Canton Network Captures 42% of Q1 Blockchain Fees

Canton Network generated $193 million of the $457 million in fees tracked across 21 blockchains in Q1 2026, accounting for roughly 42% of the total. Growth on Canton was tied to institutional tokenization and bank settlements on the chain.

Messari’s Q1 2026 State of Blockchains report shows aggregate fees rose about 2% quarter-on-quarter to $457 million. Most networks recorded declining activity and price pressure during the quarter; Canton was the main source of the overall fee increase and its activity came largely from institutional use rather than retail trading.

Canton is a Layer-1 blockchain built for regulated institutions. Digital Asset launched the network in May 2023 with participation from more than 30 financial firms. The network offers privacy features and a Global Synchronizer that lets separate institutional systems settle transactions together. Governance of the synchronizer now sits with the Canton Foundation under the Linux Foundation. Founding participants include Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Boerse.

Several institutional projects ran on Canton in Q1. JPMorgan’s Kinexys unit issued a JPMD deposit token on the chain in January. The DTCC is working to tokenize U.S. Treasuries it custodizes. HSBC completed a tokenized deposit pilot in April. Messari attributed Canton’s fee growth to expanding activity in tokenized real-world assets, repo markets and banks settling bonds on-chain.

Messari’s head of research operations, Luis Rincon, noted: “Total fees actually rose ~2% QoQ to $457M – driven by Canton Network. Canton Network jumped to the #1 fee chain, capturing 42% of all fees ($193M) as institutional activity ramped. Tokenized RWAs kept climbing while other metrics declined.”

Canton Coin (CC) traded near $0.15 at the time of the report and had slipped about 3% over the prior 24 hours, leaving it around 20th by market value.

The fee gains were concentrated. TronDAO was the only top-five network to increase market capitalization, rising about 10% quarter-on-quarter to $29.7 billion. Tron recorded roughly $83 million in Q1 fees that were burned in TRX. Messari also identified sharp quarterly increases in tokenized real-world asset activity on other chains: Sei rose about 350%, Base about 93% and BNB Chain about 76%.

Stablecoin supply rose modestly to $299 billion, with Polygon and BNB Chain posting the fastest supply growth among the tracked networks.

Messari described the quarter as one of selective strength, where a small number of chains saw fee, stablecoin and real-world-asset growth while many other networks saw declines.