Daml

Daml is a smart-contract language created by Digital Asset, and it is the foundation Canton Network runs on. Where many blockchain languages describe programs that any account can call, Daml describes agreements: a contract template names its parties, states who must sign, and defines exactly which choices each party may exercise. Rights and obligations are first-class concepts rather than conventions.

This party-centric model is what makes Canton's privacy structural. Because every contract declares who is involved, the ledger knows precisely who is entitled to see each piece of data, and participant nodes receive only the sub-transactions relevant to their parties. Nothing needs to be broadcast network-wide for the system to stay consistent.

Daml also enforces authorization at the language level: a contract cannot be created or exercised without the signatures its template demands, which rules out whole classes of unauthorized-access bugs common on other platforms.

Every application in the Canton ecosystem, from institutional settlement systems to OneSwap's AMM pools, is a set of Daml templates. A swap on OneSwap is the exercise of contract choices that atomically move both assets between the trader and the pool.