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Canton Network funding surge
Digital Asset, the developer of the Canton Network blockchain, closed a $355 million fundraising round led by a16z crypto to bring Wall Street onchain.
CoinDesk said the round beat a $300 million target at a $2 billion valuation and included participation from institutions including ABN Amro, Apollo Funds, BNP Paribas, Citadel Securities, HSBC, SBI Group and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority through a subsidiary.
Ledger Insights added that Digital Asset had previously raised around $465 million since its founding in 2014, with the latest $50 million coming late last year.
CoinDesk described Canton as designed for big financial institutions to issue and trade tokenized real-world assets like bonds, loans and funds on a shared ledger while maintaining privacy and compliance with legal requirements.
The Defiant framed the same $355 million close as Wall Street piling into Digital Asset, saying the press release described Canton as purpose-built with privacy, compliance, scale, and interoperability built in from the start.
Backers and quoted claims
CoinDesk quoted Digital Asset co-founder and CEO Yuval Rooz saying, "For capital markets to move onchain, institutions need infrastructure that reflects how they actually operate – with privacy, compliance, scale, and interoperability built in from the start," as the firm positioned Canton for regulated markets.
The Defiant also quoted a16z General Partner Ali Yahya saying, "Digital Asset has built one of the clearest examples of blockchain product-market fit in regulated finance."
CoinDesk said a16z crypto would provide expertise in development, policy and research beyond the financial backing, while The Defiant described the investment as the start of an ongoing partnership.
Ledger Insights said the public Canton Network has grabbed attention because it has attracted many traditional financial institutions as a result of its privacy features, and it highlighted interoperability between separate private blockchain platforms.
CryptoRank described the round as valuing the company at about $2 billion and said the Canton Network offers permissioned interoperability, privacy and security for institutional tokenization of real-world assets and CBDCs.
What comes next for institutions
Cointelegraph said the capital will be used to scale the Canton Network, designed for financial institutions to tokenize and settle traditional securities while keeping commercially sensitive data private.
Cointelegraph added that Canton was designed for regulated finance from day one, and it quoted Rooz saying no third party can change an issuer’s books and records without its consent, which he called "essential if capital markets infrastructures are going to put their systems onchain."
CoinDesk reported that tokenized assets hit a record $28.9B in May and that the stablecoin market cap extended its run to $320B, placing the Canton funding in a broader context of market growth.
TradingView said Digital Asset can now "accelerate strategic partnerships and help major financial institutions move mission-critical infrastructure onchain faster," and it listed pilots by institutions including Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered, Société Générale and Deutsche Börse.
The Defiant said Digital Asset told the press it was working with more than 700 ecosystem participants to make Canton the core infrastructure for global finance, as it framed the funding as enabling expansion of product offerings, developer engagement, and network growth.
