Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | jk

1. A Proposal Approved in Three Days

On March 20, 2026, Visa, a globally renowned payment service provider whose logo is found on most bank cards, submitted a governance proposal to Canton Network. According to a report by The Block, only three days later, the proposal was approved, and Visa officially became a super validator of Canton with the highest weight of 10 (Super Validator Weight 10). This marks the first time Visa has ever submitted a blockchain governance proposal.

In the crypto sphere, this might seem like yet another entry of traditional finance. However, if you understand well enough the legal and compliance processes within traditional institutions like Visa, you would find that getting approved in three days is rather unusual. Visa's compliance team must have submitted this document with the caution and seriousness characteristic of the traditional finance world, and securing the highest weight indicates that negotiations and due diligence must have been completed beforehand. The proposal visible to the public, should be the result of several months of collaboration between traditional finance and the crypto world.

Rubail Birwadker, Visa's Head of Global Growth Products and Strategic Partnerships, stated in a press release: "Many banks believe that the lack of privacy is the biggest barrier to transferring meaningful business onto the chain. By serving as a super validator for Canton Network, we are introducing Visa's level of trust, governance, and operational standards into this privacy-focused blockchain infrastructure, allowing regulated financial institutions to transition their payment operations onto the chain without disrupting existing processes."

It is clear that Visa's involvement is an acknowledgment of an already well-functioning institutional network, not a starting point.

Since 2017, in every market cycle, a group of traditional financial institutions has made a loud announcement to "explore blockchain," but very few have successfully transformed it into real business. This time, Visa chose to enter the governance layer of the blockchain, holding voting rights and participating in infrastructure decision-making. Eric Saraniecki, Head of Network Strategy at Digital Asset, one of the co-founders of Canton Network, stated: "Visa's involvement confirms that this technology has moved from the experimental stage to production readiness."

Curious about this collaboration, Odaily Planet Daily interviewed the Canton Network team. What led to this collaboration? And what made Canton, a long-dormant project, be chosen?

2. Not More Assets on the Chain, But Bringing the Market Itself onto the Chain

To understand why Canton attracted Visa, we need to first look at the core differences between Canton and other chains.

Ethereum and Solana address the questions of how to allow more participants and how to bring more assets onto the chain. Canton addresses the issue of how financial institutions can conduct business normally on the chain. While they may seem to focus on different aspects, when it comes to specific designs, the trade-offs are almost completely opposite.

The global transparency of Ethereum is an advantage for retail investors but an obstacle for institutions. For example, in a bank's foreign exchange trading department, if every transaction of buying and selling dollars or euros is visible in real-time, counterparties can adjust quotes based on this information, significantly increasing the bank's trading costs. If market makers' holdings and hedging operations are fully disclosed, competitors can engage in opposite operations, eliminating profit margins. The repo agreements between institutions involve each party's funding positions and collateral scale; if this data is leaked, it poses risks to the liquidity management of the entire institution. These restrictions are determined by basic business logic and have no direct relations to regulation.

Even if there is no connection between the addresses and the real-name institutions, the transparent transactions on the chain would change the logic of the entire secondary market. No traditional financial institutions want their transactions to be targeted, so designs like Ethereum and Hyperliquid are not optimal choices for large institutions.

Canton’s approach incorporates data visibility control into its design.

This approach embeds selective data disclosure into the protocol layer as a native design of L1, rather than relying on upper-layer applications to patch it. Specifically, only direct participants in a transaction can see transaction details, enabling verification without exposing any sensitive data. Two banks can conduct cross-border settlements on the same shared infrastructure, and this transaction is completely invisible to all unrelated parties. Competitors can interact on the same network without leaking their positions or strategies.

We also inquired about relevant technical details; Canton mentioned: “Canton separates the coordination layer (shared across the entire network) and data visibility (limited to participants) through isolated execution environments and selective synchronization. This allows institutions to trade securely, and competitors can interact without exposing their holdings or strategies. This is the mechanism that enables a true market, rather than just assets, to operate natively on the chain.”

Canton Network stated that the summary of this design logic is: data visibility control is foundational, not an added feature.

Thus, why does the list of Canton's validators resemble a gathering of old money: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, BNP Paribas, Citibank, Bank of America, DTCC, Nasdaq, Broadridge, Tradeweb... These institutions are involved because this infrastructure allows them to replicate the successes of traditional finance, thus liquidity will slowly flow in.

Canton's list of super validators

3. Born from Wall Street, Slow Work Results in Detail

Canton was created by Digital Asset Holdings, founded in 2014 by Blythe Masters. Blythe Masters was a star executive at JPMorgan and one of the key pioneers in the CDS field, with deep connections and industry endorsement on Wall Street. From day one, this company has not been focused on retail-oriented blockchain products; its target clients are financial institutions with real balance sheets that are strictly regulated and need to operate within legal frameworks.

In terms of background, we asked a pointed question: In 2023, we have seen the emergence of Canton; why has it only fully launched this year?

Canton's response is that slow work results in fine details.

The Wall Street background determines the rhythm of the entire project. Canton admitted in the interview that this chain has taken longer to reach today than other L1s because it has been addressing issues related to regulated financial systems, establishing institutional trust, and effectively accessing real business markets from the start.

This rhythm runs contrary to the mainstream narrative of Web3. Most public chains pursue rapid deployment, quick ecosystem expansions, and fast hype creation, with TGE widespread, followed by "the team is not actually sure.” Canton’s path has been step-by-step discussions: first securing DTCC, then Goldman Sachs, then JPMorgan, and finally Visa, bringing in real business through their endorsements.

2026 will be a turning point, not because of the project's promotion itself, nor because this round of crypto bear market starts reshuffling, but because, above the narrative, the infrastructure first truly meets institutional requirements: actual balance sheet activities operate on it. That is why now is the best time to pay attention to Canton Network.

“So how much business has been brought in?” we continued asking.

4. On-Chain Activities of Canton

Canton's current data is atypical in the entire blockchain industry, and the nature behind these figures is very different from most public chains. Currently, Canton Network's monthly processing volume exceeds $90 trillion, with daily transaction volumes amounting to hundreds of thousands, and the number of ecosystem participants has achieved exponential growth over the past three years. These figures correspond to traditional financial businesses: tokenized repos, treasury settlements, and cross-institution collateral movements. These are not inflated numbers, but real operations occurring on institutional balance sheets.

We also asked what the mainstream products on the chain are currently. At this point, there are a few flagship products:

JPM Coin from JPMorgan: In January 2026, JPMorgan's Kinexys department announced that it would natively deploy JPM Coin on Canton Network. Unlike USDT or USDC, JPM Coin is a deposit token that represents a direct claim on deposits at JPMorgan, operating under the existing banking regulatory framework. For instance, when two institutions settle a cross-border transaction using JPM Coin on Canton, it is essentially no different from what they would do in the traditional system, except that the settlement speed is significantly faster, and operational hours are no longer limited to weekdays. Kinexys’s daily average trading volume is between $2 to $3 billion, with a cumulative total exceeding $1.5 trillion since 2019, and this flow of funds will soon operate on Canton.

Tokenization of U.S. Treasuries by DTCC: In December 2025, the U.S. Securities Depository Institution DTCC announced a partnership with Digital Asset to plan to tokenize part of the U.S. Treasuries it custodies on Canton, with the goal of launching the first version under a controlled production environment in the first half of 2026, and then expanding based on market demand. DTCC is also co-chairing the Canton Foundation with Euroclear, directly participating in network governance.

DTCC processes securities transactions worth over $20 trillion annually and is the core of the entire U.S. capital market clearing and settlement system. To put it in a more intuitive analogy, DTCC's position in traditional finance is somewhat like that of the People's Bank; no one can deposit money there, but all stock and bond transactions must go through its backend. Traditional repo markets can only operate during business hours, and after Friday afternoons, one has to wait until Monday. However, on Canton, repo transactions can operate around the clock, using on-chain U.S. Treasuries as collateral, enabling real-time capital flows across institutions and time zones, even covering weekends.

So what will Visa do on Canton?

Canton described a core objective of atomic settlement in the interview: the buyer’s payment and the seller’s delivery of assets are completed simultaneously in the same operation, without needing to go through two steps or relying on intermediaries to connect. For example, currently, when an institution buys a batch of bonds, the transfer of assets and cash settlements are often two separate processes with time gaps, counterparty risks, and manual reconciliation costs. Canton aims to have these two events occur simultaneously, locked in one step, with no time difference. To achieve this, both the capital market infrastructure and payment infrastructure must operate on-chain. Canton already has a substantial layout on the capital market side, and Visa's involvement provides a real institutional anchor on the payment side.

In addition, it also includes real-time cross-border capital flows and embedding programmable logic into financial transactions, areas where blockchain excels.

Canton believes that 2026 is the cycle where infrastructure truly meets institutional requirements for the first time, and that is why institutions like Visa choose to engage with blockchain infrastructure now.

Other Use Cases Already Running

Tokenized repos are currently the most mature scenario. Repo agreements (Repo) are the most common short-term financing tool between financial institutions, simply put, it is when institution A sells bonds to institution B for cash, with an agreement to buy the bonds back a few days later. Traditionally, this process could only be completed within business hours, and there is a delay in fund availability. Tokenized repos on Canton have achieved 24/7 availability and immediate settlement, with several leading institutions completing cross-institution, weekend-inclusive repo transactions on Canton.

Collateral movements are also a scenario with actual demands. Large financial institutions often need to move collateral from one account or institution to another, for example, moving bonds held at A to B to meet margin requirements for a derivative transaction. Traditionally, this process takes days, during which the assets are locked and cannot be used for other purposes. Canton’s settlement model allows this to be completed almost in real-time.

Digital bond issuance is another area where Canton has an advantage. Canton mentioned in the interview that it currently holds more than half of the global digital bond issuance market. The reason is that Canton is able to provide a complete delivery versus payment (DvP), full bond lifecycle management, and multi-party coordination, allowing bonds to go through a complete closed loop on-chain from issuance to settlement, rather than just tokenizing the assets and then relying on off-chain processes to finalize everything.

Stablecoin settlements are a direction that is accelerating after Visa's involvement, aiming to enable stablecoin payments between institutions to be completed on the same compliant infrastructure with data visibility control, instead of navigating through public chains.

In simple terms, it doesn’t explicitly mention RWA, but every word speaks of the demand for RWA.

Canton also provided a rough judgment on the upcoming roadmap in the interview: In the medium term, corporate bonds, private credit, and trade financing will catch up; in the longer term, equities are also on this path. The logic from existing use cases to this roadmap is consistent; the stronger the liquidity and the more mature the regulatory framework of the asset class, the earlier it will move.

5. What Does the Token CC Represent?

For broader market participants, what exactly is the CC token is a question that cannot be avoided.

Canton's characterization in the interview is quite direct: CC is a “network utility asset,” its value anchored to the volume of real financial activities occurring on the network.

This means that the demand comes from actual usage, and the larger the transaction volume of institutions on Canton, the more CC is consumed by the network. The long-term drivers of the token include institutional trading flow, the scale of stablecoin settlements, the total volume of on-chain assets, and the depth of interoperability between Canton and other networks.

CC has a rather rare configuration in token distribution within the Web3 circle: zero pre-mining, zero team allocation, zero VC share, with all tokens entering the market through fair means. For institutional participants, this setup reduces concerns about “someone holding ultra-low-cost chips, ready to liquidate in the secondary market at any time,” ensuring the rules are transparent and equal for all participants.

For ordinary market participants, Canton exists more as backend infrastructure; their interaction with it is more likely through exchanges, wallets, or financial platforms, rather than directly interacting with the protocol. The improvements it brings, such as faster settlement speeds, tighter bid-ask spreads, and better financial products stemming from reduced operational costs, will gradually be transmitted to end users through product layers, rather than presented in a way that users can directly perceive.

6. Next Steps

Canton's 3 to 5-year goals, as mentioned in the interview, are not measured by on-chain TVL or token prices. From the specific goals listed by Canton, they aim for: stablecoins to become the standard means of settlement between institutions, just like SWIFT wire transfers are the current standard; major financial institutions, such as banks' loans, deposits, bond issuance, and product packaging, able to operate directly on-chain; cross-border capital no longer needing to go through traditional systems’ often lengthy settlement periods, instead flowing at near real-time speeds; and multiple asset classes achieving native issuance and settlement on Canton, rather than first issuing off-chain and then manually synchronizing information on-chain.

Canton describes itself in this state as “invisible”: At that time, Canton would just be one of the underlying protocols quietly driving the global financial system, like today’s TCP/IP for the internet or SWIFT for cross-border remittances, used by people who do not perceive its existence, yet nothing could move without it.

Of course, this path is still long. Regulation is highly fragmented across jurisdictions, and compliance in Europe is entirely different from that in Asia; integrating existing legacy systems is highly challenging, and banks cannot migrate core systems used for decades overnight; interoperability between different blockchain networks remains an unresolved technical issue; and the coordination required among institutions on the same infrastructure involves highly complex利益游戏. The Canton team did not shy away from these in the interview, telling us: Technical bottlenecks are no longer the biggest issue; how to truly scale on a global level is.

It can be seen that the transformation of financial infrastructure has never happened suddenly one day. SWIFT was established in 1973 and took nearly twenty years to become the true standard for cross-border settlements. People now using it do not often think about how it came to be. The position Canton occupies now is probably that stage where “no one yet realizes what it will become.” But for something that genuinely aspires to become infrastructure, being forgotten may actually be the hallmark of success.

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