‘we Refused To Do An Ico’: The Truth Behind Canton’s Tokenomics
As Tharimmune raises $540 million to build a Canton Coin treasury, the story behind the Canton Network shows that ICOs are not the only way to launch new blockchains.
The blockchain ecosystem is home to several highly successful smart contract protocols, which makes the arrival of newcomers highly competitive.
Canton Network is one of the newest ‘next generation layer one’ to vie for users and capital from incumbents like Ethereum and Solana. Alongside SUI and Aptos, Canton’s rise challenges the assumption that we have too many blockchains.
The rise of @CantonNetwork may seem fast, but it's been a decade in the making. A decade of learning from the mistakes of others...@gazza_jenks and I chat with the co-founder and CEO of Digital Asset, @YuvalRooz, to hear the origin story of Canton.https://t.co/6koyyOsnht
Speaking exclusively to Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction daily show, Yuval Rooz, co-founder of Digital Asset, recounted the backstory behind the Canton Network, which opted out of an initial coin offering (ICO) during its decade-long development journey to where it is today.
“Our thesis was focused on serving large-scale institutions. We’ve been very patient. We refused to do an ICO. We refuse to do a token pre-mine. We’ve really thought about the tokenomics,” Rooz told Cointelegraph.
The protocol and its native token grabbed major headlines in 2025. Digital Asset closed a $135 million funding round in June to continue developing the Canton ecosystem and spearhead RWA tokenization on the protocol.
Then came biotech company Tharimmune, which raised $540 million in private funding to build a Canton Coin (CC) digital asset treasury. The DAT plans to use the proceeds to acquire and stake CC tokens as a super validator of the network.
Related: Tharimmune makes $540M bet on Canton Coin in crypto treasury push
As Rooz explained, Digital Asset took a measured approach to developing and rolling out Canton Network. A permissioned chain was launched in 2020 to gauge how the network performed and what users wanted and needed in terms of functionality:
Source: CoinTelegraph
