// vetting framework

Six gates.
Every project
clears all of them.

Before any project earns coverage on Canton Catalyst, and before any capital is deployed into it, it goes through the same internal due-diligence process. Here's the shape of it.

Most research in this space is one of two things: marketing dressed as analysis, or analysis so hedged and vague it gives you no basis for a decision. I built this framework to be neither.

It's a six-stage filter. Each gate addresses a distinct failure mode, the kind that has destroyed portfolios in this asset class. A project can have a compelling narrative and still fail gates two and three. It can have clean tokenomics and still fail gate five. All six matter, in sequence.

The full methodology, the specific questions, the weighting logic, the conditions under which a gate can be conditionally passed, stays internal. What's here is enough to understand what I'm looking for and why.

GATE 01
Structure & Provenance
Who is actually behind it, and is this real infrastructure or a dressed-up single-use case that won't exist in three years.
I look at founding team depth, legal entity structure, institutional backing quality, and whether the stated use case requires a token at all. Most projects fail here not because the team is fraudulent, but because the problem they're solving doesn't require the infrastructure they've built. Real infrastructure has compounding utility. Single-use cases don't.
GATE 02
Liquidity Reality
Can you actually get in and out at size without moving the market, or is depth an illusion that vanishes when you need it.
Reported volume and real liquidity are two different things. I assess where the token actually trades, the depth of order books at realistic price levels, and whether the exchanges listing it attract genuine institutional flow or wash trading. A project with strong fundamentals but no exit liquidity is a trap, not an opportunity.
GATE 03
Supply & Dilution Risk
What's coming that could crush the price regardless of fundamentals, vesting cliffs, unlock schedules, team allocations.
Good fundamentals don't protect against a 40% supply unlock hitting the market in six months. I map the full emission schedule, identify who holds what and when they can sell, and stress-test the price impact of known unlock events. A project passes this gate when the supply dynamics support, rather than fight against, the investment thesis.
GATE 04
Catalyst Mapping
What's actually scheduled to happen and when, not hopium, but verifiable milestones with real consequences for value.
I separate announced milestones from confirmed ones, and confirmed ones from those with verifiable on-chain or regulatory evidence. A roadmap is a marketing document. A catalyst is a specific event (a mainnet launch, an exchange listing, a regulatory approval, a partnership going live) that changes the fundamental value of holding the token. I only count the latter.
GATE 05
Interoperability & Trust Audit
How the project actually connects to the rest of the ecosystem, and whether those connections are structural or cosmetic.
In the Canton ecosystem specifically, interoperability isn't a feature, it's the core value proposition. I assess whether a project's integrations are hard dependencies (other systems break without it) or soft affiliations (a logo on a partnerships page). I also audit the trust model: does the project's privacy and compliance architecture align with how institutions actually need to operate, or does it paper over the gaps.
GATE 06
Final Verdict
Everything above resolved into one call: it clears the bar, it fails, or the evidence is not there yet.
The first five gates each test one dimension in isolation. Gate six is where they meet, and where a project that passes five and fails one is treated as a fail rather than an average. I name which gate did the damage, state what evidence would change the verdict, and say what I would need to see before revisiting. No price target, no timing, no sizing.

Nothing enters without
clearing all six.

Every position I hold cleared this framework before it was opened, and each is reviewed against it monthly. The positions themselves are named in full on the disclosure page, without sizes. The framework is updated as the ecosystem changes, and every change is dated.

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