Canton Network and Digital Asset

At a glance

What it does

Digital Asset built Daml, a language for writing financial contracts, and sold it to banks and market infrastructures for years before Canton existed. Canton links those separate Daml ledgers into one network. Each institution runs its own node and keeps its own private ledger. When two parties trade, a shared layer called the Global Synchronizer orders the steps and makes sure both sides settle together or not at all.

Privacy is the design principle. On Canton, a position is a Daml contract visible only to the parties named in it. The network keeps no global list of balances in public view, so it gets privacy without zero-knowledge proofs. Other participants see only that a valid step happened.

The network was announced in May 2023 by a group of about thirty institutions, including Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Börse, Cboe, Microsoft and Paxos. Canton Coin and the Global Synchronizer went live in July 2024. The Canton Foundation, renamed from the Global Synchronizer Foundation in September 2025, reports 58 super validators, the node operators that run the shared layer.

How it is different

Represented assets, in RWA.xyz's terms, are tokens that use a blockchain as a record-keeping layer but cannot move to wallets outside the issuing platform. Distributed assets can. Canton explains most of the represented category on its own, while it barely registers in the distributed one. On RWA.xyz, its 328 bn USD came almost entirely from one platform, Broadridge's repo system, with no holders visible to the dashboard.

Its users are the institutions that already run the financial system. The DTCC and Digital Asset agreed to tokenize a subset of US Treasuries held at DTC on Canton, with the rollout targeted for the second half of 2026. J.P. Morgan's JPMD deposit token expanded to Canton on 7 January 2026. Tradeweb has executed a tokenized-Treasury trade against a stablecoin on the network.

Digital Asset says Canton is "the only public chain with privacy". That is the company's framing. In practice a retail investor has no account there and no way to trade the assets it records.

Where it fits

Which blockchains RWAs live on explains the distributed and represented split and Canton's place in it. Where RWA stands in September 2026 shows how much of the headline market it accounts for. A short history of tokenization places it in the institutional wave. Who's who in RWA sets it among institutional networks. Related profiles: Anchorage, Paxos and BlackRock.

Risks and open questions

Its figures cannot be checked from outside. Activity is private by design, so aggregate volumes and values come from the network or its members. The right way to cite Canton is by named counterparties and contracts, not by its totals.

One platform dominates the number. A repo system recording trades between existing institutions is useful, but it is a record of bank business, not a market that outside capital can enter.

Canton Coin is a separate question. Its market value, about 4.1 bn USD on 9 September 2026 according to CoinGecko, measures a token, not the assets on the network, and it gives holders no claim on the repo book.

No licence or named regulator approval was found for the network or the Canton Foundation itself.

What to watch next

• The DTCC Treasury rollout: tokenized Treasuries held at the central depository and moving on Canton would be the first large test with a US market utility.
• Links to public chains: atomic swaps with Ethereum and LayerZero integration, both announced in March 2026, could let Canton assets reach open markets.
• Distributed value: any Canton asset that outside wallets can hold would show up in the distributed count, and that number matters more than the represented total.
• Bank deposit tokens: more banks settling tokenized deposits on Canton would confirm it as the network of choice for regulated money.