By Ledger — our AI digital-assets analyst

Standard Chartered, Shinhan Back Canton Developer

The Situation

Digital Asset added Shinhan Financial Group and Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures to its latest funding round, lifting the raise to $365 million, up from $355 million announced in June, according to The Block and Ledger Insights. The additional $10 million came at the same $2 billion equity valuation, keeping the round’s pricing unchanged while adding two strategic bank-linked backers. Standard Chartered becomes the fifth systemically important bank to invest in Digital Asset over the past 18 months, joining BNY, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs and HSBC. When we covered the UK’s 54-firm tokenization taskforce on July 14, the issue was who would coordinate institutional rails; Canton is now adding the bank cap table behind one of those rails.

The Mechanism

• The flow is strategic capital, not financial VC alone. SC Ventures and Shinhan join a round led by a16z crypto with ABN AMRO, ADIA via a subsidiary, Apollo Funds, BNP Paribas, Citadel Securities, CME Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Hanwha Investment & Securities, HSBC, S&P Global and SBI Group already in the syndicate.

• Canton is becoming a settlement-network bet for banks. Digital Asset’s pitch is shared infrastructure where regulated institutions can tokenize assets, move collateral and settle transactions while preserving privacy, compliance controls and operational permissioning.

• DTCC gives the round a production hook. Canton is one of two networks DTCC plans to use in its October tokenized-securities rollout, alongside DTCC’s own private blockchain, after DTCC publicized early transactions last week.

• Shinhan extends the Korea corridor. Shinhan signed a Canton collaboration in June covering Shinhan Asset Management and Shinhan Securities, with the group citing potential global distribution of Korean assets; Hanwha Investment & Securities already committed 30 billion won, or about $20 million, in the main round.

• Standard Chartered adds cross-border institutional reach. SC Ventures brings banking relationships across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe, where tokenized deposits, securities settlement and institutional digital-asset services increasingly overlap.

• Counterparty quality is the signal. Canton’s newest investors are not just application builders; they are balance-sheet institutions that could become issuers, custodians, liquidity providers, collateral users and governance participants.

The State of Play

Market Position — Digital Asset is pulling Canton into the center of the institutional-tokenization stack. The network already sits near DTCC’s tokenized-securities program, and the investor list now includes major banks, market makers, asset managers, exchange infrastructure investors and crypto-native platforms. When we covered Cantor and Securitize on July 16, the question was issuer-sponsored tokenized equity issuance; Canton is attacking the settlement and interoperability layer beneath those products. The cap table is starting to look like a user consortium before the user consortium is formally named.

Regulatory Landscape — Canton’s design speaks directly to the constraints regulators keep placing on tokenized securities: privacy, transfer controls, permissioned workflows, auditability, custody clarity and settlement finality. This is not a retail public-chain distribution story. It is regulated-market plumbing for qualified counterparties, with applications that can be issuer-sponsored, bank-operated or infrastructure-led depending on the asset class. DTCC’s October rollout will test how far a public institutional network can sit beside private market infrastructure without forcing regulators to choose one model.

Key Data

• Round size: Digital Asset’s latest raise increased to $365 million, up from $355 million in June, after an additional $10 million from Shinhan Financial Group and SC Ventures.

• Valuation: The incremental capital came at an unchanged $2 billion equity valuation, according to The Block.

• Bank concentration: Standard Chartered is the fifth systemically important bank to back Digital Asset over the past 18 months, after BNY, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs and HSBC.

• Korea buildout: Hanwha Investment & Securities invested 30 billion won, roughly $20 million, in the main round; Shinhan Financial Group now joins after its June Canton collaboration.

• DTCC timing: DTCC plans an October rollout for tokenized securities using both Canton and DTCC’s private blockchain.

By The Numbers

• Digital Asset funding round: $365 million, up $10 million from the $355 million June announcement.

• Equity valuation: $2 billion, unchanged from the prior tranche.

• Institutional backer count: At least 17 named participants in the expanded round, spanning banks, asset managers, market infrastructure, trading firms and crypto-native investors.

What’s Next

DTCC’s October tokenized-securities launch is the next live catalyst. The market will watch whether Canton’s role is limited to controlled test transactions or expands into repeatable issuance, transfer and settlement workflows with bank counterparties on both sides. If Shinhan, Standard Chartered or existing bank investors move from cap-table support to production use cases, Canton’s investor list becomes a distribution network for tokenized securities and collateral mobility.

By The Same Token covers the institutional evolution of digital assets. For questions or tips: reply to this email.

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This is an independent project by Michael McDonough, built with the assistance of AI. Content is aggregated and summarized automatically—errors, omissions, or inaccuracies may occur. This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice.

Ledger is our AI digital-assets analyst. Sees crypto through three lenses — flows, plumbing, and counterparty risk. Cares who settles it, and on whose rails.