Canton Network Says Institutional Blockchain Adoption Has Begun as Finance Faces Connectivity Challenge

"Over the past few years, blockchain was in the stage of proving what it could do. Now it has moved into real-world implementation and operation. The market's core challenge is no longer the technology itself, but how to connect different financial systems."

Thomas Chow, head of growth for Asia-Pacific at the Canton Foundation, made the remarks at OFF 2026, or On-chain Finance Forum 2026, held at FKI Tower in Seoul's Yeouido district on May 15.

Chow said institutional investors' stance has shifted quickly. In the past, most discussions centered on explaining what blockchain is. Now the focus has moved to how it can actually be adopted and implemented.

More discussions now involve multiple departments, including treasury, operations and marketing, showing blockchain is moving beyond the experimental stage and becoming part of core business infrastructure.

Canton Network is an enterprise blockchain infrastructure built around that institutional demand. Since its official launch in 2024, major financial institutions including DTCC, Broadridge and JPMorgan have joined the network. It is currently processing more than 1 million transactions a day and about $9 trillion in monthly settlement volume. On a cumulative basis, roughly $60 trillion of transactions have been processed on-chain, with more than 700 institutions participating.

Chow described institutional-grade privacy as Canton Network's key differentiator. Participants can set disclosure parameters at the transaction level, allowing only necessary information to be shared selectively with counterparties and regulators. A structure that satisfies both transparency and privacy is a core requirement for institutional adoption, he said.

He also highlighted the network's atomic settlement function, which allows assets and cash to settle simultaneously. That enables real-time financial transactions.

Chow said the blockchain industry has entered a new phase. In its early stage, crypto trading and stablecoins proved that value could be transferred on-chain. More recently, tokenization has expanded that use case into capital markets. But the market remains fragmented because different systems are still poorly connected.

Assets may be tokenized, but liquidity, regulation and settlement systems remain separate, creating inefficiencies, he said. The next key task is not tokenization itself, but building a coordination layer that connects those systems.

Changes in the policy environment are also an important variable. Regulators in multiple countries are actively building frameworks, while banks and market infrastructure providers are moving beyond pilot programs and into live operations. Technological maturity and policy conditions are beginning to align, he said.

Canton Network is already being used in financial infrastructure. DTCC is operating a same-day settlement system for U.S. Treasuries and equities. JPMorgan is issuing its own digital asset for inter-institutional settlement. HSBC is also handling digital bond issuance and settlement on Canton Network.

Chow also stressed the importance of Asian markets. South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore all have different regulatory environments. But they are ultimately trying to solve the same problem: how to connect different systems.

In South Korea in particular, the scope for adopting on-chain finance is expanding quickly as the country refines rules for tokenized securities and stablecoins.

"Financial infrastructure is no longer evolving as a collection of standalone networks, but as an interconnected structure," Chow said. "Blockchain will not replace existing systems. It will connect and extend them."