The battle for the future of the multi-trillion dollar tokenization market just got personal and extremely heated. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has publicly slammed the institutional favorite Canton Network while championing XRP and his own privacy protocol Midnight as superior alternatives. This clash highlights a deepening philosophical divide between public decentralized ledgers and private institutional networks in the race to digitize real-world assets.
The Bold Claim Against Legacy Finance
Charles Hoskinson is never one to shy away from a controversy or a fight. The Cardano creator took to social media to critique the current direction of legacy finance institutions. He specifically targeted their adoption of the Canton Network.
Hoskinson argued that banks are wasting resources trying to recreate technology that already exists. He stated that networks like XRP and Midnight are already operating at a scale “100x beyond their ambitions.” This bold assertion challenges the narrative that traditional financial institutions know best.
The core of his argument rests on community and technology. Hoskinson believes you cannot manufacture the organic growth found in crypto. “You need an end-to-end strategy, great partners, and great communities. You can’t fake Cardano or XRP Nation,” he explained to his followers.
This unification of Cardano and Ripple communities is significant. It suggests a strategic alliance of public blockchains against walled-garden networks. Hoskinson posits that when chasing a $10 trillion market, half-measures will result in failure.
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Industry Titans Strike Back Hard
The response from the institutional side was immediate and blistering. Yuval Rooz serves as the CEO of Digital Asset and is the creator of the Canton Network. He did not take the criticism lightly.
Rooz questioned what Hoskinson has actually achieved in the utility space. He pivoted the conversation to a direct attack on Hoskinson’s history. Rooz accused the Cardano founder of merely extracting money from retail investors rather than building viable commercial products.
The criticism intensified with comments from Heslin Kim. Kim is the co-founder of Zenith and a vocal supporter of the Canton ecosystem. He labeled Hoskinson’s claims as baseless and disconnected from reality.
“Canton already has the adoption and validation he is seeking from the exact market participants he dreams of servicing.” — Heslin Kim
Kim pointed out that the technology powering Canton is not new or experimental. It relies on Daml which is a smart contract language created alongside the Ethereum whitepaper. This suggests a maturity that Hoskinson overlooked.
Understanding the Canton Network Dominance
While the social media war wages on, the numbers tell a compelling story about current adoption. The Canton Network currently holds a massive lead in the sector of Real-World Assets (RWA).
Data from industry trackers like RWA.xyz shows Canton at the top. The network represents approximately $388 billion in assets. This volume comes largely from major partnerships with financial giants.
The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) recently partnered with Digital Asset. They are using the Canton Network to tokenize U.S. Treasury securities. This is not a pilot project but a move toward full commercialization.
Current Market Leaders in RWA Representation:
- Canton Network: Leading with billions in wholesale institutional value.
- Ethereum: Dominating the retail and DeFi tokenization sector.
- Polygon: Gaining traction with cost-effective institutional pilots.
- XRP Ledger: Highly capable but currently trailing in total locked value for RWAs.
This data supports the counter-arguments against Hoskinson. The institutional players like Goldman Sachs, Broadridge, and Tradeweb are already optimizing their workflows on Canton. They prioritize privacy and compliance over the “community” aspect that Hoskinson values.
The Privacy Tech Battlefield
A major part of this debate centers on privacy technology and compliance. Hoskinson specifically mentioned “Midnight” in his comparison. Midnight is a data protection blockchain that functions as a sidechain to Cardano.
Midnight aims to solve the problem of privacy on public ledgers. It allows users to prove something is true without revealing the underlying private data. This is crucial for businesses that need to protect trade secrets while using blockchain.
However, the Canton Network supporters argue they have already solved this. Heslin Kim noted that Digital Asset co-founder Shaul Kfir was an original author of libsnark. This is the open-source library used by Zcash for shielded transactions.
The argument here is technical but vital. Institutional defenders claim they have superior “Zero Knowledge” privacy tech integrated directly into their ledger. They view claims that Canton is “non-web3” as laughable because their cryptographic roots run deep.
The Road to Ten Trillion Dollars
The stakes in this war of words could not be higher for the industry. Analysts predict the tokenization of real-world assets will reach $10 trillion to $16 trillion by 2030.
Every network wants a slice of this massive pie. The debate boils down to two differing visions of the future.
Vision A: The Public Ledger
- Champions: Cardano, XRP, Ethereum.
- Philosophy: Open access, global community, decentralized validation.
- Advantage: massive retail liquidity and developer innovation.
Vision B: The Institutional Network
- Champions: Canton Network, Corda, Private Bank Chains.
- Philosophy: Permissioned access, regulatory compliance, privacy first.
- Advantage: Trust from regulators and massive existing capital.
Hoskinson is betting that eventually, the “intranets” of finance will fail. He believes the future belongs to open protocols that can interoperate globally. He sees XRP and Midnight as the bridges that will eventually force legacy finance to adapt or die.
Conversely, the success of the DTCC pilot suggests banks prefer walled gardens. They want the efficiency of blockchain without the chaos of public crypto markets.
The winner of this conflict will likely define the financial architecture of the next century. Will it be the “XRP Nation” and Cardano community? Or will it be the silent giants operating on the Canton Network?
Summary of the Standpoint
This clash between Charles Hoskinson and the Canton Network represents the central tension in crypto today. It is a fight between the ideology of open decentralized networks and the practicality of permissioned institutional systems. While Canton currently leads in sheer dollar value due to wholesale banking assets, Hoskinson argues that the innovation and scale of public chains like XRP and Midnight will ultimately win the marathon. The $10 trillion tokenization prize is still up for grabs.
We want to hear your take on this massive industry debate. Do you think banks will eventually migrate to public chains like XRP, or will they stay in private networks like Canton? Share your thoughts in the comments below using the hashtag #TokenizationWar if you are sharing this on X (formerly Twitter).
