Digital Asset, a builder of the privacy-focused blockchain canton, raises $135 million

Embargo: June 24th at 9:30am BST

Digital Asset, the builder of the privacy-centric blockchain canton network, raised $135 million in a strategic funding round led by DRW venture capital and the Tradeweb market, the company said Tuesday.

The round also included a combination of traditional financial and crypto-famous institutions, including BNP Paribas, Circle Venture, Citadel Securities, Deposit Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Virtu Financial, Paxos, and more.

Privacy is an important consideration for blockchain, particularly for business users of banks and major financial institutions, dating back over a decade. Digital Asset’s Canton Network maintains configurable privacy at the forefront and maintains Courting Company to test courtship companies such as Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon on the platform.

“Everyone can connect to a canton, but if you want to issue an asset in a canton, you can decide what the privacy settings for that asset are,” CEO Yuval Rooz said in an interview. “So I can have assets in a canton with no privacy. It looks like Ethereum. In the same network, you can have assets with full privacy that you don’t even know exist. All of these can coexist on the network.

Capital Raising will expand the RWA range to Cantons. This currently includes bonds, money market funds, alternative funds, products, repurchase agreements (repositories), mortgages, life insurance and pensions.

“Today, key players at Crypto and Traditional Finance have joined digital assets on their mission to catalyze the next evolution of the market,” said Don Wilson, founder and CEO of DRW. “With trillion dollars of real-world assets already harnessing the Canton blockchain, this next funding will generate significant momentum for the company and strengthen Canton as a de facto protocol for global collateral mobility.”