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B
All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Crypto 101 podcast. Welcome. We hope everyone's doing well. No matter where you are in the world, you're certainly in the right place. We've got another really exciting episode in store for all of you. Now. As of lately, we've gotten to talk to all different leaders in the industries across all of crypto and get a little bit of an insight as to what's happening and why these big moves are going on and what's going on with the large caps. But today we're bringing in someone who has a little bit more insight into a relatively newer crypto project, one that is taking the crypto space by storm. And it's actually holding up really well here as the Crypto market's going through some bumpy and turbulent time, as I'm sure a lot of you are seeing and experiencing. We want to talk about this new project a little bit more. And so we've brought in Mark Wendland. He is the CEO of TheraMune. Mark, good to have you and welcome to the show.
C
Thank you, Brendan. Great to be here.
B
Yeah, excited to talk to you. So, you know, let's go ahead and spoil it here. We're not gonna to hold you captive, but we wanna talk a little bit about Canton. Ticker symbol cc for those of you who have been following it. We've been talking about it inside some of our personal communities like Cryp Nation and things over there. And so this might be one that you're aware of, but we wanna dial in a little bit more now. Mark, you spent years doing, I mean, you were deep in repo and treasury operations at firms like Citadel and drw. You know, you have this extensive background. And one of the things that we've noticed about Canton specifically here is that it has been catching the attention of major firms, like just drawing major support. You know, some of the names that we've seen out there are JP Morgan, dtcc, BNY Mellon, Citibank. I'm sure there's others that I'm. That I'm missing out there. What got you so interested in Canton?
C
Yeah, so, I mean, I guess you could call me a financial plumber. I spent years in kind of the sexy business of how our markets work and the structure behind it. And so I think if you look at treasury operations, it's how do you build redundant systems that scale and can handle the flow that the markets demand. And so it was lots of time working through innovation and different structures that Citadel DRW spent a long time developing. But it's how do you. The core was how do you build systems that scale, you're compliant and don't break under stress. Markets are obviously volatile as we see even now, and you want to make sure that your infrastructure kind of can stand that test of time. It's not always the most sexy business, but it's important to understand that. And so repo was an example of that. It's, it's kind of very large market, you know, 30 plus trillion just in U.S. treasury issuance alone. And it is also used as part of monetary policy by US Fed as well. And so I think it's important to, you know, understand how that market works and have systems, et cetera, that, that scale with a market that size and and so I think that's my background, that's what my passion has been about, is how to build scale, how do you do things the most efficient way, cost effective and reduce funding costs or financing costs so that friction ultimately benefits the users and ultimately depending on the market, the end user, whether it be retail institution, et cetera as well.
B
So from my understanding, Theramune is the first publicly traded company to leverage, support and kind of create a treasury around Canton. Is that correct?
C
Yes. Yeah. TheraMune is a public company built to accelerate and monetize the Canton ecosystem. So it's a digital asset treasury, a dat as often commonly used. But we're not just doing the capital raise, buy coin, sell shares. That kind of. That's not the only business model we have. That is a feature that we do, but it's not the only. And I think that's a differentiating factor that you're seeing play out by a lot of the weakness from DATs that are out there, those that can differentiate themselves and how they add value to shareholders is critically important in the future. So we're doing things like I think it was last week or the week before we became a super validator, which allows us to increase yield for our investors and we have a broad mandate to grow the ecosystem. So it's not just again about capital markets, but building apps, helping grow the network through partnerships and relationships. Given, you know, my background and some of our other partners that I have, Mark Toomey, et cetera, where we're able to use our use case in our prior life to help then forge relationships and partnerships to then build on top of. And obviously Canton's at the forefront of what we're doing here at Theramune.
B
You know, you just answered a question that we've been talking about behind the scenes over here. We're like, is it pronounced Canton or is it Canton? And we've gone back and forth and we were like, I think it's this. And then we did some research behind the name. We're like, oh, well, maybe it's that. So it's Canton.
C
It goes back to kind of the Switzerland and the provinces about their. Each kind of canton has. Has a unique, you know, network kind of like that. But they're all together as a whole. Similar to, I guess United States has many different states. We're all part of the federal government and I think it's all interoperable. And so that was kind. The play and why Canton was. Was chosen for the name there.
B
Makes total sense. Makes total sense. So let's get right into the core. You know, what is Canton? You know, it's this newer project. It's blown up. I think last time I checked, it was around like a 5 to 6 million or billion in market cap. I think right now it's around 6 billion in market cap. And so it launched here, you know, towards the end of last year, and it's done pretty well since it's come onto a lot of people's radar. Can you just explain to the new listeners out there, people who aren't as familiar, what is Canton and why should people be paying attention to it?
C
Yeah, so it's a public blockchain, one that's designed for real financial markets. And so its focus is trying to transform our traditional markets and move them on to blockchain technology. And so stripping apart crypto and technology, the underlying public blockchain, those financial rails, moving that on top of our financial markets. That's the focus of Canton. And it was created by Digital Asset, who I think was actually a guest not too long ago in the. In the past, Yuval Ruz. And so he created in his firm Digital Assets, created Canton. And I think what makes it special is its focus is to kind of do this transformation from traditional markets to the power of blockchain.
B
You know, I've seen people talk about and really compare Canton, and they say, oh, it's more like Ethereum. Oh, it's more like xrp. The popular thing that I've seen online is it is the quote, unquote, XRP killer. And, you know, I. It does feel like there's some differences. I mean, what would you most compare it to? Because it kind of feels like it's a hybrid of several projects.
C
Exactly. And I think that's because it's. It's focused on kind of one thing. Now. I. Each blockchain that you mentioned, and there's others out there as well, serves its purpose and what it's focused on. And so, again, Canton's focused on kind of transforming our financial markets, whether it be the U.S. treasury market, equity market, even financial process flows, et cetera, to get those on top of blockchain rails. And there's use cases for each of the other L1s. So I don't think it's like Canton versus anything else. It's kind of each blockchain has its specific purpose and has its value and pros and cons about each of them. And so if I dissect what I think is very special about Canton and why it makes it very well Suited for what its task is, which is transforming those financial markets. The blockchain Rails is the configurable privacy element. So I think it's, it's important to think about where you know, in institutional type markets or even like your bank account, if you're an individual. Privacy is, is important in there. And so it's, it's not something that everyone wants everything to be public. And I like to say it's the right transparency for the right audience where you're able to say if this type of transaction happened, this element of the transaction is completely transparent for the public. This part of the transaction is, you know, available to the regulators, for example, or this part of the transaction is to the, you know, institution. So like if you take just a banking example where you have a checking account and you do a variety of different transactions and your bank needs to see all of the activity to make sure that they are able to comply with the regulations that they have to hold uphold to. So you can see everything. It's completely transparent to them, but it's not transparent to the world about where I'm necessarily sending money, paying money, etc, that's only, you know, private to certain institutions, et cetera. But the regulatory environment gets to see everything and you just transform that to like the equity market. There's transactional reporting, etc. That goes on there. And the same could apply. There are certain elements of a transaction that should be public to everyone and certain elements that should be private.
D
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B
support is available 247 with VRBoCare. We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help. Because a great trip starts with the right support. Yeah, and that's like how the normal world works. It's like not everything. Some things are private, some things are public. And you don't want. Most people don't want everything being out there. And so in order for somewhat of a normal form of mainstream adoption, you need to be able to have both, right? Not everyone needs to see every single thing that you're buying, every single thing that you're Searching every single thing that you're doing in places that you're going. And the list goes, you know, everything you're eating, right? They don't need to see all this information, especially in the financial world. And I think there's a right to some level of privacy when it comes to all of that. And so it makes sense. And, you know, up until this point, it's kind of been a little bit more of like a balance beam of like, oh, well, everything should be on chain or everything should be available. And then there's some privacy projects which are like, nothing should be available with this, you know, super encryption. And I think now as we get closer and closer and as we see more levels of adoption, which we've seen a lot in the last two or so years, you know, especially in the, you know, I'd go further than two. You know, we've made a lot of progress in the last two, but just period, you know, since crypto's been out, as we start to see crypto and blockchain tech integrating more with traditional finance and more with everyday purposes, I think there needs to be a little bit of a meet in the middle moment where we can say, hey, you know, blockchain was designed in this way, but it doesn't mean that it can't flex to where it is needed or what it is needed. And that's kind of where this comes in is it's saying it doesn't have to be this all or nothing scenario where it's, everything's available, everything's private. You know, what if we had a good mix of both so that we can cater to a larger market, you know, which is, you know, obviously the trillion and trillion dollar trading markets, which is kind of where this comes in. And one of the things that I've noticed right away is that there's lots of projects out there that say, oh, well, we have support or partnerships with X, Y and Z. And you look and it's like the companies don't even know that they're in a, you know, partnership, quote unquote or supporting or whatever. But Canton has this, this huge backing of names. I mean, we mentioned some of them earlier. City, bny, Mellon, I think Goldman Sachs was on the list. You can correct me if I'm wrong. J.P. morgan, what are they partnering or in? You know, if there's other ones, feel free to throw them in here. Can you give us some like, specific examples of like, why and what they're looking at and how Canton's kind of servicing them in Regards to.
C
I'll take a step back and you know, Canton was, was built over years of work. So it wasn't like just something that came to market right now. And I think that was intentional making sure that it was going to meet the standards that some of the firms you just mentioned. And so if you look at those partnerships, it's, it's I think a well rounded ecosystem. So you have some of the large banks, you have bnp, Soxin, Goldman, JP Morgan, you go on, on that side. So check the box. We have some large banks, we have large market makers that like Cumberland, etc. That are doing activity on top of Canton that are involved in the ecosystem. Then you have utility players like DTCC and Euroclear that are the co heads of the foundation, which I'll get to in a second as well. So you have the, the frankly I think they're the two largest, I think DTC is the largest CSD provider in the world and Euroclear is definitely top three if not. And so you just have access to that component. You have Nasdaq trade webs, you have electronic execution, you have an equity exchange that are involved in the ecosystem and that's all kind of in the tradfi landscape. And then you go over to the crypto side and you can look at who's involved on that. You have circles, you have stablecoins, you have infrastructure providers, you have custodians and the list goes on and on. So it's intentionally gone after kind of a well rounded suite of counterparties to then get them involved and excited about the ecosystem. But you have to build it in a way that meets their standards. And I think that's very important to understand as we go through. So we talked about, you know, privacy and why that's important and that's one key feature. The other one I would say is kind of a governance structure. If you want something that's really institutional grade, so to speak, to attract these and many of these firms, if not all, are all very heavily regulated. And so you need to make sure that you're compliant with them and the workflows are compliant with them. And so that was another component of the foundation that was created that's independent of, you know, digital asset, who is the creator of Canton. And it has co found co board of DTC and Euroclear. It gives it that credibility that it's not unilaterally, you're not going to have a rug pull and, and it gives you that kind of trust factor, that stamp of approval Sophistication on top of it which will get those partnerships to happen. And then the third I'll I'll say is the tokenomics element of it which I think makes it unique from many other coins and blockchains out there where you have even from its infancy stages where you didn't have a pre mine where it was just kind of feeding the founders or those that were early on pockets associated with it, even taking it into how there was structured from a digital asset treasury. We were very conscious and trim the fat and very cost effective in our cost of startup and we are running our firm that way. So I'm an operator, I'm running our company intentionally thin to increase value to shareholders and others may have had a little bit different structure that definitely weighs on some of the upside revenue from that. And I think that's important to understand how that attracts interest from those firms and gives that stability that gives them to go through their process and their board and their regulatory approval that needs to happen.
B
So you're seeing all of this, I mean there's a lot to digest there but you're seeing kind of all of this happen. The three different catalysts and reasons that you're talking about and thereamune wasn't always solely focused as a Canton treasury or in support of the Canton ecosystem. You know what was kind of the turning point for you to say hey, you know this needs to be a major focus moving forward and why did you make that decision?
C
Yeah, so I was previously a COO and partner at DRW and from digital assets roots of, you know Yuval working at DRW was involved in kind of Canton for last several years. And what really excited me personally and motivated me was I saw this once in a lifetime type opportunity where you were able to transform something and if you look at people are motivated by different things. For me, what I loved about my time at Citadel and DRW was always kind of thinking about how can we do things better, how can we innovate. And obviously that is in crypto's DNA as well is the innovation is just non stop and constantly innovates. Every day it's something different. And that's what motivated me personally and I saw this as this inflection point where we now have momentum of regulatory clarity on some of these things. This, this kind of tailwind where previously was a headwind and this kind of moment to be able to actually make a difference and actually not talk about things. I think that's one of the other negative components you, you mentioned about like partnerships, people talk about all these things, but they're not actually there. So it's a lot of conversation versus, like, actual execution. And that's where, like myself, I think of the way that I manage and do things. I'm an operator. We're very focused on execution and delivering those results. And so I think that's what I would also like to get across is like, this is actually happening now. And that's the. The beauty of Canton, which. Which very much excites me is because these partnerships are actually doing activity, and it's not something that was, you know, discussed for five years. These are things that are happening real time and much faster than anyone anticipating states.
B
Yeah. And, you know, I think going back to Ethereum in digital asset treasuries, DATs as a whole, you know, 2025, exploding left and right all over the place. Yes. So many of them came out. And the misconception with some DATs, all they do is they buy the asset and that's it. And then they sit there and that's the sole goal. How should people think about theramune beyond that? Beyond just being someone who buys Canton and holds it?
C
Yeah. So what I describe that trade is the kind of capital markets flywheel, which is you buy coin, hold that coin, accumulate that coin, it grows in value, sell shares, use capital markets to kind of fund those purchases, which is a feature. But that's not the sole purpose. Our sole purpose is to grow the ecosystem and generate yield and cash flow for our investors. And the way that Canton's structured with super validator and the way that rewards are distributed, there's an opportunity to generate yield for our shareholders through that mechanism. So like I said, last week it was announced we became a super validator, which allows us to generate that yield. We can also build apps. We can form partnerships with firms that already have apps, we can buy apps, we can invest in firms that are building apps, and it's about growing that ecosystem. So we have a pretty broad mandate about how we can generate value to shareholders, but also help grow the network. So our alignment is growth in the network and how do we come up with use cases? And again, going back to my plumbing days, how do I take that kind of understanding of how things flow to actual use cases that can be built up on top of Canton? I said this to someone else the other day is like every day I go through be like, if that was on top of a smart contract, and I'm not just talking about Canton, but if that was on top of a smart contract that would generate true economic yield to the users that would be doing that activity. Whether that means headcount reduction or less financing costs, less friction, less support, less cost to the system ultimately means greater revenue generating to the owners of that users, etc. And so that's where I think is really exciting.
B
Yeah. And one of the other big areas is this area of tokenization which I know the listeners immediately the ears are perking up. We've said the Buzzword tokenization in RWAs such a hot topic. I mean we make the joke that everyone that comes on brings it up in some fashion. It's constantly being talked about, but it's because it seems to be where so much of the attention is. And when we say attention, it's not like it's just the people inside of crypto saying tokenization, tokenization crying for it to become a reality. It's. It's happening, it is happening behind the scenes. I mean I have gone through reports from Citi, from JP Morgan, from Bank of America, from BlackRock, from. I mean the list goes on. I mean everyone that's big is talking about this. It's already started happening and Canton kind of doubles down on that idea and implementing it. So can you talk about the tokenization side of things and what's going on over there?
C
Sure, yeah. So I maybe we should take a poll. Which one's the bigger buzzword? AI tokenization or 247 trading? Because it's like everywhere you go you got to run into one of the three. But tokenization definitely is a key component. And again I think where you want to go after there was obviously the NYSE was one of the latest announcements that came through a couple weeks ago about their plans to tokenize equities and so forth. And I think it has tremendous momentum. It's. You're actually seeing real activity go on in getting like take DTC's announcement and even before they announced that they got the no action letter from the SEC in order to do that. Those are all kind of steps that in the past would have taken many, many years to be able to do it. It's happening real time. But what is the requirement of tokenizing? What does it do? It allows to things move more freely which again goes back to reduces funding friction in the system. So you think about collateral mobility because that kind of goes hand in hand with tokenization in order to move things real time, whether that be stables and there's many different ways. It doesn't have to be one size fits all. That's the other beauty of this is I view it should be multiple different ways, access points to how to do this. It allows things to move more freely, which reduces the cost of transacting, is the end result. And I think, again, it has to be done in a compliant way with that market or that market structure. Whether you're talking about U.S. treasuries or whether you talk about the equity market, there's lots of rules and regulations that those firms and participants have to. To abide by. And so the rails that we're building, the tokenized aspect of it needs to be done in a compliant way.
B
And so that's where Canton comes in here. Is it saying, exactly, we have already done this. Let's make it easy on you, Let us make it easy on you.
C
Right, exactly. And it goes back to the same kind of fundamentals it was built around. This is the end goal. And so we wanted to focus on this market. And so we built a product that that achieves those. And we haven't obviously done everything perfectly, but we have focused on trying to achieve that. We've gone out from even the partnership side, like I said, trying to get that broad ecosystem. We've done this over a number of years. We've learned from other people's mistakes around it, but it's really focused on trying to do this conversion and meeting the needs of those use cases.
B
You know, the way that I look at it is we've seen some people get a little bit frustrated and say, hey, you know, we've heard this term tokenization for a year, two years, three years now, and there's some sort of frustration with maybe how fast it's moved. What I would say and the way that I look at this is that up until this point, it has been all focused about building the infrastructure for which the tokenization can actually happen and how it can actually be a reality from the way that I view it. And again, I want you to kind of, you're more knowledgeable in this stuff than I am when it comes to that. It feels as if we are starting to be in the later stages of laying the infrastructure, setting the foundation, and we're starting to move into the next phase or stage which is actually getting these companies on board, having them use it, and, you know, maybe probably feeling the impacts. I would say, you know, maybe I'm biased, but I would say it's in a good way. And so that's what I would view is, again, up until this point, yeah, has there been a lot of tokenization stuff? Yes, but it's been focused on setting the stage, building the infrastructure, laying the foundation. And now we're transitioning into this onboarding phase and getting them operational and getting the use cases. Is that an accurate way of looking at things?
C
Yes. I would just take it a little bit, say it slightly different in the fact that it's also a lot of the tokenization and things that have been built have been more, more wrappers around it versus going up the chain which we're not all the way there yet even if you look at dtc. But it's further up the chain and natively more issued on chain, taking it directly to the company that issues an equity in stock versus a wrapper of a lookalike if you will, tokenized equity that sits elsewhere. And so you know that's the kind of goal is to continue to get to that. Eventually maybe you could see a world where U.S. treasury is from, the United States treasury is actually issued on trade. Who knows, maybe that will happen. But it's again where we focused on before was what we could control and now we're actually targeting more up the stream at the very start of it and getting that flow through which again is a healthier ecosystem. You take less friction around that, you take less risk associated with it in the ecosystem around it. Again going back to redundancy and resiliency through all market times. That's the structure you want to build. And I think that's also important of what we're building now is we're actually taking it at the point of inflection up the stream versus down the stream of like a lookalike or a wrapper on top of it.
B
And I think I've seen you have a quote here recently where you're saying we're somewhere between two and five years away from near complete tokenization of real world assets. It's a fast timeline. You know, thinking hey, by the end of this decade, by 2030 we, it sounds like we could very well be there. Walk us through your thoughts behind that and then also like the impact that that would have.
C
Yeah, again if you look at the players like DTCC, the size that they have, they have 30. There's 30 trillion US treasuries that I think are, are on deposit through them in 70 trillion is, is equities. And I think them piloting the U.S. treasuries now this, this first half of 2026, I think the plan is that they're going to go down the line of their other asset classes, equities, etcetera. I don't know which one's next, but I would infer that equities is a likely choice as well. And I think it's going to happen much sooner than what others have anticipated because this first step of introducing them, getting that announced, getting the regulators to opine on that years ago would have been a 10 year process that happened within a year. And so I think it's very important to understand like this is actually taking off and you look at the institutions that are involved now and actually building on it, you're seeing, you know, just looking at Canton transactions, we're nearing like a million transactions a day I think is the close transaction number. So it's, it's continues to grow and you know, I'm excited to see how it's going to evolve but I think once you get some of those dominoes to fall, it's going to be large amounts of activity going on.
B
Gene, you know, we talked a lot about the institutional side of Canton. How do you see Canton maybe impacting the retail side? I mean, I guess it's kind of a self answering question where it's saying hey, by helping and catering to the institutional side it'll directly affect the retail side. Is there any kind of more direct retail focus as opposed to indirect?
C
So I think like if you get better execution, ultimately that and less friction in that, that ultimately benefits the retail side. And I think it's important to have a well rounded ecosystem that's not just only on institutional and retail. So there's a focus to make sure that we are going after and solving for all of those investor types and I think about even, you know, theramune and a publicly traded equity as a use case where if you're. The parallel I always draw is if you want to own a U.S. treasury bond, investors have different appetite, different objective, different goals, different constraints. And so some investors may want to buy the treasury bond, some may trade a future because it has tax characteristics, etc. Or you may want to trade an interest rate swap. And I view the same applies for, you know, Canton Coin and Canton exposure, if you will. You could buy, you know, Canton Coin or you could buy a publicly traded stock and they have different profiles, they have different objectives and different timelines that need to apply to each investor and what their goals are.
B
Yeah, and one of the things that stood out to me about Canton is that the tokenomic structure was a lot more unique. I think one of the frustrating things that the average investor has had to go through in recent years is going in Getting a hold of these projects, seeing massive inflation, VC lockups that wipe them out, founders wiping them out with their own supply, with their own supplies. And Canton was a little bit different. Right. There was, there was no, no VC lockups, no founder tokens. And it was fair launched, making it a little bit more, I mean, not to be redundant, but a little bit more fair and I think appealing to investors.
C
Yeah, again, it goes to the mindset of who you're going after. You need to make sure that you are, you know, not playing necessarily the games like I use the concept. This is a marathon, not a sprint. So some of the, the crypto trades have been more about momentum and things like that. And that's not what we're after. We're about actually changing the infrastructure that financial markets sit on today. And you can't do some of those things. It's about creating the right ecosystem and the right market structure that will withstand the time. And so if you do shortcuts or things to kind of pad your pockets or things like that, you lose that trust. And that's, that's very much a key component if you're trying to go after this segment of the market 100%.
B
So over the next few years, I guess what milestones do you think listeners should watch to know whether Canton's vision is truly taking hold?
C
So you can look at like the number of transactions, the number of real world assets that continue to go on. I'm sure it won't be a secret when kind of some of those pilot transactions come into reality and you start seeing that in scale. But I think those are the key components. And I think it's also just important to note, like Canton's, what's solved for today? I don't think it's a, you know, everything has to be on top of Canton. I think that would actually be a bad outcome if all market dependency was one on one chain for financial markets. So I'm sure there will be other chains that kind of solve for it. Canton's just the one that solved for it today. So I welcome competition. I welcome that opportunity to kind of go back because that's what actually builds a stronger ecosystem. Competitive nature is good. And so I think that's also something that I want to make sure is clear. It's an interesting time as this innovation is actually deployed and you will see what ends up happening over the next year. I think it's going to be exciting opportunity.
B
You kind of led me right in my next question, but what do you, what do you Think for the next year. I mean, we have been on a roller coaster for the last year. Skyrocketing up after the election, rallying into 2025, falling down into the tariff crash, going back to new all time highs for the crypto market. Coming back down in here. I mean it has been left right up, down, you name it. What do you think's in store for this year? What do people need to be looking out for? And is there anything that is kind of catching your attention or exciting you?
C
Yeah, I mean, I think there's the dynamic of the roller coaster of the crypto market versus the underlying technology and those all often get very blurred. And so I think the adoption of the technology in financial markets like the cat's out of the bag, I don't think you can, you can put it back in the bag or the genie's out of the bottle, you can't put it back in the bottle. I think that's going to continue to happen and I think, you know, there will be some things that need to be worked out. I think one of the, you know, after you go after the sector and getting them comfortable of tokenization and things like that, security is a component that needs go through and make sure everyone's comfortable and understanding why it's okay to put these assets on chain. You know, another one that I think is, is important is, you know, as blockchains have their certain, you know, MEVs and things like that that need to be worked out as well. Those are challenges that need to be worked out. So I'm not sure if you're familiar with MEV or Navajo maximum extractable value. And that is something that needs to I think eventually change if you want to move some of these assets on top of certain chains. And that's just like the order routing that goes through where you shouldn't get preferential treatment around when those orders are placed. You can't necessarily pay someone to match your orders ahead of someone else. That's called front running in many other markets. And so those are things that need to be worked out as you try to continue to, to build things through. And I think, you know, there will be changes that will come into place around that and we're excited to see where it goes.
B
Well, we're excited as well, I mean lots to pay attention here, not only with Theoremune, but with Canton obviously. And so we appreciate you coming on, shining some light, talking about why you are backing this and what you're seeing. And it's always good to see someone who has so much experience in the financial space, space and, you know, different tech sectors and all these things and give their perspective because everyone's brain operates differently and it's cool to be able to see what different people, especially experienced people think and why they're interested and what they're looking at and even like what you just said, like how to actually kind of measure success and what to track along and why it matters. And so I know I've truly found it just fascinating. I know the listeners probably ate it up as well. And that's one of the goals of here is, you know, we want to talk about what's happening in crypto. We want to talk about all the big projects and we want to talk about all the big things. And Canton, Canton, as it's, you know, blowing up, it's becoming one of those, you know, six and a half billion in market cap and there's all these different things going on and all these big names. And so, you know, it kind of felt like a crime to not, you know, take a look at this thing which, which has just taken the crypto space by storm here. And man, we're going to be following it. We're going to be following everything. And so as the landscape continues to evolve, you'll have to keep us posted. And Mark, we appreciate your time. Where can people track and find like what you're doing and what their immune is doing and everything else on socials or websites or whatever you prefer.
C
So the best place there, immune.com you can go there. That's our web address. And then you can also follow me on LinkedIn. There mean also on LinkedIn as well. Those are the best places there. Mean also has an X handle as well. Awesome.
B
Well, Mark, once again, thank you so much for joining us.
C
Thank you. Pleasure having you. Thanks.
D
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Hosts: Bryce Paul & Brendan Viehman
Guest: Mark Wendland, CEO of TheraMune
Release Date: March 5, 2026
In this episode, Bryce and Brendan welcome Mark Wendland, CEO of TheraMune, for a comprehensive exploration of the Canton Network—a next-generation blockchain infrastructure drawing major attention from institutional giants. The discussion covers the network’s vision for transforming traditional financial markets, its unique approach to privacy and compliance, the significance of tokenization, and the practical steps being taken toward mass adoption. With Canton’s rapid growth and impressive backing, the conversation aims to provide retail investors with insights to evaluate where the future of financial blockchains is heading and why Canton is in the spotlight.
“It’s not always the most sexy business, but it’s important to understand that.” — Mark [03:48]
“We’re not just doing the capital raise, buy coin, sell shares... That’s not the only business model we have.” — Mark [05:46]
“It’s the right transparency for the right audience.” — Mark [09:37]
“If you want something that’s really institutional grade… you need to make sure you’re compliant.” — Mark [15:12]
“These partnerships are actually doing activity, and it’s not something that was… discussed for five years. These are things that are happening real time.” — Mark [19:31]
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint… If you do shortcuts… you lose that trust.” — Mark [34:42]
“Our alignment is growth in the network and how do we come up with use cases.” — Mark [21:58]
“It allows things to move more freely, which reduces the cost of transacting… And it’s happening real time.” — Mark [24:51]
“I think it’s going to happen much sooner than what others have anticipated.” — Mark [30:46]
“The adoption of the technology in financial markets, like, the cat’s out of the bag, I don’t think you can…put it back in the bag.” — Mark [37:21]
Mark on Privacy:
“I like to say it’s the right transparency for the right audience…if this type of transaction happened, this element…is completely transparent for the public. This part…for the regulators, or this part…to the institution.” [09:37]
On Tokenization Timeline:
“We’re somewhere between two and five years away from near complete tokenization of real world assets. …Once you get some of those dominoes to fall, it’s going to be large amounts of activity going on.” [30:20]
On Institutional Focus:
“If you want something that’s really institutional grade…to attract these…firms, you need to make sure you’re compliant with them.” [15:12]
On Trust:
“If you do shortcuts…pad your pockets…you lose that trust. That’s very much a key component if you’re trying to go after this segment of the market.” [34:42]
On the State of Tokenization:
“Up until this point, it has been all focused about building the infrastructure for which the tokenization can actually happen…now we’re transitioning into this onboarding phase.” — Brendan [27:37]
This episode delivers a deep technical and strategic dive into why Canton Network is drawing attention from global banks, how it’s reshaping financial market infrastructure, and what this means for both retail and institutional players. Mark Wendland offers rare operator-level insights around compliance, tech, partnerships, and timelines—positioning Canton as a front-runner in blockchain-based finance. Retail listeners are encouraged to keep an eye on actual usage and asset tokenization milestones to gauge the trajectory and real-world success of Canton’s vision.
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