DTA Technical Standard: Actors

The Digital Transfer Agent technical standard allows for multiple market participants to interact with each other onchain, mirroring the flows for traditional financial assets.

Key actors part of the Chainlink DTA

The DTA protocol is built around three core onchain roles with distinct responsibilities and permissions.

Transfer Agent

The Transfer Agent manages the processing of subscription & redemption orders, as well as investor recordkeeping.

They are responsible for:

• Deploying and owning the DTA Request Settlement for their fund.
• Registering their fund tokens on DTA Request Management, defining all operational rules like the payment method, processing model (navTTL), rate limits, and timezones.
• Managing an allowlist of approved Fund Distributors for each fund.
• Processing pending subscription and redemption requests at regular intervals (e.g., end of day).
• Completing the settlement process for offchain payments.

Fund Administrator

The Fund Administrator supports the day-to-day operation of the fund. They are primarily responsible for NAV calculation, fund accounting and reporting.

In the DTA technical standard, the Fund Administrator has the following responsibilities:

• Review all new subscriptions & redemption requests received by the DTA
• Calculate the updated NAV of the fund based on pending requests
• Send the updated NAV value to the onchain NAV feed
• Leverage the DTA reporting layer to maintain official fund reports

Please note that in certain jurisdictions (e.g., UK, EU, Singapore), there is no legal requirement for a transfer agent depending on the status of the issue. In these jurisdictions, the subscription / redemption order processing is usually managed by the Fund Administrators. The Chainlink DTA technical standard is well suited for these jurisdictions as well, as the Fund Administrator can deploy the DTA Request Settlement contract and perform all the responsibilities mentioned for the Transfer Agent in the previous section.

Fund Distributor

The Fund Distributor is an entity that invests in (subscribes to) or divests from (redeems) funds on behalf of their end clients. They typically batch requests from multiple investors into a single transaction with the DTA technical standard.

Key Responsibilities:

• Registering their address on DTA Request Management.
• Gaining allowlist approval from Transfer Agents to access specific funds.
• Approving the DTA contracts to spend their onchain payment tokens.
• Submitting subscription and redemption requests.
• Maintaining their holdings of various fund tokens.
• Managing open requests, including the ability to fetch request status and cancel requests.

Fund Issuer

The Fund Issuer is the entity that creates the underlying tokenized asset. Their primary role is to establish the fund token itself and to grant the necessary permissions to the DTA technical standard to manage its supply.

Key Responsibilities:

• Deploying the fund token contract, using Chainlink’s Automated Compliance Engine (ACE)
• Granting the necessary permissions to the Transfer Agent’s DTA Request Settlement contract, authorizing it to mint and burn tokens in response to processed requests.
• Ensuring DTA Request Settlement is authorized to hold tokens within the token's compliance framework.

The wider ecosystem

The core DTA actors are supported by a number of offchain or external participants.

• Offchain Payment Processors: These allow distributors to leverage traditional payment rails to subscribe or redeem a tokenized asset.
• End Investors: These are the ultimate beneficiaries, such as family offices or accredited investors, who gain exposure to the fund. They interact with the DTA technical standard indirectly through a Fund Distributor.
• Regulators / Auditors: These entities provide oversight, ensuring all participants adhere to legal and financial standards.