Programmable Compliance

Compliance is Metal’s top priority because it determines whether institutional finance can exist on a shared network at all. Metal builds enforcement into its payment primitives. An institution configures policy for the onchain identities it operates. During a payment, Metal invokes the checks attached to the send and receive policy contracts and binds their decisions to the asset movement.

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Send and receive controls

Each institution configures policies for the accounts it operates. The sending and receiving institutions may operate in different jurisdictions and apply different rules. A transfer reaches the recipient only if both policies approve. If the recipient opts into quarantine, a refused credit is held in escrow until it is recovered. Each institution can therefore enforce its own requirements without trusting the other to perform an offchain check.

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Payment-control primitives

Metal provides primitives that institutions can compose to:

• Require a signed sanctions-screening result
• Enforce per-payment or cumulative limits
• Bind Travel Rule evidence to a payment
• Require signed evidence from an offchain decision service
• Restrict a specific onchain identity
• Allow only approved senders, recipients, or operators
• Route payments through an explicit call to a treasury or an account holding funds for review

These are building blocks. Each institution decides which rules apply to its customers, products, and jurisdictions. Institutions can compose them and add rules in their policies as their requirements evolve.

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Onchain enforcement and offchain decisions

Institutions can make policy decisions from public or private information. A public rule can read onchain state directly. A private rule is evaluated by the institution or its chosen service, then represented onchain by verifiable evidence. Metal verifies the required authorization or policy result without receiving the private inputs used to produce it. The institution decides which information its policy uses and which evidence the transaction must carry. Encrypted offchain channels can deliver private records between authorized parties, while Metal verifies the resulting signature, commitment, or proof.

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Policy can vary by asset

Send and receive policies can use the token address to apply different rules to different assets. An institution can set limits or permissions for one MIP20 token independently of the other tokens an account holds.