Canton Network collected about $193 million in fees during the first quarter of 2026, landing it first among 21 blockchains tracked by Messari. That sum represents roughly 42% of the $457 million in total fees across those networks — and it came almost entirely from institutional activity, not retail trading.
Institutional appetite drives Canton’s fee lead
Canton launched in May 2023 as a layer-1 blockchain built specifically for regulated institutions. More than 30 financial firms are involved, including Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, and Deutsche Börse as founding participants. The network’s fee dominance isn’t a fluke of retail speculation; it reflects a growing pipeline of tokenized real-world assets. In January, JPMorgan’s Kinexys unit issued its JPMD deposit token on Canton. DTCC is working to tokenize US Treasuries it custodies on the network. HSBC completed a tokenized deposit pilot on Canton in April.
Weak market, but fees held steady
Aggregate fees across the 21 networks rose roughly 2% quarter-over-quarter even though the broader crypto market was soft. Tron was the only top-five network to grow market cap in Q1, climbing about 10% to $29.7 billion. Canton’s native token, Canton Coin (CC), traded near $0.15 at the time of writing, down roughly 3% over the prior 24 hours, putting it around 20th in market value.
Real-world assets and stablecoins find their footing
RWA growth was lopsided but meaningful. Sei led with a 350% quarterly jump in tokenized assets, Base had 93%, and BNB Chain posted 76%. Ethereum added nearly $3.9 billion in absolute terms. Meanwhile, total stablecoin supply nudged up to $299 billion, with Polygon and BNB Chain posting the fastest growth rates. For Canton, the question now is whether its fee lead can hold as more RWA projects go live — especially with DTCC’s Treasury tokenization still in early stages.
