What is the Canton Network?

Canton is a privacy-preserving blockchain network purpose-built for regulated financial institutions. Unlike other public blockchains, Canton enables banks, custodians, and exchanges to settle and custody digital assets while maintaining regulatory compliance and transaction privacy.

Key characteristics

• Privacy-first architecture: Transaction data is visible only to participating parties, with no global state
• Institutional focus: Designed for regulated entities with configurable permissions
• Validator whitelisting: Canton Foundation maintains a controlled validator node network
• Interoperable design: Enables secure communication between different financial applications

For more information, visit the Canton Network documentation.

Canton Assets

Canton Coin (CC)

The Canton Network native token, CC, serves multiple network functions:

• Application incentives: Rewards apps that generate on-chain activity and fees on the Global Synchronizer
• Synchronization fees: Network capacity payments are denominated in CC
• Infrastructure rewards: Super-validators earn CC for providing global ordering services and validating CC transactions
• Validator rewards: Standard validators earn CC for validating transactions and maintaining the network alive

Canton token standard (CIP-0056)

Canton supports standardized tokens, including USDC and USYC. Token support is available via UI and API.

Canton Coin Block Explorers

Mainnet:

• ccview.io 
• ccexplorer.io
• lighthouse.cantonloop.com
• cantonscan.com

Testnet:

• testnet.ccview.io
• testnet.ccexplorer.io
• lighthouse.testnet.cantonloop.com

Token block explorers

Public explorers for Canton tokens are not yet available. They may be developed by Digital Asset in the future.

Technical architecture

Data model

Canton uses a UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) model where every asset holding is represented as an independent object, similar to Bitcoin's transaction structure.

Fee model

Transaction fees are calculated in constant USD value, with the equivalent Canton Coin amount automatically derived at execution time. This provides predictable fee costs regardless of CC price fluctuations.

Currently, explicit operations on the UTXO level are not supported, but we are considering it for a later phase. 

See the Canton fee model documentation for details.

Deterministic finality

Canton provides immediate transaction finality. Once a transaction is processed, it cannot be reversed. Fireblocks sets the confirmation policy to 1 confirmation, ensuring instant asset availability after transaction completion.

Transaction Size Limitation

Canton enforces a protocol-level limit of 100 UTXOs (“Contracts”) per transaction. Each transfer consumes input UTXOs, meaning that a wallet fragmented across more than 100 UTXOs cannot aggregate its entire balance into a single transaction. Fireblocks will introduce improved visibility into the maximum spendable balance, calculated based on the current UTXO composition of the wallet. 

Canton on Fireblocks

Wallet creation and management

Party ID creation

Canton wallets (called Party IDs) require on-chain activation funded by Canton Coin. Since activation is an on-chain transaction, user signing is required.

Wallet activation must take place before receiving the first incoming transaction. Receiving an incoming transaction, for example in the case of a V2V transaction, will not work before creating the Canton wallet in the vault.

Creating a new Canton wallet in your vault account follows the same flow as on other blockchains. The Canton wallet registration and activation are handled automatically, and there is no unique action you need to take to trigger it

Memo-based addressing

Fireblocks implements memo-based addresses (similar to Cosmos, Stellar, and XRP) to support multiple accounts. Due to Canton's architecture, there is a limit to the number of wallets created, which is currently set to 20 wallets. 

Fireblocks gives the ability to generate wallets with an unlimited number of memos.

Fees

On Canton, transaction fees are covered by the validator rather than the sender. Fireblocks will pay the fees for outgoing transactions through our Canton validators, which means that you will currently see a fee of zero. We plan to introduce billing for outgoing transaction fees in the near future, and will provide advance notice before this change takes effect.

Canton Validator Nodes

Validator Requirements

Every Canton wallet must be registered to one or more dedicated validator nodes. These nodes store encrypted wallet data and manage network communications.

Fireblocks infrastructure

Fireblocks operates multiple in-house Canton validator nodes for scalability and resilience. All wallets created on Fireblocks are automatically assigned to Fireblocks-managed nodes.

Transaction hash structure

Canton handles complex operations as multiple on-chain transactions. For example, a single transfer may generate:

• An Offer transaction
• An Approved transaction

Fireblocks representation

Fireblocks consolidates these into a single Fireblocks transaction for user clarity. All related Canton transaction hashes are available in the blockchainInfo object via the Fireblocks API and UI.

See the API documentation for implementation details.

The primary transaction hash we expose is the PreparedTransactionHash, which cannot be traced on the explorer. The traceable hashes are provided via API, and are available in the blockchainInfo object mentioned above.

In the UI, the traceable transaction hash (pre-approval update ID) is also displayed as part of the transaction details, in the active side-panel, under the Transaction hash field. You can view the transaction in the block explorer by selecting the Show in block explorer option.

Transaction timeout

Supported capabilities 

Assets

• Canton Coin (CC): native token
• Canton tokens (CIP-0056): USDC, USYC, and additional standard tokens, addable via UI and API

Operations

• Create Canton wallets
• Receive Canton Coin
• Transfer Canton Coin
• Secure custody via Fireblocks MPC

Infrastructure

• Fireblocks-managed validator nodes
• 1-confirmation finality
• Automatic pre-approval for deposits

Network access

• Mainnet support

Disaster Recovery Service (DRS)

On Creation, Canton wallets need to be registered to a specific node. Nevertheless, the Canton Network does provide the ability to fully recover a wallet state on any other node, post wallet creation, for the native Canton coin (CC). For detailed recovery instructions, see Recover Canton Coin (CC).

Current Status: Recovery tools for additional assets are under development by Digital Asset, with expected availability in 2026.

Coming Soon

Two-step transactions

The ability to explicitly approve receiving an incoming transaction.

Canton testnet support

Testnet will be integrated.

Canton on Fireblocks recovery tool

Canton will be added to our recovery tool offering. 

Bring Your Own Validator

You will have the option to use your own Canton node, either self-hosted, or Fireblocks-managed.