Canton founder: Crypto's rigid identity is a barrier to institutional adoption

The crypto community's insistence on its identity is hindering the adoption of blockchain by traditional financial institutions, Canton Network founder Yuval Rooz said in an interview with DL News. He described the idea that blockchain technology is meant to completely eliminate intermediaries as very naive, arguing that its real purpose is to lower entry barriers in finance. Rooz stressed that designing systems to meet the demands of existing traditional financial institutions is inevitably necessary. He highlighted that Canton provides a feature allowing the deletion of past data to comply with European privacy laws, a function that conflicts with the blockchain principle of immutability but was essential for institutional acceptance. Rooz further noted that real-world assets (RWA) will become central to the market in the future, and that the completely permissionless systems advocated by the community are unlikely to gain traction in a world where regulatory compliance and identity verification are mandatory. Canton has previously faced criticism from within the crypto industry for designing its network to cater to the preferences of traditional finance.