Digital Asset and market participants announced plans to launch the Canton Network, the industry’s first privacy-enabled interoperable blockchain network designed for institutional assets and built to responsibly unlock the potential of synchronized financial markets.
Among Canton Network’s participants are ASX, BNP Paribas, Broadridge, Capgemini, Cboe Global Markets, Deutsche Börse Group, Digital Asset, The Digital Dollar Project, DRW, EquiLend, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Moody’s, S&P Global, and SBI Digital Asset Holdings. Participants will begin testing interoperability capabilities across a range of applications and use cases in July.
The Canton Network will provide a decentralized infrastructure that connects independent applications built with Daml, Digital Asset’s smart-contract language. It creates a “network of networks”, allowing previously siloed systems in financial markets to interoperate with the appropriate governance, privacy, permissioning and controls required for highly regulated industries.
It enables financial institutions to experience a safer and reconciliation-free environment where assets, data, and cash can synchronize freely across applications. This creates opportunities for financial institutions to offer new innovative products to their clients while enhancing their efficiency and risk management.
For example, asset registers and cash payment systems are distinct and siloed systems in today’s markets. With the Canton Network, a digital bond and a digital payment can be composed across two separate applications into a single atomic transaction, guaranteeing simultaneous exchange without operational risk. Likewise, a digital asset could be used in a collateralized financial transaction via connection to a repo or leveraged loan application.
The network can connect innovative blockchain solutions in market today, such as Deutsche Börse Group’s D7 post-trade platform and Goldman Sachs’ GS DAP, while retaining privacy and permissioning. As more Daml-built applications go into production this year and beyond, the number of connections on the Canton Network will grow exponentially. For example, one application’s monthly notional traded exceeds the most active crypto token volumes.
“The Canton Network vision strives to enable seamless connectivity across various blockchain networks in the industry. Such solutions are a key building block for future digital and distributed financial market infrastructures,” said Jens Hachmeister, head of Issuer Services & New Digital Markets at Deutsche Börse Group, in a statement.
“By providing a shared network of trust and transparency, the Canton Network enables participants to leverage the power of decentralized technology, access new markets, and drive innovation. Our transformative 1Source initiative, which we are building on the Canton ledger, will serve as a single source of truth for securities finance transactions and will be available to all participants, vendors and market infrastructures globally. The result will be a more efficient, interoperable and future-proof securities finance market,” said Ken DeGiglio, chief information officer at EquiLend, in a statement.
“At Cboe, we believe the tokenization of real world assets may offer an unprecedented opportunity to create new market infrastructure and drive efficiency in the trading of products across the globe. By leveraging new blockchain technologies, we can potentially unlock new opportunities for market participants. Efforts like the Canton Network will help our industry further explore this frontier,” said Cathy Clay, executive vice president for Global Digital and Data Solutions at Cboe Global Markets, in a statement.
“We are proud to be a founding participant of the Canton Network. For the first time, financial institutions can realize the full benefits of a global blockchain network while operating within the regulatory guardrails that ensure a safe, sound, and fair financial system. This is a significant step forward for the blockchain space. We look forward to helping this founding group of network operators and users build and connect applications to the Canton Network,” said Yuval Rooz, co-Founder and CEO at Digital Asset, in a statement.