Summary The article analyzes the Canton Network and its CIP-0105 update, which incentivizes Super Validators to lock rewards, aligning interests with long-term network success. CIP-0105 could result in 20–32% of Canton Coin supply being locked over the long run, reducing circulating supply and disincentivizing opportunistic selling. Major financial institutions like Nasdaq, DTCC, and others serve as Super Validators, signaling strong institutional adoption and potential for network effects. Despite execution and competitive risks, Canton Network generates higher fees than Ethereum/Solana and dominates tokenized asset value, potentially positioning it as a leading financial settlement layer. Introduction Blockchains like Ethereum and Solona, among others, allow for something called staking. Owners of ETH or SOL can “stake” their tokens, effectively locking up their tokens, as a means of creating stability for the network. In return, the owners of staked coins receive a yield in the form of the native token. To unstake tokens, the owners may need to wait a few days to over a week. From a tokenomics perspective, the yield incentivizes investors to buy the tokens as a productive asset and the locking mechanism reduces the supply available to be sold on the open market. The idea is that it creates buyer demand and reduces selling. The ability to stake tokens is glaringly absent from the Canton Network and frankly, I love that it is. Instead of paying out Canton Coin to those that simply buy and stake the coin, all Canton Coin rewards go to those that add value to the network either in the form of building applications or validating transactions. This incentivizes long term value creation on the network rather than speculating on the token. I believe this is hands down a better long-term incentive structure for how rewards should be paid out but this does not address the other benefit to staking which is that it slows the ability to sell. However, the Canton Networks has now taken steps to address this gap with CIP-0105 . This approved proposal created a rewards structure that incentivizes the Super Validators on the network to lockup a significant percentage of their past and future Super Validator rewards. While this change did not result in an immediate increase in the price of the coin, I do believe it makes the coin more valuable in the long run. (Note: This article is largely focused on the CIP-0105 update with little background on the overall network. If you want to gain a deeper understanding of the Canton Network, including some of the risks associated with the Canton Coin, I recommend checking out my previous Seeking Alpha article on the Canton Network which provides a deeper dive into how the network operates) CIP-0105: Super Validator Locking & Long-Term Commitment Framework The key parts of the proposal are fairly straight forward. Super Validators must now lock up a percentage of their past and future Super Validator rewards in order to continue to receive rewards going forward. Participation is voluntary, but if the Super Validator elects not to participate, they will no longer receive rewards. The proposal creates three tiers of reward levels laying out what the Super Validators must lock in order to receive 40%, 60% or 100% of their potential Canton Coin rewards for validating transactions. Here’s the breakdown: Canton Foundation As you can see, over the long term this creates an incentive structure where between 35% and 55% of all Super Validator rewards may be locked. If a Super Validator determines that they want to unlock a certain amount of Canton Coin, they can initiate the unlock request at any time but only 1/365.2 of the requested amount will become liquid per day, meaning it will take one year to unlock the full request. This structure aligns Super Validators with the long-term success of the network and reduces the incentive for opportunistic or panic based selling. Impact on The Available Supply of Canton Coin Canton Coin White Paper The chart above shows the minting curve and reward allocation for Canton Coin. As you can see, by year ten (we are currently in year two ) 100 billion coins will have been minted in total and 35 billion of those will go to Super Validators. Based on CIP-0105, we can estimate that somewhere between 35-55% of those coins may be locked. For simplicity’s sake, let’s take the average between the two and say that 45% of the coins will be locked meaning roughly 16 billion Canton Coin will be locked by year ten. To assess the significance of this, we need to develop an understanding of how many Canton Coins will actually be in existence at year ten. The network burns Canton Coin as part of each transaction on the network. To date, roughly 2.56 billion Canton Coins have been burned which is close to 6% of the total minted supply. If the 6% rate remains constant, by year ten there will be roughly 94 billion Canton Coin in existence. However, the network is currently well outpacing that rate. It is currently burning between 8 and 18 million coins per day while it mints a little over 27 million new coins per day. This means it is currently burning the equivalent of 30-65% of new supply. Over the next eight years, there are roughly 60 billion coins left to be minted before the network stabilizes at minting 2.5 billion coins per year. If the network continues to burn the equivalent of somewhere close to 50% of the new coin supply, this means the network will only add around 30 billion coins over the next 8 years bringing the total supply closer to 70 billion. I don’t know which of these scenarios will play out so let’s take the average between the two and estimate that eight years from now there will be roughly 83 million Canton Coins in circulation. If 16 billion of those coins are locked, it effectively removes 20% of the supply from circulation. However, if the burn rate ends up remaining closer to 65% of new supply and Super Validators generally elect to lock 55% of their rewards, we could see upwards of 32% of the total supply locked. For comparative context, roughly 30% of ETH are currently staked. Why This Matters Obviously, from a tokenomics perspective this decreases the available supply of Canton Coin that could be sold at any given time, and it disincentivizes Supver Validators from panic selling their unlocked supply. But it’s more than that. There are over 40 Super Validators on the Canton Network and CIP-0105 effectively turns each one of them into long term holders of the Canton Coin. The Super Validators are not all just random crypto companies you’ve never heard of. The list of Super Validators includes Nasdaq, Broadridge, Chainlink, Tradeweb, Circle Internet Group, and the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation . When it comes to the DTCC alone, we are talking about the highest processor of financial value in the world as they provide custody for over 100 trillion dollars worth of assets. What is key to understand here is that the DTCC is user-owned and directed, meaning their decision to utilize Canton was driven by some form of consensus within the financial community. The Board of Directors at the DTCC has representation from NYSE, JP Morgan, UBS, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, BNY, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America. This to me looks like bottom-up consensus followed by top-down implementation. If adoption of the Canton Network continues, the network effects will really be incredible to see. Additionally, I think this increases the chances that Canton Coin will one day be accepted as collateral and that holders of the coin will be able to earn a yield by lending it out. This allows companies holding Canton Coin to maximize the use of their balance sheet. Furthermore (caution: I’d imagine this idea will really drive some Bitcoin maxis up a wall), I think this increases the chances that Canton Coin achieves store of value status. To be clear, we have miles to go before that is achieved and that statement is highly speculative. There is nothing in the Canton White Papers indicating that the aim is to achieve store of value status. The focus is utility. However, the Ethereum Foundation is not shy about the fact that they want to position ETH as a store of value . One of the key features that allows for ETH to potentially become a store of value is staking. With CIP-0105, the Canton Network just took a step in that direction. Conclusion The risks with the Canton Network are still numerous. In my opinion, execution risk and the competitive landscape are the top among them. Competition is fierce. There are dozens of other L1 chains looking to gain adoption as a financial settlement layer. While the trend of blockchain adoption is obvious, the winning horse will only appear obvious in hindsight. When it comes to execution, Canton has gone through years of private testing, but it still needs to prove itself at scale. Despite the risks, there is a lot to like about the network. It is generating fees that are orders of magnitude higher than chains like Ethereum and Solana, yet trades at a network value that is a fraction of where Ethereum and Solana trade. According to data on RWA.xyz , roughly 90% of the total value of tokenized assets (not including stable coins) resides on the Canton Network. Daily transactions on the network have grown from roughly 50 thousand one year ago to over one million. If the Canton Network does earn a place as a key settlement layer for the financial system, it will have been very obvious in hindsight because all of the signs are there now. The CIP-0105 update is just one more feather in the Canton Network's cap to make it even more competitive in relation to other blockchains.