Congratulations on your win at Global Custodian’s Leaders in Custody awards. What – for you – were the contributing factors behind the successful year that led to this award?
This award recognises the vision and commitment of our clients to make decentralised, sychronised finance a reality. We share it with the ecosystem of 30+ applications built with Daml and connected on Canton that are running in the market today and realising significant benefits. Our technology has enabled the issuance of $5 billion of real-world digital securities, 8x that of any public blockchain; processed $1.5 trillion of repo transactions monthly; brought $900 billion of syndicated loans onto the network, representing 75% of the US syndicated loan market; and reduced issuance times from days (or even months) to seconds.
Could you outline some of the main achievements and milestones from the year?
Our milestones reflect the notable achievements of the many clients whose applications went into production at the end of 2022 including Broadridge’s DLR Repo platform, Goldman Sachs DAPTM, and HSBC’s Orion platform. Each platform grew in 2023, both in terms of participation and asset flows. In addition, the Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX) launched Synapse, a settlement acceleration platform for Stock Connect, while six leading energy trading companies are pairing physical natural gas trades on Eleox’s DLT platform. These organisations each harnessed our technology to securely synchronise data and workflows across organizational boundaries and realise efficiencies not possible with traditional technologies.
Canton Network was our landmark development of 2023.
- May – Launched Canton Network with 30 market participants, the first public permissioned blockchain for regulated financial assets and markets.
- July – Launched TestNet, opening Canton Network to more experimentation and participation.
- December – Completed the largest industry pilot. The Canton Network pilot tested complex end-to-end post-trade workflows with market participants. 45 institutions and 350+ atomic transactions across 20+ independently controlled applications in real-time.
Canton Network responds to a growing industry need to deliver near-term efficiencies for the highest concentrations of tokenised assets while also facilitating new opportunities as more applications and liquidity are brought on-chain. It delivers against both: Canton Network has the highest number of live use cases of real-world assets and is the only network that can handle the on-chain privacy, control, and interoperability of participants and their corresponding asset flows.
How do you plan to build on this success going into the rest of the year and beyond?
Momentum continues with the launch of Canton Network’s Global Synchronizer and Canton Coin. Together, these mark a pivotal step towards unlocking the full potential of synchronised financial markets, providing first-of-its-kind connectivity for the tokenisation and frictionless exchange of regulated financial assets. Combined with the control necessary to operate complex capital market workflows, these connections of value are driving active engagement in Canton Network. From running a super validator, node, or application on the Network to joining the Global Synchronizer Foundation, more and more organisations are joining the ecosystem. We continue to collaborate across the industry to reimagine collateral and asset mobility to deliver material cost savings and capital efficiencies in the near term.
The industry has taken a momentous step towards a unified ledger for regulated markets. Clients rightly demand a solution that harnesses the benefits of decentralised finance in a regulatory-compliant, controlled manner. We look forward to working with leading financial institutions, infrastructure providers, and technology firms to build a vibrant and connected global economic network.