From Node Operations to Canton Network Data: Expanding the Institutional Operating Stack

August 28, 20266 min read

CatalyX now brings validator infrastructure, application distribution, custody connectivity and the private finance and operations data layer into one production environment for institutions on Canton Network.

A Canton validator connects you to the Global Synchronizer, hosts your parties, executes Daml contracts, and settles atomically. It is the entry requirement. Nothing happens on the Canton Network without one.

Once an institution moves from a pilot into production activity, the questions start coming from elsewhere in the business. Operations needs on-ledger activity matched against the book of record, finance needs reporting, audit needs a trail, and sooner or later someone needs to follow a single transaction across parties.

The validator executes and settles, and holds the data while it does, but turning that data into something operations, finance, and audit can work with is a separate job.

Why the Canton data layer has to stay inside your environment

On most public chains, this is a solved problem - point an explorer or a blockchain data provider at the chain and read it.

Canton does not work that way. A validator only sees data for the parties it hosts. That is the point of the network, and it is why a public block explorer cannot serve institutional reporting. Whatever reads your activity has to run inside your own environment and respect the same party boundaries the ledger does.

Introduction to Noves

Noves builds private data infrastructure for tokenized finance. Their classification engine turns raw ledger activity into reconcilable, audit-ready records, and they run it across both public chains and privacy-enabled networks like Canton.

The Noves Data Platform is the Canton piece. It is self-hosted and permission-aware - three containers deployed with Docker Compose or Kubernetes, running on your network next to your validator, indexing ledger events in real time and tagging them semantically as transfers, rewards, fees, locks and merges. Party IDs get mapped to readable labels. Users see only what their Canton account can read. It delivers an explorer and dashboard, exports for audit and accounting pipelines, webhooks and WebSockets for live events, point-in-time balance history, and OIDC login against your own identity provider.

Noves Data Platform preview

What finance and operations teams get

Finance teams get records structured for month-end close and audit. Balances and movements reconciled to the underlying Canton activity, historical balances, valuations, rewards and fees, point-in-time and period-specific records, and CSV or API output into the accounting and reporting systems already in use.

Operations teams get activity they can search by party, action, date, amount and counterparty, visibility into payments, transfers and token holdings, activity classified against parties and applications, and monitoring of validator availability, connectivity and indexer freshness, with alerts over webhooks and live streams.

Between them, that replaces the custom indexers, scripts, spreadsheets and disconnected reporting an institution would otherwise build and maintain around its Canton deployment.

Private by deployment

The Data Platform is deployed on-premises alongside the validator, behind the institution's own security perimeter. Private Canton data stays stored and processed locally and is never transmitted to Noves. The institution keeps control of the deployment, the data, and who can access it.

CatalyX Blockchain Manager and Noves

CatalyX Blockchain Manager adds a Noves integration to the Monitoring page. Operators open the Noves Data Platform from the same console they use to run the validator, with no separate portal and no bespoke integration per client.

The entry point is available on every Canton validator deployment supported by IntellectEU. If Noves is not deployed yet, the same section points to the installation route and CatalyX support.

CatalyX Blockchain Manager and Noves integration

That puts the Noves Data Platform within reach of the 100+ Canton validators running on CatalyX, and connects two layers that used to be separate projects, the operational layer in CatalyX Blockchain Manager and the data layer from Noves. The Data Platform still runs inside your own environment, so the console points to your own deployment and keeps your party permissions.

One console for node management and for the data layer above it. This is the first step in the partnership, with more of Noves' data capabilities following inside CatalyX Blockchain Manager.

“IntellectEU understands that institutional adoption of Canton depends on an operating environment that supports the full path from deployment into production. CatalyX brings together the infrastructure and capabilities institutions need within a single environment, designed around their requirements for privacy, control and operational scale. Noves shares this vision, and bringing the Noves Data Platform into CatalyX Blockchain Manager is an important expansion of CatalyX and a meaningful step forward for the institutional operating stack available on Canton.”

– Ben Roy, Co-Founder and CEO, Noves

CatalyX beyond node operations

Node operations are where most people meet CatalyX by IntellectEU, and they are one layer of it. CatalyX covers the wider lifecycle of an institutional digital asset product, from the infrastructure underneath it to the operational tooling around it - package distribution, wallet and custody connectivity, fee and reward accounting, and integration with the systems the business already runs. Partner services such as Noves connect in the same place.

The integration expands CatalyX beyond validator deployment and management into a broader operating environment for Canton Network, as banks, asset managers, and capital markets infrastructure providers move from pilots into production activity.

Noves's piece from the data side:

Running a Canton validator and want the data layer on top? Talk to us

Frequently Asked Questions

The Canton Network is a privacy-enabled blockchain for regulated financial markets. Applications run as separate synchronized domains and connect through the Global Synchronizer, so institutions can settle atomically with each other without exposing their transaction data to the whole network.

Because privacy is enforced at the ledger. A validator only holds data for the parties it hosts, and no public explorer can see across that boundary. To reconcile, report or investigate, you need a blockchain data platform that runs inside your own environment, reads your node's view of the ledger and keeps the same party-level permissions.

The validator is the settlement and execution layer. It hosts parties, runs Daml contracts and reaches consensus through the Global Synchronizer, but it is not a query or reporting layer. Reporting sits above it, as a separate component that indexes the node's own data. CatalyX Blockchain Manager manages the first and the Noves Data Platform covers the second. Both now run under one console.

Most blockchain data providers index a public chain centrally and serve it back through an API. That model breaks on Canton, where there is no global view to index. Providers built for privacy-enabled networks instead give the institution software it deploys itself, so the data never leaves the perimeter. Noves supports both, with a self-hosted Data Platform for private Canton activity and hosted APIs for public chains.

The Noves section appears on the Monitoring page for every Canton validator running CatalyX Blockchain Manager. The Noves Data Platform is deployed in your own environment, and the console is configured to point to it. If it is not set up yet, the console tells you how to install it or reach CatalyX support.

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Written by

Bohdan Ivanov
Product Marketer

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August 17, 20266 min read

Canton Validators on Azure: Building and Auditing a Key Vault KMS Driver

Partnerships
Announcements & News

A Canton participant node does not have to hold its own private keys. It can delegate every signing and decryption operation to an external key management service, so key material never sits on the node host or in its database. Canton ships support for AWS KMS and GCP KMS. Azure was not on that list.

IntellectEU built the driver that closes the gap, then asked Halborn to review it. The report is public. Here is what it covered, what it found, and what changed.

Why key management decides where a Canton validator can run

A validator's keys are its identity on the Canton Network, which makes the question of where those keys live an architectural decision rather than an operational detail.

In external key mode the node stores only references to vault keys. Every signature over a topology transaction and every decryption of an incoming message happens inside the vault, on request, authenticated by a short-lived token. Private keys never cross the vault boundary.

A participant holds four keys: three EC P-256 keys for namespace, signing and sequencer authentication, plus one RSA-2048 key for encryption. The namespace key is the root of the node's identity, so rotating it changes the node's cryptographic ID and makes it unrecognisable to every counterparty. It must also carry no expiry date. An expired namespace key stops the node, and the identity cannot be recovered without re-onboarding from scratch.

What Azure offers, and what was missing

Azure has three key storage tiers, and they are not interchangeable.

Key Vault Standard Key Vault Premium Managed HSM
Key protection Software Hardware-backed available Hardware, always
FIPS 140-2 Level 2 Level 3 for HSM-protected keys Level 3
Hardware tenancy Shared Shared Dedicated, single-tenant
Symmetric keys Envelope encryption Envelope encryption Native AES-GCM

Only Managed HSM runs symmetric operations natively inside the hardware boundary. On both Key Vault tiers the driver uses envelope encryption instead: an ephemeral local AES data key, wrapped by an RSA key that never leaves the vault. Managed HSM is required only where compliance mandates symmetric encryption inside that boundary.

Canton exposes a KMS Driver API so providers can be added without changes to Canton itself. And yet nobody has used it for Azure.

Who holds the keys

The architectural choice that matters most here is not the vault tier. It is whose account the keys sit in.

In the reference deployment, the customer-managed keys live in the client's own Azure tenant, separate from the account running the workload. The client gets an independent audit trail of every key operation and can revoke access unilaterally, without any access to the operator's infrastructure. The node can be operated without the operator ever being able to become the node.

Cross-tenant workload identity makes that work across an organisational boundary. The client creates a managed identity in their tenant, federates it to the operator's Kubernetes cluster, and grants it vault access. No shared secret is created, distributed or rotated anywhere, and a Private Endpoint keeps traffic off the public internet.

When the client's security team pre-creates the keys rather than letting Canton generate them on first boot, the node runs read-only - get, sign, decrypt. Nothing else.

Why an independent audit

A KMS driver runs in-process with the node, which gives it access to Canton's process memory. That is inherent to any in-process driver rather than a flaw in this one, and it is exactly why an external review is worth commissioning.

Halborn is a blockchain security firm whose engineers work in custody and secrets management alongside cloud and infrastructure penetration testing. Halborn assessed the architecture and trust model, the Key Vault integration, key generation and signing, the dependency chain, and readiness for open-source release, across advisory and assurance teams.

Most blockchain security work is contract-level. A custody review is a different exercise according to Justin Fang, DLT Enterprise Architect at Halborn:

"Custody and key management reviews cover both the system-level security of keys and operational risks."
Justin Fang's quote: Custody and key management reviews cover both the system-level security of keys and operational risks. At a system-level, such a review investigates how keys are generated (e.g., entropy settings), sent (cosigner setup, key rotation), utilized (decryption at signing time, transaction intent verification), protected (multi-signature use, HSM protection, TEE utilization), and retired (key material destruction). Further areas like key generation ceremony attestations are also covered.  From an operational risk perspective, these audits also cover maker-checker controls to ensure no insider threat can manipulate key material, validation of keys against specific wallet accounts, the security of various endpoints (mobile devices, web extensions, etc.), and disaster recovery planning for keys.

Underneath that sit entropy on key generation, cosigner setup and rotation, decryption at signing time, transaction intent verification, HSM and TEE protection, key destruction, maker-checker controls against insider manipulation, endpoint security, and disaster recovery for keys. Almost none of it appears in a contract audit.

What the audit found

Finding Severity Remediated
Lack of checksum-enforced classpath discovery Medium 2026-07-01
Audit logging default off Medium 2026-07-02
Outdated and vulnerable dependencies Medium 2026-06-30
Dependencies should be pinned to exact versions Low 2026-06-30
Hardcoded RSA-2048 key size Informational 2026-07-01
RSA keys granted permissions beyond required scope Informational 2026-07-02

All six were addressed. The driver was assessed at v0.7.1 and the remediations shipped in v1.0.0. Halborn recommends a follow-up assessment within six months, or after any material change.

Key management is usually treated as a storage problem. Justin Fang's view is that it is considerably wider than that:

"Key management extends beyond 'did I generate my key with enough entropy' and 'my key is in a safe location'. Specific to Canton, custody concerns extend beyond transaction signing. They affect namespace identities, validator set up and slashing events ... and even implicate the ability of a party to monitor or decrypt on-chain activity in the case of key loss or attack. Additionally, as more enterprises utilize agentic workflows, novel attack vectors such as prompt injection introduce a new attack surface where AI agents and AI-generated code affect key material operations."

The namespace identity point is the same one that makes that key non-rotatable: lose it and the loss is not a signing outage, it is an identity that cannot be reconstructed. The agentic point is early but not hypothetical. Institutions are already pointing coding agents at Daml, and an agent able to alter key configuration is a key management surface whether anyone has classified it as one or not.

Access the full audit here.

What to ask before letting anyone run your validator

Jonathan Mayeur, Head of Product at CatalyX and IntellectEU, puts it in three questions:

"Where do the private keys physically live, and can you prove they never leave that boundary. What can the operator do with those keys that the client cannot see. And if the client wanted to revoke access tomorrow, could they do it themselves, without us. If those answers aren't clean, the operational convenience isn't worth it."

Those questions apply whether a validator is self-hosted, run on a generic node service, or operated under management. Self-hosting keeps every answer in-house, at the cost of building and staffing the operation. A generic provider may not be able to answer the third one at all.

CatalyX Blockchain Manager keeps all three answers with the client: keys in the client's vault, operations logged on the client's side, access revocable without a conversation.

Canton key rotation and Azure key rotation are different operations. Rotating a Canton key is a topology change made from the Canton console. Rotating an Azure key adds a new version in the vault. Keys the driver generates carry a pinned version in their identifier, so an Azure-side rotation creates a version the node never touches.

About IntellectEU and CatalyX

IntellectEU is a founding member of the Canton Foundation and operates a Super Validator on the network. CatalyX is its product suite for the infrastructure and operations layer of Canton: running the nodes, building and distributing the Daml applications, and tracking what the network costs and returns.

Canton is a public Layer 1 with configurable privacy. Whether an institution builds on it or connects to it, someone has to run the infrastructure underneath and operate it day after day.
That is the layer CatalyX by IntellectEU is built for.

March 23, 20266 min read

CatalyX: One Product Suite for Operating and Building on Institutional Blockchain Networks

Announcements & News
Products

The maturity of the Canton Network ecosystem requires a parallel evolution in the tools used to manage it. As institutional adoption of blockchain moves from pilot programs to production-grade infrastructure, the bar for stability, security, and developer experience has risen.

To meet these demands, we are introducing CatalyX: a unified product suite designed to streamline how enterprises deploy, manage, and scale on blockchains like Canton Network.

Refreshed Brand, Consistent Mission

More than a visual update, CatalyX represents a consolidation of our core blockchain technologies into a single, cohesive offering. While the look and feel have evolved to reflect the scale and maturity of modern Canton deployments, our mission remains the same: making institutional blockchain operations and application development enterprise-ready.

The CatalyX Product Suite

The suite integrates the essential pillars of blockchain management and development into a streamlined workflow.

1. CatalyX Blockchain Manager

Formerly known as Catalyst Blockchain Manager

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The Blockchain Manager remains the foundation for blockchain infrastructure. It provides a centralized management console that simplifies the complexities of blockchain orchestration.

  • Infrastructure Deployment: Automated provisioning across various environments.
  • High Availability & Monitoring: Built-in health checks and real-time alerting to ensure 24/7 uptime.
  • Cloud-Agnostic Support: Seamlessly deployment across AWS, Azure, GCP, or on-premises environments without vendor lock-in.
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2. CatalyX Package Manager

Formerly known as Catalyst Package Manager

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Managing daml models and application code requires the same level of rigor as traditional software development. The Package Manager provides a secure bridge between development and production.

  • Registry & Versioning: Maintain a single source of truth for all project artifacts.
  • Access Control: Granular permissions to ensure only authorized users can promote code to production.
  • Integrated Deployment: Push updates directly to CatalyX-managed validators with a few clicks.
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3. Expanding the Ecosystem: Coding Assistant and Wallet

Rounding out the suite are our upcoming components: the Coding Assistant and CatalyX Wallet. These adjacent tools are designed to facilitate building sophisticated decentralized applications.

Upcoming CatalyX products: Coding Assistant and Wallet Manager
Upcoming products in the CatalyX product suite

Why the New Look?

The transition to CatalyX is driven by the need for a visual and UX system that consolidates our capabilities and offers greater clarity. We want to maximize our capacity to help companies deliver on their business needs and speed up use cases development, rather than spending their time overcoming technical challenges. As our customers move from managing single nodes to complex, multi-party networks, they require a unified interface that reduces cognitive load and improves operational efficiency.

The new CatalyX identity reflects a professional, institutional-grade toolkit that grows alongside your network participation.

Expert Support from IntellectEU

While the products provide the automation, our team provides the strategy. CatalyX is backed by the deep domain expertise of IntellectEU

  • 18+ Years of Fintech Experience
  • 7+ Years of DAML Expertise
  • Founding Members of the Canton Foundation

Our engineers are available to support custom developments, unique integration requests, and complex migration paths, ensuring that your technical stack remains optimized for your specific business goals.

What Customers Can Expect

Current users of the CatalyX suite will experience no disruption to their existing deployments. The transition is focused on the interface and brand identity: the underlying technology remains as stable as ever. Our roadmap includes:

  • Deeper Canton Integration: Tighter coupling with the latest Canton protocol updates.
  • Enhanced Dashboards: More intuitive, more polished home node performance monitoring.
  • UX Improvements: A refined navigation system designed for high-velocity operations.

Get Started with CatalyX

Whether you are deploying your first validator or scaling a global network, CatalyX provides the tooling necessary for institutional success.

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