Institutional adoption of real assets (RWA) is split between public and permissioned networks, exposing the gap between the liquidity benefits of blockchains like Ethereum and the privacy requirements of blockchain-based systems like the Canton Network.
The difference is becoming increasingly clear as tokenized assets gain traction among mainstream asset managers.
Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder of blockchain oracle provider RedStone, said product development will likely take place on public blockchains, while permissioned systems are better suited for institutional processes that require privacy.
“There are certain transactions between institutions that just need to be private, and that’s the value proposition that Canton offers very effectively,” Kazmierczak told Cointelegraph.
The Canton Asset Network allows banks and asset managers to tokenize and account for RWA, while transaction details remain visible only to the parties involved. The network says it has processed $6 trillion worth of RWA by 2025.
Instead of consolidating into a single architecture, banks and asset managers are building parallel systems designed to perform different functions in the tokenized financial stack, according to Kazmierczak.
The Ethereum merger was the tokenization moment of Wall Street
Tokenization has become one of the main narratives of institutional blockchain adoption outside of crypto exposure and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
In June 2024, McKinsey estimated that tokenized assets would reach nearly $2 trillion by 2030. More optimistic forecasts have much higher projections, including the $30.1 trillion target by 2034 set by Standard Chartered and Synpulse.
Regulatory clarity in the US has helped drive change. The GENIUS Act, passed in 2025, created a federal framework for stablecoins that serve as a settlement layer for many tokenized assets.
Kazmierczak said that trust in Ethereum has already improved after the network transitioned to proof-of-stake in 2022.
“In 2022, when I was talking to the institutions, the merger was like a big question mark for those institutions,” Kazmerczak said. “They saw it work without any embarrassment, so that gave them confidence.”
Kaczmierczak claimed that RWA projects among institutions started in 2023 or 2024, but as institutions work with annual budgets, developments and project launches do not happen in weeks or months like in crypto. This led to a cluster of institutions announcing tokenization projects last December, he said.
“It’s not that they started in the fourth quarter of last year, No, they started a year ago and now we’re seeing the results.”
Today, more than $26.4 billion worth of RWA tokens use blockchains as distribution layers, and more than $15 billion of them are on Ethereum. It also maintains the deepest liquidity as a veteran in smart contracts with over $160 billion in stablecoins.
related to: Why institutions prefer Ethereum despite faster blockchains
Banks are divided into public and private sectors
Institutions separate market-oriented activities from internal operations. On the one hand, public blockchains provide liquidity, adaptability and access to decentralized finance (DeFi) strategies such as lending and tokenized warehouses. On the other hand, permissioned networks are preferred for settlement processes, two-way transactions, and internal asset management workflows that cannot be disclosed on open networks.
Systems like Canton allow financial firms to automate these processes while keeping transaction details limited to opposite parties. This structure is closer to the existing traditional financial infrastructure (TradFi).
This division suggests that institutional blockchain adoption may not be integrated into a single network model. Instead, financial firms appear to be building a parallel infrastructure where public chains with liquidity and permissioned systems support operational processes behind the scenes, according to Kazmirczak.
“There are certain operations between institutions that just need to be private, and that’s a value proposition that Canton offers very effectively. That’s why we want to be on both of those legs,” he said.
Several major financial institutions have been involved in the Canton Network since its inception. Digital Asset and a consortium of companies including Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and Deloitte announced the launch of the network in May 2023. In September 2024, Digital Asset and the Trust and Clearing Corporation piloted the US Treasury Collateral Network in Canton.
According to RWA.xyz, the Canton Network has more than $313 billion worth of RWA tokens, which refer to assets that use blockchain as a recording layer.
related to: Privacy tools are growing after institutional adoption, says ZKsync dev
ZK-Evidence vs Permissive Privacy
One of the clear differences between the two institutional paths is how privacy is achieved. While many blockchain projects pursue privacy through cryptographic means such as zero-sum proofs (ZK), Canton relies on permissioned data sharing, where transactions are visible only to the parties involved.
Not everyone in the industry agrees that this is a strong model. Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchovsky said in a social media exchange with Digital Asset Yuval Rooz that ZK systems strengthen blockchain security by requiring cryptographic evidence that each state transition follows the protocol’s rules. Even if operators or administrators are compromised, attackers cannot enter invalid transactions into the ledger without generating valid proof of execution.
Rose, in a blog post, claimed that the completely opaque implementation of ZK systems could make it more difficult to audit activity in financial markets. If transaction information is completely hidden, errors or fraud can go undetected, potentially recreating the kind of “black box” conditions that once fueled corporate scandals like Enron.
This disagreement highlights a broader architectural issue for institutional blockchain adoption, as Kazmirczak noted.
Financial firms are experimenting with different approaches to balance privacy, auditing and control. Public networks continue to host market liquidity and DeFi activity, while permissioned systems replicate institutional processes that require privacy and form parallel rails for a tokenized financial system.
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