What Cardiv is

Cardiv is an order book exchange on the Canton Network, run by WolfEdge Labs. Buyers and sellers post orders at the prices they want, those orders rest in a public book, and Cardiv matches them by price, then by time: the best price trades first, and among equal prices the order that arrived earlier trades first.

Your assets stay in your Calden wallet the whole time. There is no deposit step and no withdrawal step, and no balance sits with the venue: your tokens are in your wallet before you trade, while you trade and after you trade.

When you place an order, the amount you are offering is locked inside your own wallet. The lock and the order are created in one transaction, so an order can never exist without the funds behind it, and funds can never be locked without an order to justify them. The lock lasts until the order fills or you cancel.

Every one of those steps is yours to approve. Cardiv builds the transaction and hands it to Calden; you read it and sign it with your wallet signature. Cardiv matches orders and submits the trades, and it cannot move your assets without that signature. It can end an order that can no longer trade, which returns the locked amount to your wallet.