Crypto Garage, headquartered in Japan, has a reputation for building innovative cryptofinance tools that move the market forward. Its commitment to blazing new trails and solving problems that others have shied away from, led them to tackle one of the biggest gaps in the cryptofinance market -- namely, how to guarantee settlement.

Typically, when securities are traded, delivery of those assets will coincide with payment. A central exchange or clearing house will oversee this trade and guarantee settlement. But within the digital asset ecosystem trading additionally occurs outside of a centralized exchange, where everything is distributed. (This distribution is actually one of the biggest values of blockchain.)

So, how can settlement be guaranteed? How can delivery vs payment (DVP) be assured to take place at the same time?

Crypto Garage set out to build their own atomic settlement platform on top of the Liquid Network (an OSS-based Bitcoin sidechain developed by Blockstream with currently 45 members globally), which they would ultimately name SETTLENET. This non-custodial over-the-counter (OTC) settlement platform ensures the transfer of one digital asset can only occur if the transfer of another digital asset also occurs.

In order to build a non-custodial settlement platform, Crypto Garage was looking for a solution to securely sign a transaction. At the time of development, the available solutions to sign a transaction with a token from the Liquid Network was very limited. In other words, Crypto Garage needed a secure, transaction signing solution for its settlement platform that would support the Liquid Network, an OSS-based sidechain.

Enter Curv

Only Curv had the chain agnostic support Crypto Garage was looking for. Only Curv can secure any type of asset or blockchain protocol. Unlike legacy solutions, such as multi-signature wallets that require native support of a blockchain to work, Curv’s platform can support all tokens and protocols. In combination with our flexible tech stack, this means any digital asset transaction can be secured with Curv’s proven distributed signing mechanism, regardless of the chain.

How it Works

Crypto Garage chose Curv’s new Blackbox solution to ensure the ongoing privacy and security of its settlement solution SETTLENET. Crypto Garage maintains the software and manages the blockchain connectivity, while Curv takes care of the signing process and key management infrastructure. Crypto Garage used Curv’s APIs to easily integrate Curv’s MPC protocols into SETTLENET to ensure each transaction is signed in a mathematically-proven, distributed way. Out of band policy capabilities enable Crypto Garage to define risk profiles and enforce granular policies to ensure only authorized transactions are allowed.

“We looked at a number of security approaches and technologies, but Curv’s Blackbox solution was able to provide signing services with the best security and flexible integration, ” said Yoshihide Shimada, CTO of Crypto Garage. “Together, we enable clients to seamlessly and confidently trade all different types of assets on the Liquid Network with DvP settlement.”

With Curv, Crypto Garage has the security and flexibility it needs to provide a settlement service that institutions can rely on for their cryptofinance products. The expected launch date of SETTLENET is June 2020. SETTLENET is currently being onboarded by a number of exchanges and regulated financial service providers in Japan and global OTC desks that want to transact with each other without depositing funds.