Bankless Podcast Summary
Episode: Is Canton a Real Blockchain? | Canton Founder Yuval Rooz
Date: January 12, 2026
Guests: Yuval Rooz (Canton / Digital Asset Co-founder)
Hosts: Ryan & David
Episode Overview
This episode explores the Canton Network: its origins, purpose, distinctive architecture, design decisions, and the debate around its place in the broader crypto/blockchain landscape. The discussion features Yuval Rooz, co-founder of Digital Asset (the company behind Canton), and covers Canton's real-world asset (RWA) focus, governance, relationship with institutions like DTCC, technical model, approach to decentralization, the nature and role of its CC token, and critiques from the broader crypto-native community.
Main Themes and Topics
1. What is Canton? (Origin Story & Philosophy)
- Origins: Conceived around 2015–16; methodical, institution-focused approach.
- Goal: Move financial services (especially RWAs) on-chain while balancing privacy, regulatory compliance, and institutional adoption.
- Launch: Work began in closed pilots, going public only after years of testing (2023). Deliberately avoided early ICOs.
- Philosophy: Not trying to "replace Ethereum" or pursue maximum decentralization, but instead enable large-scale, institutional-grade, compliant financial services on-chain.
Notable Quote:
“Our view was that in order to move everything on chain, you need to solve for privacy… So we took a conservative approach: build the technology, test it in walled gardens, don’t launch a network until you’ve proven the mechanics.”
— Yuval Rooz (03:00)
2. Canton vs. Ethereum: Design Tradeoffs and Mission
- Vitalik’s Post Reference: Episode is partly framed by Vitalik Buterin’s post defining Ethereum’s "freedom maximization" mission.
- Asset Dichotomy: Pure crypto assets (e.g., ETH, BTC) have censorship resistance/sovereignty; RWAs unavoidably introduce issuer/intermediary risks.
- Canton’s Target: Brings assets to chain but accepts certain trust and regulatory tradeoffs for practicality and adoption.
Notable Quote:
“The second you have the real world, you open yourself to censorship... doesn’t matter that you put it on a decentralized infrastructure… you’re not getting what Vitalik is putting in his post.”
— Yuval Rooz (00:00, repeated emphasis at 12:30)
3. Key Design Decisions and Technical Features
Privacy vs. Anonymity (15:40)
- Privacy: Information is shared on a “need-to-know basis”—crucial for institutions.
- Anonymity: Not a focus for Canton, as institutional players require shared, auditable data with privacy, not absolute secrecy.
Network Architecture: Cantons and Composability (19:05)
- Canton’s Model: Inspired by Swiss cantons and the Internet. Many interoperable “cantons” (zones/ledgers), each with sovereignty, different rules/privacy.
- Composability: Cantons compose transactions atomically, without bridges/solvers—direct interoperability seen as a breakthrough (vs. fragmented L2s on Ethereum).
- Scalability & Governance: Key for serving systemically critical infrastucture like DTCC.
Notable Quote:
"If I want JP Morgan to do payments on Canton, privacy [is] critical—anonymity not going to work… The world is not homogeneous, it’s actually heterogeneous... Can I create these different Cantons… but at any time compose a transaction across them, atomically, with no bridges, and with a single-layer user experience?”
— Yuval Rooz (16:30 & 21:30)
4. Governance Model: Super Validators and Network Access (37:28)
- Super Validators: Special role; validate the Canton coin ledger, manage protocol changes, and ensure composability layer works. Not a classic “permissionless” model—new SVs are admitted through governance (no large staking; contribution-based nomination).
- Participation: Any company or entity adding value to the ecosystem can be nominated.
- Inclusivity & Centralization Debate: Critics argue this introduces new (non-capital) barriers to validation, risking insider capture—addressed by transparency and “lower” participation thresholds vs. e.g. Ethereum’s capital requirement.
Notable Quotes:
“Becoming a validator is a commoditized product … so we’d rather have super validators be people who contributed positively to the network… you don’t have to stake tens of millions of dollars, which to me is not very accessible.”
— Yuval Rooz (41:05)
“You have to get approved by the governance body… it’s a different vector of privilege. Someone with friends and influence can get in.”
— David (47:20, critique)
5. Crypto-Native Criticisms and Social Contract Tensions
- Pushback: Critiques from Ethereum/crypto maximalists: Canton is “the antithesis” of crypto values, enables surveillance, is permissioned, lacks radical transparency and forkability.
- Yuval’s Rebuttal: Emphasizes differing problem statements—Canton serves institutional adoption and real-world assets, for which pure on-chain freedom is simply impractical for regulatory and operational reasons.
- Social Contract vs. Technical Guarantees: Strong social contracts (as on Bitcoin) may not suffice for institutions regulated at the scale of DTCC.
Notable Quotes:
“It’s not irrational to have that value (max decentralization), but it’s not practical with what we’re trying to solve.”
— Yuval Rooz (62:27)
“Canton will be driving, not $300 billion, but potentially a few trillion dollars of settlements every day [by 2030].”
— Yuval Rooz (89:54)
6. Real-World Adoption and Numbers: DTCC, Broadridge, JP Morgan, and More
- Flagship Integrations:
- DTCC pilot: Canton selected for tokenizing U.S. Treasuries (DTCC settles “quadrillions” annually).
- Broadridge: Settlement and collateral ledger for ~70% of U.S. fixed income market (processing $300B+ on Canton)—confirmed in quarterly earnings.
- JP Morgan: Announced deployment to Canton.
- RWA Value Representation: Canton visible with high numbers in RWA league tables. Yuval asserts these numbers are real, not gamified—institutions would not risk reputational damage for marketing.
Notable Quotes:
“It is not rational to think that a CEO of a $30 billion company would gamify numbers to get attention on a website. For what benefit?”
— Yuval Rooz (76:09)
7. Tokenomics: The CC (Canton) Token (83:42)
- Purpose: Utility token for transaction (gas) fees, denominated in USD (to meet the needs of large, traditional players).
- Mechanism: “Burn/mint equilibrium”—if the market cap rises without real utility, chain becomes inflationary to self-correct. Long-term value must come from real usage and transaction volume.
- Distribution/Critique: Some concern in crypto circles about team/early investor allocations and public verifiability.
Notable Quote:
“If we don’t bring utility to this network, we think the market cap… should go to zero. That’s our view.”
— Yuval Rooz (87:10)
Notable Audience and Community Segments
- Crypto Natives: Mostly skeptical, critical of permissioned/validator model; see Canton as co-opted or “anti-crypto.”
- Institutions and FIs: Welcomed, as Canton’s design suits regulatory obligations, privacy, and composability requirements for large value assets.
Quotable Moments
-
On Social Contracts vs. Technical Guarantees:
“Immutability is a social construct. At the end of the day, as of right now, a regulated institution cannot go to their regulator and say, ‘I’m choosing this chain because they have a very strong social contract.’”
— Yuval Rooz (31:10) -
On Crypto Intermediaries:
“All this technology is doing is creating new intermediaries. A lot of the intermediaries created in crypto are even more centralized than the old ones.”
— Yuval Rooz (58:00) -
On the Future:
“In 2030, I think DeFi on Ethereum does it atomically from assets that have been minted on Canton… I think Canton will be driving, not $300 billion, but a few trillion dollars of settlements every day.”
— Yuval Rooz (89:15–89:54)
Key Timestamps
- 00:00 – Opening: Censorship-Resistance in RWAs
- 03:00 – Canton’s origin, conservative approach, delayed token
- 10:05 – Reflection on Vitalik’s Ethereum “freedom” maximization post
- 15:40 – Privacy vs. anonymity in blockchain, implications for institutions
- 19:05 – Why a single ledger doesn’t scale for all financial services; "Cantons" concept
- 23:44 – Governance model, importance for regulated institutions
- 37:28 – The mechanics of super validators and who can join
- 51:45 – Host reads crypto Twitter critiques & Yuval’s response
- 76:09 – RWAs league tables, Broadridge, and validating institutional numbers
- 80:37 – DTCC pilot: implications for the future of tokenized securities
- 83:42 – The role and economics of the CC token
- 89:15 – Vision for 2030: Ethereum and Canton collaboration
Tone & Discussion Style
- Candid & Philosophical: Open, nuanced debate of tradeoffs in chain design, governance, values (pragmatism vs. idealism).
- Respectful Disagreement: Hosts and guest disagree, particularly on notions of decentralization and openness, but in a constructive, mutually respectful manner.
- Tech-Forward, No Hype: Focus on fact-finding, surfacing real numbers/applications, and clear about industry limitations.
Final Thoughts
The episode provides a "fact-finding" examination of Canton’s structure, mission, and reception in crypto. It honestly surfaces the complex intersection between technical architecture and social/governance philosophy—especially when bridging the world of DeFi/crypto-natives with institutional finance. It concludes with an open invitation for cross-chain collaboration, pragmatic optimism, and an acknowledgment of crypto’s evolving, multifaceted landscape.
Recommended For:
- Anyone confused by Canton or wondering if it's “crypto”
- Crypto builders considering RWA integrations
- Institutional players evaluating chain architecture fit
- Critics of permissioned models seeking first-hand explanations