Application Introduction
Project: Balance Institutional Custody for Conflux eSpace
Balance proposes to integrate Conflux eSpace into its institutional digital-asset custody platform. The integration will give regulated organizations, funds, foundations, market makers, payment companies, and ecosystem teams a policy-controlled way to hold and transact with CFX and supported Conflux eSpace tokens.
Problem and proposed solution
Institutional adoption of Conflux is constrained by limited access to regulated custody, treasury controls, reconciliation, and audit-ready reporting. Many institutional users require role-based approvals, address allowlisting, transaction policies, monitoring, segregation, and documented operational controls before they can deploy capital or operate on a network.
Balance will add production-grade Conflux eSpace support covering deposits, withdrawals, token support, secure transaction construction and signing, policy controls, monitoring, reconciliation, reporting, and institutional onboarding.
Alignment and ecosystem benefit
- Developer and project growth: Conflux builders will have a credible institutional custody option to offer foundations, investors, market makers, and enterprise partners.
- Economic activity: The integration is designed to make it easier for institutions to hold CFX, deploy assets, support liquidity, and transact on Conflux eSpace.
- Competitive advantage: Balance combines regulated entities, institutional custody infrastructure, compliance expertise, and an established operating platform that has supported more than US$2.5 billion in assets under custody, 3 million wallets, and 1 million transactions.
- Ecosystem enablement: Balance will publish non-sensitive integration documentation and offer discounted custody fees to qualified early Conflux ecosystem participants.
Links
- Website: https://balance.ca/
- Custody API documentation: https://balance-1.gitbook.io/balance-custody-api
- Primary contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustinplett/
- X: https://x.com/balance_canada
Conflux eSpace grant recipient wallet: 0x8f15D5Dbed13907D16C02A91B8D57A8cBa335036
Incorporation: Yes. The applicant is Paradiso Ventures Inc., a Canadian corporation, working with affiliates including Balance Trust Company and Balance USA.
Technical Introduction
Functional goals
The project will:
- Add secure Conflux eSpace chain connectivity and indexing.
- Support CFX and approved CRC-20 deposits, withdrawals, balance monitoring, and transaction history.
- Integrate signing with Balance’s existing custody architecture.
- Add role-based approvals, address allowlisting, transaction policies, audit trails, and exception handling.
- Provide reconciliation, reporting, monitoring, and recovery procedures.
- Release developer documentation and an institutional onboarding playbook.
Conflux eSpace’s EVM compatibility makes the project technically feasible and allows Balance to reuse tested components from existing EVM integrations while implementing Conflux-specific chain configuration, fee behavior, token handling, monitoring, and operational validation.
Purpose and scope
The purpose is to remove a major institutional adoption barrier. Initial scope includes CFX and selected CRC-20 assets on Conflux eSpace. It excludes Conflux Core Space unless separately agreed.
Success criteria
- Testnet and mainnet custody workflows successfully demonstrated.
- Deposits, withdrawals, policy controls, monitoring, and reconciliation pass automated tests.
- Operational readiness and recovery procedures are validated.
- Public integration guidance is released.
- At least three qualified Conflux ecosystem organizations enter pilot or production onboarding within 90 days after launch.
Technical Proposal
Functional requirements
- Conflux eSpace RPC and node connectivity
- Block and transaction indexing
- CFX and CRC-20 address and balance management
- Deposit detection and confirmation policies
- Transaction construction, fee estimation, signing, broadcast, and status tracking
- Role-based approvals and address allowlisting
- Monitoring, reconciliation, audit trails, and reporting
- Recovery, incident response, and operational runbooks
- API and onboarding documentation
Non-functional requirements
- Security: least-privilege access, separation of duties, controlled signing, auditable approvals, and tested recovery
- Reliability: redundant infrastructure, monitoring, alerting, retries, and reconciliation
- Performance: institutional-scale transaction and wallet monitoring without degrading existing custody services
- Usability: consistent Balance API and dashboard workflows
- Implementation: testnet-first delivery, automated regression testing, security review, and controlled mainnet rollout
- Licensing: non-sensitive reference materials will be published under a permissive license where appropriate; proprietary custody and security controls will remain confidential
Total Budget
Grant request: US$150,000
- US$30,000 — architecture, chain research, threat modeling, and automated test harness
- US$60,000 — testnet implementation, transaction workflows, policy controls, monitoring, reconciliation, and security review
- US$45,000 — mainnet productionization, reliability and recovery testing, reporting, and documentation
- US$15,000 — ecosystem onboarding, technical support, and discounted custody enablement for qualified early participants
Because the budget funds engineering and external operating costs, the award must be structured in USD, stablecoins, fiat, or under a written exception permitting milestone funds to be converted for documented project expenses. Balance will not accept terms that prevent payment of the approved project budget.
Development Roadmap
Milestone 1 — Architecture and test harness
- Timing: Weeks 1–4
- Funding: US$30,000
- Deliverables: architecture specification, Conflux-specific threat model, supported asset scope, infrastructure plan, transaction policy model, automated test plan, and milestone demonstration
Milestone 2 — Testnet integration and security review
- Timing: Weeks 5–10
- Funding: US$60,000
- Deliverables: deposits, withdrawals, CFX and CRC-20 support, transaction construction and signing, policy controls, monitoring, reconciliation, testnet validation, draft documentation, and security findings report
Milestone 3 — Mainnet launch and ecosystem onboarding
- Timing: Weeks 11–14
- Funding: US$60,000
- Deliverables: production release, operational readiness and recovery testing, mainnet monitoring, published non-sensitive documentation, onboarding playbook, and outreach to qualified ecosystem organizations
Balance will provide public milestone updates and review instructions for each deliverable.
Team
- George Bordianu — Co-founder and CEO: Executive sponsor and architecture oversight. MSc in Computer Science from McGill University; former Director of Engineering at 500px and co-founder/CTO of YourExtraLife.
- Vladimir Li — CTO: Engineering and production delivery. BSc in Software Engineering from the University of Waterloo; former Amazon engineer and infrastructure leader at 500px.
- Nuno Silva — CPO: Product requirements, institutional workflows, and documentation. Senior product executive and co-founder of Stocksy United.
- Alessandro Tocco — Chief Compliance and Risk Officer: Compliance, risk, and control design. Former CCO of a regulated qualified custodian and former Alberta Securities Commission investigator; CAMS certified.
- Dustin Plett — Chief Sales Officer: Ecosystem partnerships and onboarding. Primary application contact: [email protected]; GitHub: https://github.com/CryptoKroeger
Terms of Use
I agree to all of the following terms of use in applying to a Conflux Ecosystem Grant:
- I have read and understood the Conflux Grants Ecosystem Overview.
- I have read about and understood that the Conflux Technical Grants are subject to a No-Sale rule.
- I agree to provide KYC information to the Conflux Foundation for the sake of overall ecosystem security.
- I understand that I will be required to follow public grant reporting requirements.
The agreement above is subject to the grant award letter documenting an approved payment structure or exception that permits grant proceeds to be used for the milestone costs described in this application.