Is Canton Permissionless? CEO Says Yes, but SuperValidators Need Approval

Digital Asset’s CEO faces pointed questions about Canton’s core claims and admits something surprising about the network’s architecture.

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Canton is the chain behind JPMorgan’s deposit token, DTCC, Broadridge’s $400 billion repo book, HSBC, Visa, and a growing roster of the biggest names in global finance. It describes itself as a public permissionless blockchain. But is it?

Yuval Rooz, co-founder and CEO of Digital Asset, faces off against Alex Gluchowski, co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs, and Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi in a live debate.

The charges range from foundational: Canton cannot enforce financial rules without a trusted third party, its validators are permissioned in everything but name, and there is no universally shared ledger. Rooz fires back on all of it and, at one point, concedes something that may surprise you.

If the label matters as much as the technology, this episode will force you to decide what blockchain actually means, and whether that answer has consequences for the institutions staking their infrastructure on it.

Host:

⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Shin⁠⁠⁠⁠, Host / Unchained

Guests:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Yuval Rooz: Co-Founder & CEO, Digital Asset

Haseeb Qureshi: Managing Partner, Dragonfly

Alex Gluchowski: Co-Founder & CEO, Matter Labs

Timestamps

🎤 0:00 Introduction

🏦 1:55 Why Yuval built Canton to bring capital markets on-chain

🔥 5:41 Where the Canton controversy came from, per Yuval

⛓️ 8:59 What makes a blockchain, per Alex

🔐 16:38 What super validators do and how double spend works on Canton

🗳️ 42:08 What ‘permissionless’ means in the context of Canton

💬 54:40 Why Alex calls Canton a mediated messaging system, not a blockchain