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Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset and co-founder of the Canton Network, said the smart contract sector needs to demonstrate real cash flow rather than rely on promises about future value. In an interview with CoinDesk, Rooz argued there is a “massive disconnect” between how much value networks are assigned and how much actual business they generate.
Rooz said the problem is not limited to any single blockchain. Many smart contract networks, he argued, were designed for retail speculation and token trading instead of regulated, institutional financial workflows. He pointed to the gap between valuation and metrics such as sustained economic throughput, recurring revenue, and real-world asset activity.
He also drew a distinction between crypto assets like bitcoin and smart contract platforms. Bitcoin, he said, is valued as a store of value, while smart contract networks market themselves as “the next set of financial rails.” If that is the pitch, Rooz said financial institutions should use them at scale.
Rooz argued that part of the disconnect stems from token design. He said many networks copied bitcoin’s issuance model by minting tokens to reward validators, even though bitcoin is an asset secured by miners rather than a programmable platform for financial applications.
In his view, when newly minted tokens flow primarily to validators regardless of meaningful economic activity, inflation can dilute holders while little value accrues back to the token. He contrasted that with Canton’s approach, where the token is designed to reflect the network’s dollar utility.
Rooz said Canton burns tokens for each transaction and does not charge priority or front-running fees. He added that if usage grows in dollar terms, more tokens leave circulation. He also described a “mint curve” that issues new tokens at regular intervals, but said those tokens are distributed to users and applications that generate fees on the network.
“Compensating builders should be merit-based,” Rooz said, adding that compensation should depend on bringing customers and generating fees. He cited Hyperliquid as an example of a model that resonates with investors because trading revenue is used to buy back tokens, which he said can support price.
Digital Asset, the company behind Canton, said in December that it secured strategic investments from four major traditional financial players. Rooz said investors in the round included BNY, Nasdaq, S&P Global, and iCapital, which is backed by BlackRock, Blackstone and JP Morgan.
Rooz also referenced institutional adoption signals. He said Bloomberg began publishing data related to activity on Canton, and that the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) selected the network as its tokenization partner in December.
Rooz said total value locked (TVL) is a weak standalone metric. “TVL is a very bad metric in isolation,” he said, arguing that usage matters more.
He said Canton’s emphasis on configurable privacy for institutional participants means much of the network activity is not publicly broadcast, making traditional DeFi dashboards incomplete. Because transactions can remain confidential, Rooz said the network relies on participants to publish information about their onchain activity.
Still, he said some figures are emerging. According to Rooz, Broadridge processes roughly $400 billion in repo transactions daily on Canton. He said other projects on the network handle comparable volumes.
Rooz also said the network is generating between $2.5 million and $3 million in daily fees, with ambitions to double that.
Rooz said the broader market is beginning to apply a revenue-and-usage lens. He noted that when conditions are favorable, money tends to flow into memes and speculative tokens, but when the market turns, investors become more demanding.
He said many altcoins marketed as smart contract platforms have been “eviscerated” during recent downturns, while tokens tied to revenue-generating platforms have held up better. For Rooz, this points to a shift toward what he calls a more “rational economic structure,” adding that “eventually gravity wins.”
Rooz said stablecoins have not yet reached product-market fit. He argued that stablecoins can be said to have product-market fit only when more than 50% of usage is not crypto-related. In his view, much stablecoin demand is still driven by crypto trading and onchain speculation, while real-world payments and non-crypto financial applications remain a minority of activity.
He said Canton’s strategy is to push deeper into traditional finance by bringing real-world assets and collateral onchain. The network recently announced gold-related initiatives and plans additional non-crypto collateral integrations, with the goal of moving beyond crypto-native assets into mainstream financial workflows.
Rooz said investors should not chase token price. “Focus on utility. Focus on building real financial infrastructure,” he said, arguing that value will follow usage.
At publication time, Canton coin (CC) was trading around $0.1538. Rooz said the token has risen about 2% year-to-date, outperforming wider crypto markets, and that it has a market cap of roughly $6 billion.
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