Canton Network Embraces Maestro’s Bitcoin DeFi Infrastructure To Bring TradFi Capital On-Chain

Institutional blockchain platform Canton Network said today it’s welcoming the Bitcoin DeFi infrastructure startup Maestro into its validator set, accelerating the momentum of one of the crypto industry’s fastest-growing on-chain ecosystems. 

It’s an important move because Maestro’s presence as a validator will not only strengthen Canton’s decentralization and security. It’s also going to bolster the network with its own, Bitcoin-focused infrastructure, enabling greater functionality and interoperability for traditional financial institutions as they explore the potential of digital assets. 

Having recently secured $135 million in funding from investors such as DRW Venture Capital, Tradeweb Markets, and other prominent backers, Canton Network has been making good progress in its efforts to bridge the gap between traditional and digital finance. 

It’s the creator of a scalable and interoperable Layer-1 blockchain that boasts institutional-grade privacy, paired with built-in compliance and programmability. Canton’s blockchain is designed for secure real-time synchronization and settlement across multiple asset classes on a shared, interoperable, and compliant ledger, making it the ideal foundation for anyone looking to bring regulated assets and data on-chain. 

Enhancing DeFi on Canton

The addition of Maestro means Canton now boasts 247 active validator nodes, which, unlike other blockchains, only participate in transactions they’re directly involved in. Of these, 26 have been designated as “super validators” and given additional responsibilities, including managing atomic settlements across its application ecosystem through its novel Global Synchronizer. 

Maestro is the creator of powerful, highly customizable blockchain infrastructure, including scalable application programming interfaces, data services, and indexing solutions that provide enhanced capabilities to developers building Bitcoin-native DeFi applications. Given Canton’s own ambitions to support Bitcoin-based DeFi, Maestro is expected to prove an invaluable partner.

It’s joining as an “application-specific validator”, which means it will be tasked with securing a select number of popular decentralized applications on Canton – BitWave, The Tie, Proof Group, IntellectEUI, BitSafe, and Hydra X. These apps span multiple use cases, from Bitcoin yield to tokenized securities, and liquidity rails to compliance reporting. 

In particular, Maestro’s infrastructure will enhance the performance of these dApps, ensuring they can operate with the speed and efficiency demanded by capital markets. “The infrastructure provided by Maestro… will be instrumental in supporting the growing applications in our ecosystem,” said Canton Network’s executive director, Melvis Langyintuo. 

Incentivized Application Development

Canton Network is distinguished from other L1 blockchains in various ways. Along with its privacy-first, complaint design, it also provides strong incentives that are designed to attract and ensure institutions remain a part of its ecosystem for the long term. 

It does this with rewards in the shape of Canton Coin, its native token. Unlike most digital assets, the CC token underwent a “fair launch”, with no presale or allocations to early investors. Each token in circulation has been earned directly by either validators or the applications running on its platform. 

Canton’s validators receive CC for processing transactions and securing the network, while apps earn rewards for expanding the network’s utility, based on their contribution. So the more users an app has, the more it can earn. The system is designed to disincentivize protocol migration, where app developers abandon the original blockchain they built on in favor of their own, application-specific chain.

The primary motivation for this is financial. By creating their own network, they can capture more of the rewards. Canton ensures app developers are fairly rewarded from the get-go, so there’s less temptation to migrate. 

These rewards can be significant, with Canton Network paying out more than 30 billion CC to date, while burning over 450 million CC to help sustain the token’s value. Among the biggest earners are Hydra X, which has so far generated 21.94 million CC in rewards, and Proof Group, with 18.81 million CC. As for the validator set, Digital Asset, the developer of Canton, leads the way with 27.6 million CC earned so far. 

Institutional Money Flows On-Chain

It’s an intriguing model that appears to be working far better than anyone had expected, for Canton Network has quietly emerged as one of the most popular blockchains for traditional financial institutions seeking compliant and secure on-chain rails. 

More than 400 organizations, including nine of the world’s top ten biggest global investment banks, are running applications on Canton, including Circle, DTCC, Goldman Sachs, and EuroClear. These applications span global settlements, collateral management, and asset tokenization. 

Maestro joins an illustrious group of names that includes Binance, Bank of America, Mastercard, Nasdaq, Citadel, Galaxy Digital, and BitGo, but it’s the first to bring such a finely-tuned infrastructure platform that’s perfectly suited for the kinds of applications designed to run on Canton. 

What People are Saying

Maestro co-founder and Chief Executive Marvin Bertin said he believes his company and Canton can help each other to grow and accelerate the adoption of digital assets among financial institutions.

“We’re proud to join the Canton Network as a validator,” he added. “This partnership reflects our commitment to helping institutions adopt blockchain technology and upgrade the traditional financial rails with secure, compliant infrastructure.”

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