Canton Bags $355M From Abu Dhabi, a16z, and a Who's-Who of Wall Street's Loudest Blockchain Skeptics 💼

Digital Asset, the firm behind the Canton Network, has closed a $355 million funding round backed by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority through a wholly owned subsidiary, the company said Thursday. The round was led by a16z crypto, with additional participation from Citadel Securities, CME Ventures, S&P Global, William Blair, Hanwha Investment & Securities, BNP Paribas, HSBC, ABN Amro, and Coinbase Ventures, drawing together sovereign wealth capital, global investment banks, and crypto-native investors from South Korea to the Netherlands.

Canton, a public, permissioned blockchain launched nearly two years ago, is designed to connect institutional systems through a "network of networks" architecture that lets participants retain control over assets and data while interoperating with a broader ecosystem. The company said the network has grown to more than 700 ecosystem participants since its debut, and that the new capital will support expansion of real-world asset (RWA) applications, including bonds, equities, and commodities.

Canton's native token was trading around 16 cents at publication time, up 12.3% over the past week, according to CoinGecko. The digital asset reached an all-time high of 19 cents in February.

"Blockchain adoption will be defined by practical, production-grade applications in the world's largest markets," Digital Asset CEO Yuval Rooz said in a statement. "For capital markets to move on-chain, institutions need infrastructure that reflects how they actually operate."

Rooz has separately pointed to Canton's privacy and compliance features as a draw for financial institutions weighing concerns about hacking threats, including those linked to North Korean groups. Not all observers are persuaded; TD analyst Lance Vitanzo and others have argued that because institutions retain complete control over assets on the network, Canton functions more as a "glorified database in the cloud" than a trustless, permissionless blockchain.