The Digital Asset funding round reached $365 million: new investments from Shinhan and Standard Chartered
Digital Asset, the developer of the Canton blockchain protocol, has completed an additional funding round of $10 million. The investors were South Korean financial group Shinhan Financial Group and Standard Chartered's venture arm, SC Ventures. These funds were added to an existing round, bringing the total to an impressive $365 million.
The company's valuation has reached $2 billion, confirming the high interest of institutional players in distributed ledger technologies for the corporate sector. The capital raised will be used to scale the Canton ecosystem—a blockchain platform focused on ensuring privacy and interoperability between different networks for financial institutions.
Why is Canton attracting giants?
The Canton protocol is already used by major banks and exchanges for asset tokenization and trade settlement. The investments from Shinhan and Standard Chartered are not just financial support but a strategic move: both organizations see Canton as a key element of the future global financial infrastructure. Shinhan, Korea's largest bank, is actively integrating blockchain into its services, while SC Ventures has already launched several pilot projects based on Canton.
From my perspective, raising additional funds at a $2 billion valuation indicates the maturity of the technology and trust from Asian and European institutions. However, the key challenge for Digital Asset will remain competition from other corporate blockchains, such as Hyperledger and R3 Corda. Nevertheless, the focus on privacy and interoperability gives Canton a unique advantage in the niche of regulated financial operations.