Digital Asset CEO Yuval Rooz Says Smart-Contract Blockchains Face Reckoning Over Massive Value Gap

Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset and cofounder of the Canton Network, warns that many smart‑contract blockchains are overvalued because they lack sustained economic activity and recurring revenue to justify large valuations.

“Canton’s Yuval Rooz says smart contract blockchains face a reckoning over value gap The network's co-founder says many blockchains pitching financial rails lack the activity to justify their valuations, and stablecoins still lack true product-market fit”

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He contrasts retail‑speculation‑oriented chains with the institutional financial infrastructure Canton aims to serve, arguing that a "value gap" exists between marketed promises and actual usage.

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Rooz says token markets have been amplified by speculative token economics rather than by demonstrable cash flow or institutional throughput.

Rooz lays out Canton's institutional-first design: a permissioned, privacy-configurable, interoperable network intended for regulated finance rather than retail token trading.

He points to major institutional backing and partnerships as evidence of Canton's traction.

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He highlights technical token mechanisms, such as burning tokens on transactions and issuing tokens to fee-generating applications (a so-called "strike curve"), that tie token value to real usage instead of inflationary rewards to validators.

Rooz criticises prevailing token economics, particularly designs that copy Bitcoin’s inflationary rewards to validators, for amplifying the mismatch between token price and utility.

“Canton’s Yuval Rooz says smart contract blockchains face a reckoning over value gap The network's co-founder says many blockchains pitching financial rails lack the activity to justify their valuations, and stablecoins still lack true product-market fit”

@coindesk

He advocates merit-based developer compensation tied to attracting real customers.

He also argues that stablecoins still lack full product-market fit until their use goes beyond crypto trading into broader dollar-denominated, non-trading activity.

Rooz urges investors to prioritise revenue, usage and real‑world asset onboarding, such as gold and non‑crypto collateral, over headline token metrics like total value locked (TVL) or token price.

He highlights early signs of institutional throughput, for example Broadridge’s reported processing of about $400 billion in daily repo transactions on Canton.

CoinDesk

He points to the network generating $2.5–3 million in daily fees as the kind of measurable activity that should underpin long‑term token value.