tokenized financial markets.
Now live in production, and starting with tokenized investment funds as the initial product use case, the Chainlink DTA technical standard allows transfer agents, fund administrators, issuers, distributors, and custodians to quickly and easily offer the following services:
- Real-time subscription and redemption processing of tokenized funds across multiple blockchains.
- Seamless integration of pre-built fiat and digital asset settlement workflows, reducing the need for manual reconciliation.
- Programmable compliance enforcement directly in the transaction flow, powered by Chainlink Automated Compliance Engine (ACE), eliminating fragmented eligibility checks.
- An onchain golden record of fund lifecycle activities that is automatically synchronized with each transaction rather than via delayed reconciliation.
- Cross-chain interoperability for tokenized funds, removing the siloed nature of single-chain tokenization initiatives.
- Transparent, auditable records that build regulator and market participant confidence, with extensibility to additional products beyond investment funds such as ETFs, corporate debt, and private equity.
The Chainlink DTA technical standard is being built to seamlessly run on top of Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) to leverage its core capabilities, such as compatibility with legacy systems, access to fiat settlement via established payment rails, and record reconciliation with offchain systems. Furthermore, the Chainlink DTA technical standard leverages multiple standards and services within the Chainlink platform, including:
- Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) to enable multi-chain distribution of tokenized assets.
- Automated Compliance Engine (ACE) to enforce role-based controls and compliance requirements onchain.
- NAVLink Feeds to ensure accurate NAV pricing for tokenized fund subscriptions and redemptions.
Next steps
Get a high-level overview of the system's components and request flows.
- How It Works: Explore the architecture and a typical subscription flow.