Cointelegraph reported on Thursday that the first tokenised bond has been issued under Project Samara, led by the Bank of Canada.

The pilot involves Export Development Canada (EDC), Royal Bank of Canada and TD Bank Group. It focuses on testing how much distributed ledger technology (DLT) can improve the efficiency of bond issuance, trading and settlement.

Project Samara aims to innovate financial market infrastructure using blockchain technology. In the pilot, EDC issued a C$100 million short-term bond worth about $73.6 million, which was traded by a closed group of investors.

The platform was built on Hyperledger Fabric. It supported every step, from issuance to bidding, interest payments, redemption and secondary trading. It was designed to enable real-time settlement by integrating separate ledgers for cash and bonds.

The pilot showed both potential benefits and limitations of DLT in financial markets. Participants saw positive results in operational efficiency and data integrity, but governance, regulation and integration with existing systems remain challenges, Cointelegraph said.

The research team analysed that DLT can improve settlement efficiency and reduce counterparty risk, but that broader adoption would require overcoming infrastructure and regulatory barriers.