Digital Asset, Builder of Privacy-Focused Blockchain Canton, Raises $135M

EMBARGO: 9.30 AM BST ON 24 JUNE Digital Asset, the builder of privacy-focused blockchain Canton Network, raised $135 million in a strategic funding round led by DRW Venture Capital and Tradeweb Markets, the companies said on Tuesday. The round also included a mix of big-name institutions from traditional finance and crypto, including BNP Paribas, Circle Ventures, Citadel Securities, Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Virtu Financial, Paxos and others. Privacy has been a key consideration for enterprise users of blockchains, particularly banks and big financial institutions, stretching back a decade or more. Digital Asset’s Canton Network has kept configurable privacy at its forefront, courting companies including Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon to test real word assets (RWAs) on the platform. “Everybody can connect to Canton, but if I wanted to issue an asset on Canton, I can decide what are the privacy settings of that asset,” CEO Yuval Rooz said in an interview. “So I can have an asset on Canton with no privacy. That would look like Ethereum. On the same network, I can have an asset with full privacy that you wouldn't even know exists. These can all coexist on the network, and I can even compose a transaction across these two types of asset.” The capital raise will expand the reach of RWAs onto Canton, which currently includes bonds, money market funds, alternative funds, commodities, repurchase agreements (repos), mortgages, life insurance and annuities. “Today, major players from crypto and traditional finance have joined Digital Asset on its mission to catalyze the next evolution in markets,” said Don Wilson, the founder and CEO of DRW in a statement. “With trillions of dollars’ worth of real-world assets already leveraging the Canton Blockchain, this next round of funding creates significant momentum for the company, and cements Canton as the de facto protocol for global collateral mobility.”