In brief
- Two years ago, big public firms backed Digital Asset’s Canton Network.
- The project, a blockchain for institutions, just raised $135 million.
- DRW Venture Capital and Tradeweb Markets led the funding round, while other fintech and Wall Street giants contributed.
Digital Asset, the firm behind institutional blockchain Canton Network, has raised $135 million, the company announced on Tuesday.
The strategic funding round was co-led by DRW and Tradeweb Markets, while Wall Street and fintech firms Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Circle Ventures, Paxos, Polychain Capital, and QCP also participated.Â
Digital Asset will use the cash to “accelerate institutional and decentralized finance adoption on the Canton Network,” the announcement read.Â
Digital Asset co-founder and CEO Yuval Rooz said: “Canton is already actively supporting numerous asset classes—from bonds to alternative funds—and this raise will accelerate onboarding even more real-world assets, finally making blockchain’s transformative promise an institutional-scale reality.”
Goldman Sachs’ Global Head of Digital Assets Mathew McDermott added that the bank has a “deep conviction in the strength” of digital assets.Â
“By allowing institutions to tailor privacy settings to their specific needs, Canton overcomes the primary barrier to blockchain adoption: the conflict between transparency and financial confidentiality,” Digital Asset said in its statement.Â
“As the first comprehensive solution of its kind, Canton bridges the gap between blockchain innovation and real-world financial compliance.”
Canton Network is a blockchain designed to streamline financial markets, enabling major financial institutions to accelerate transactions while reducing risk.Â
Top financial firms including Deloitte, S&P Global, and Moody’s all backed its start in 2023.Â
Tuesday’s announcement added that real world assets like bonds, money market funds and commodities will all be integrated onto the Canton Network with the raise. Â
Major financial institutions—most notably BlackRock—are interested in tokenizing assets. Investors have for years been calling for securities and commodities to be put on the blockchain so that they can be traded 24-7 in a tokenized form.Â
BUIDL is the BlackRock’s first tokenized fund issued on a public blockchain. It debuted on the Ethereum network in March 2024.
Edited by James Rubin
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