What settlement on a rail means
Trade has always settled on promises. A letter of credit is a bank promising to pay if a stack of paper matches. A 60-day net term is a buyer promising to pay if nothing bad happens. The trade-finance stack is built on a tower of promises that each need their own dispute resolution mechanism if any one of them breaks.
EDMA settles trade on verified events. Production passes, an EMT mints, a tranche of EDSD stablecoin unlocks. Inspection passes, an EMT mints, another tranche unlocks. The order lifecycle in software is the same lifecycle that releases money. No EMT, no funds. Locked stays Locked until reality is proven.
This is not a wallet-to-wallet rail. EDMA is purpose-built for milestone-gated multi-party settlement. The smart contract isn’t a swap, it’s an escrow with cryptographic gate-checks. Funds get committed up front, parked in Locked EDSD, and released against signed evidence as the trade physically unfolds.
Where it sits in the EDMA stack
Three columns of the Global Trade menu lay out the full picture. TradeOS produces the operational data: every order, every shipment, every QC inspection, every customs filing, every dispute. As operators run TradeOS, they generate the verified events that drive settlement.
The Global Trade Marketplace matches operators with capital. Listings are anonymised, financiers price on operational signals, and accepted offers route into the rail. The Marketplace tells you who fits with whom; once a deal funds, the Settlement rail takes over.
Settlement (this series) is the rail itself. When a deal funds, the buyer commits EDSD into Locked escrow. Six canonical milestones gate the tranched release. Each PASS mints an EMT, fires settleTrancheOnPass, deducts the 0.5% protocol fee, burns 50% of it in $EDM, and unlocks the tranche to the seller’s wallet. No EMT, no funds. Same evidence cannot finalise twice. Must-fund before shipping.
TradeOS
Sourcing · Manufacturers · Production · Shipments · Finance · Docs
Where verified events are produced.
Trade Marketplace
Listings · Two-step disclosure · Operational signals · Offers
Where deals discover capital.
Settlement
EDSD stablecoin · EMT milestone tokens · PoV consensus on Ethereum L2
Where verified events become payment.
What this series covers
Six dedicated pages follow this overview. 6 milestone gates covers the canonical milestone template and how each gate’s evidence schema, attestor role, and release percentage work. EMT milestone tokens covers how EMTs mint, what they carry on-chain, and how the one-claim ledger enforces the no-double-spend rule. EDSD stablecoin covers the rail-native stablecoin: must-fund mechanics, Locked-to-Unlocked state transitions, T-bill yield on Locked tranches, and the v1 bank-rail versus v2 EDSD end-to-end paths.
PoV consensus covers how Proof-of-Verification gates settle: independent attestor signatures, the gate-check primitive, and the cryptographic finality model. Anchored to Ethereum L1 covers how EDMA L2 commits state to mainnet via EIP-4844 blobs every 2 to 10 minutes, finality guarantees, and the data availability model. $EDM burn covers the 50% burn rule, treasury split, governance bounds, and how rail growth translates to token supply contraction.
6 milestone gates
The standard template is six gates: Order Confirmed, Production Started, On-Board, Customs Cleared, Delivered, Arrival/QA. Each gate has its own evidence schema, attestor role, and release percentage. Templates are governance-adjustable within published bounds.
EMT milestone tokens
EMTs (Evidence Milestone Tokens) are the on-chain artefacts that mint when a milestone PASSes. Each EMT carries the PoV hash, the evidence schema reference, the attestor signatures, and the tranche release amount. EMTs are one-claim: the same evidence cannot finalise twice.
EDSD stablecoin
EDSD is the rail-native stablecoin. Backing: roughly 75% short-dated T-bills, 25% cash, with Proof-of-Reserves attestations per epoch. The buyer funds Locked EDSD up front; tranches unlock to the seller on each milestone PASS. T-bill yield on Locked tranches accrues to the protocol.
PoV consensus
Proof-of-Verification is the gate-check primitive that turns physical evidence into a binding milestone pass. Independent attestors sign hashes of what they actually inspected; the gate PASSes when quorum is satisfied. No vote, no override, no human-in-the-loop bypass.
Anchored to Ethereum L1
EDMA L2 commits state to Ethereum mainnet via EIP-4844 blob transactions every 2 to 10 minutes. Anchoring inherits Ethereum’s finality and security guarantees; the L2 itself runs sub-cent gas for milestone mints while keeping settlement-level trust.
$EDM burn
Every settlement burns 50% of the protocol fee in $EDM atomically. The other 50% routes to the treasury under published governance bounds. Rail growth translates directly into token supply contraction: as more deals settle, more $EDM is permanently removed from circulation.
Where it stands today
The EDMA L2 mainnet went live on May 16, 2026 with the settlement rail (EDSD, EMTs, PoV Gate, One-Claim Ledger, 50% burn) in production. The settlement contracts are deployed and running end-to-end against EDMA’s own Group operation; the first external production trade settles post-mainnet announcement.
Mainnet anchors on Ethereum via EIP-4844 blobs every 2 to 10 minutes. The L2 itself runs sub-cent gas for milestone mints; the protocol fee is the meaningful cost, charged in $EDM per settlement and split 50/50 between burn and treasury under published governance bounds.
The $EDM token is the rail’s fee, burn, and governance asset. Holders vote on adjustable parameters (templates, attestor SLAs, treasury split) inside the bounds set by the constitution. Every settlement burns half of the protocol fee, so the rail’s growth flows into the token’s deflation. The presale is live now.
