Institutional infrastructure
On-chain settlement and margining for interest rate derivatives.
Block Margin gives bank treasury desks infrastructure to settle and margin OTC rate swaps with their corporate clients on-chain, in real time.
Networks
Deployment status
Cardano
Live · Testnet
Working prototype live.
XRPL
Exploratory
In discussion.
Bilateral rate swaps between banks and corporates still run on 1995-era workflows.
Every bilateral swap between a bank and a corporate still requires months of ISDA negotiation, margin calls that move once a day via email, and month-end reconciliations done from scratch.
Friction 01
Documentation drag
Every new corporate hedging relationship requires an ISDA Master, a CSA, and bilateral credit lines to be negotiated before the first trade. Months, not days.
Friction 02
Margin friction
VM moves once a day, computed off-chain by a valuation agent, delivered by email or via legacy margin-call platforms. Disputes take two business days to resolve.
Friction 03
Broken reconciliation
Bank and corporate each hold their own version of the book. Month-end MTM statements arrive late and break against internal accounting.
Product
Infrastructure, not a venue.
Block Margin is a single smart-contract layer that replaces the legal, operational, and reconciliation plumbing around bilateral swaps. Banks plug in; corporates trade through their bank; the platform enforces margin and settlement deterministically.
Common agreement
One set of terms. Every counterparty.
The platform smart contract codifies the ISDA Master and CSA as executable rules. A bank onboards once. Every corporate client the bank introduces trades under the same terms - no bilateral negotiation, no per-client credit lines, no schedule elections.
- Single set of terms for the bank's Block Margin book.
- Standardised eligible collateral (USD/EUR/GBP stablecoin) with published haircuts.
- Default and close-out mechanics executed by the smart contract and recorded on the ledger.
Margining
Continuous margin, not daily.
Variation margin is computed against a timestamped oracle curve and settled atomically on each revaluation. Initial margin is held in a segregated smart contract - not on the platform's balance sheet - recalibrated whenever the portfolio changes. The full margin cycle - call, delivery, acknowledgement - completes in a single block.
- Revaluation cadence from daily to every 15 minutes.
- Grid-based initial margin in v1. Risk-sensitivity methodology (SIMM-aligned) on the roadmap.
- Pre-trade margin preview - the bank sees the IM impact of a new client trade before submission.
Settlement
One ledger, two views.
Cashflows execute on-chain on their scheduled date, valued against the same timestamped curve both sides see. Every payment, fixing, and lifecycle event is a transaction the bank's and corporate's operations teams reconcile against a single immutable record.
- Deterministic payment amounts - the number on the corporate's treasury report equals the number on the bank's book.
- Confirmation PDFs generated from on-chain datum on demand, referenced by UTI.
- Month-end MTM statements for hedge accounting (IFRS 9 / ASC 815), generated from on-chain datum.
- EMIR / Dodd-Frank reporting extracts (roadmap).
Architecture
One smart contract. Three trust boundaries.
TradFi rate sources
NY Fed · Brokers
Bank treasury system
API integration
Corporate web console
Web UI
Block Margin protocol
Oracle committee
(M-of-N threshold signed)
Validator smart contract
(on-chain execution)
Collateral custody contract
(segregated per user)
On-chain ledger
(immutable)
Reporting extracts
(roadmap)
Stablecoin / bank-rail bridge
(operated by bank or provider)
Rates come from authoritative TradFi sources via a multi-signature oracle committee. The validator enforces margining and settlement. Collateral sits in a segregated custody contract, auditable by both counterparties at any block.
The pilot
What a first engagement looks like.
A Block Margin pilot is designed around a single bank and one of its corporate clients. We scope, run shadow trades, then go live - with defined off-ramps at each phase and success criteria agreed in writing.
Phase 1 - Evaluation
Joint working group. Integration scoping, legal and regulatory fit, security audit scope. The bank identifies one corporate client for the pilot.
Phase 2 - Testnet pilot
The bank books trades with one corporate client on the testnet, in parallel with the existing bilateral hedge. Daily tie-out against the bank's internal book.
Phase 3 - Mainnet go-live
Subject to clearing legal and regulator approval, and fine-tuned based on lessons learned in Phase 2. Real collateral, capped notional and tenor. One corporate client live. Path to scale: more clients, more tenors, more products.
Team
Built by people who have run rate books.
The Block Margin team combines decades of direct experience on sell-side rates desks, derivatives clearing, and on-chain infrastructure.
Dmitry Shibaev
Founder
20 years across front-office rates trading, regulatory stress testing, and on-chain infrastructure. Models worked: VaR, SVaR, IRC, DRC (FRTB), CVA, inflation-linked, SABR. Led NatWest Markets' response to Bank of England and EBA stress tests.
Tony Woodhams
Business Development
14+ years heading capital-markets and risk advisory practices at Big Four firms. EMEA Head of Capital Markets at a leading management consultancy. Senior advisory mandates at Morgan Stanley, HSBC, Credit Suisse, and KPMG covering trading risk, regulation, and front-office transformation.
Ready to scope a pilot?
Leave your email for a 30-minute briefing call with the team, or download the full briefing.
Or try the testnet
Launch the app from your side of the trade.
For banks
Settle and margin with your corporate clients.
Warehouse rate risk on-chain. Post once, margin automatically, settle deterministically. Your existing corporate relationships, fewer ops.
Launch as a bankFor corporates
Hedge your floating-rate exposure with your bank.
Daily margin visibility. Month-end MTM that reconciles first time. No ISDA renegotiation per new swap.
Launch as a corporate