Funding Proposal: Balance Institutional Custody and Open-Source Integration Toolkit for Akash

[CryptoKroeger]

Balance Institutional Custody and Open-Source Integration Toolkit for Akash

TL;DR

Balance proposes to add institutional custody support for AKT and publish reusable, non-sensitive integration resources that make it easier for regulated organizations, funds, foundations, validators, providers, and ecosystem companies to hold and transact with AKT safely.

The project combines production custody enablement with open-source public goods: reference transaction tooling, monitoring and reconciliation specifications, policy templates, testing resources, and institutional onboarding documentation. The goal is to reduce the technical and operational work required for institutions to participate in the Akash ecosystem.

Applicant

Paradiso Ventures Inc. / Balance

Balance provides institutional digital-asset custody and related infrastructure through Paradiso Ventures Inc. and its affiliates, including Balance Trust Company and Balance USA. Balance supports more than $2.5 billion in assets under custody, more than three million wallets, and more than one million transactions.

Primary contact: Dustin Plett
Email: dustin@balance.ca
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustinplett/
GitHub: https://github.com/CryptoKroeger
Website: https://balance.ca/

Problem

Institutional participation in Akash requires more than basic wallet support. Organizations need:

• secure key management and separation of duties;
• configurable transaction approval policies;
• reliable deposits and withdrawals;
• chain monitoring and reconciliation;
• auditable operational workflows;
• documented support for governance, staking, and ecosystem participation; and
• controls that fit regulated financial and corporate environments.

Today, each institution or service provider must solve much of this independently. That increases integration cost, slows adoption, and creates inconsistent security and operational standards.

Proposed solution

Balance will build and launch institutional custody support for AKT while publishing reusable, non-sensitive resources for the broader Akash community.

Planned work includes:

1. AKT custody integration

   • wallet and account lifecycle support;
   • deposits and withdrawals;
   • transaction construction, signing, broadcast, and confirmation;
   • fee handling, monitoring, reconciliation, and recovery workflows;
   • configurable institutional approval policies.

2. Akash-specific institutional workflows

   • governance transaction support and documentation;
   • staking and delegation workflow research and implementation, subject to technical and compliance review;
   • operational guidance for validators, providers, foundations, funds, and corporate treasury users.

3. Open-source public goods

   • reference code for address validation, transaction parsing, and test-vector handling;
   • documented transaction and monitoring specifications;
   • testnet integration harness and example workflows;
   • institutional integration checklist, threat model, and operational-readiness guide;
   • public implementation notes that other wallets, custodians, and infrastructure providers can reuse.

Balance's proprietary key-management, policy, and security systems will remain confidential. The grant-funded reference tooling and non-sensitive documentation will be published under a permissive open-source license.

Public benefit to Akash

The project is designed to create benefits beyond Balance's own product roadmap:

• lowers the cost for other institutional service providers to support Akash;
• provides reusable testing and integration resources;
• improves AKT accessibility for regulated and professionally managed organizations;
• supports safer treasury, governance, staking, validator, and provider workflows;
• creates an institutional onboarding path that can be used by Akash ecosystem teams;
• expands the set of organizations able to hold and use AKT.

Deliverables and milestones

Milestone 1 — Architecture, research, and public specification

Timing: Weeks 1–4
Funding: US$20,000 equivalent

Deliverables:

• Akash transaction and account architecture specification;
• supported workflow and asset scope;
• threat model and operational risk assessment;
• monitoring and reconciliation specification;
• automated test plan and public test vectors;
• community milestone demonstration.

Milestone 2 — Testnet integration and open-source toolkit

Timing: Weeks 5–10
Funding: US$45,000 equivalent

Deliverables:

• end-to-end testnet deposits and withdrawals;
• transaction policy, monitoring, and reconciliation workflows;
• staking, delegation, and governance workflow implementation where approved;
• open-source reference utilities and test harness;
• draft institutional integration and operational-readiness documentation;
• security review and published non-sensitive findings.

Milestone 3 — Mainnet launch and ecosystem onboarding

Timing: Weeks 11–16
Funding: US$35,000 equivalent

Deliverables:

• production AKT custody support;
• controlled mainnet rollout and recovery testing;
• finalized open-source toolkit and documentation;
• onboarding playbook for qualified Akash ecosystem organizations;
• discounted custody enablement for qualified early Akash participants;
• public completion report and demonstration.

Budget

Total request: US$100,000 equivalent, paid in milestone-based installments.

The final AKT amount and payment schedule should be documented at approval. Balance can accept AKT provided the award terms permit responsible conversion of milestone funds for documented engineering and operating expenses, consistent with Akash governance guidance.

Success metrics

Within six months of project completion, Balance will target:

• production support for AKT;
• publication of the promised open-source toolkit and documentation;
• at least three qualified institutional or ecosystem onboarding discussions;
• at least one production institutional or ecosystem customer enabled, subject to demand and compliance approval;
• public milestone reporting and a final implementation demonstration.

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.
• Vladimir Li, CTO — engineering and production delivery; BSc in Software Engineering from the University of Waterloo; former Amazon engineer.
• 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.
• Dustin Plett, Chief Sales Officer — ecosystem partnerships, reporting, and institutional onboarding.

Reporting and accountability

Balance will post milestone updates, demonstrations, links to public deliverables, budget usage summaries, and any material scope changes for community review. Funding will be tied to measurable deliverables rather than time elapsed alone.

We welcome community feedback on the technical scope, public-good deliverables, funding structure, and the Akash groups that should participate in milestone reviews.