The Solana Foundation, the non-profit behind the Solana blockchain, has launched Solana DvP, an open source escrow program that gives financial institutions a standard way to settle a tokenised asset against its payment on a public blockchain. It is released under the MIT licence, so institutions can adopt it and build on it freely.
Delivery versus payment is the basis of securities settlement, because it makes sure the asset and the cash move together and removes principal risk. Traditional markets get there through a multi day chain of clearinghouses, depositories and custodians, which ties up capital for one to two days. Solana DvP is meant to compress that into a single atomic transaction, where both legs settle together or neither does, with finality in seconds. It uses isolated escrow and enforces settlement deadlines.
The program supports SPL Token and Token-2022, including the extensions regulated issuers depend on, such as permanent delegate, pausable tokens and transfer hooks. Any two counterparties can use it with any settlement agent, whether a bank, a custodian or an exchange.
The Foundation said institutions settling onchain have until now typically relied on bespoke smart contracts, and that Solana DvP replaces them with one standard rail. It has been through external security audits and is described as ready for use with real funds. The Foundation also plans to add privacy so trades can be settled confidentially, and it is welcoming design partners and early participants ahead of the production release.
J.P. Morgan gave the Foundation input on institutional settlement practices and requirements. The Foundation said the result combines the bank’s settlement expertise with Solana’s performance as a venue for tokenised real world assets. J.P. Morgan’s involvement was confined to providing input and should not be read as the bank designing, operating, approving or endorsing the program.
Catherine Gu, Head of Product for Digital Assets at the Solana Foundation, said atomic settlement removes a counterparty risk built into traditional finance and gives institutions a single open standard on public infrastructure.
“Atomic settlement removes counterparty risk that is inherent in traditional finance. Solana DvP program provides institutions with one open standard across the Solana ecosystem, on public infrastructure, with finality in seconds instead of days,” Gu said.
Rhodel D’souza, Head of Markets Digital Assets at J.P. Morgan, said a shared, open standard for atomic settlement is the kind of foundational infrastructure market participants need to operate at scale without taking on settlement risk or counterparty exposure, and that the bank was pleased to contribute its expertise.
“A shared, open standard for atomic delivery-versus-payment is exactly the kind of foundational infrastructure institutional market participants require to operate at scale without introducing settlement risk and counterparty exposure. We were pleased to contribute our settlement expertise,” D’souza said.
For banks and custodians, a shared standard could mean not having to write, review and audit a separate contract for every onchain deal. For the Foundation, input from a large bank gives the program a more institutional footing, though it has not named any institution that will use it or said when the production release will arrive.
Digital Trade Outlook’s View: Solana DvP
What stands out is that the pitch is standardisation and not speed. Institutions can already settle onchain, but each deal has tended to rely on its own smart contract, with its own review and audit, and a single audited standard that works with any settlement agent could change that. The care taken to describe J.P. Morgan’s role as input only shows how cautious large banks remain about being linked to public blockchain infrastructure. With no institutions named and the production release still ahead, the thing to watch is who becomes the first design partner to settle a live trade on it.
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