Privacy versus transparency: the design choice at the heart of Canton
Why Canton bet on configurable privacy — and what that means for regulators, auditors, and the future of institutional DeFi.
Dr. Aisha Bello
Research Lead · 7 min read
Most blockchains treat transparency as a virtue. Canton treats it as a setting. That single design decision shapes everything downstream — who can build on it, which regulators can get comfortable, and what 'institutional DeFi' might actually look like.
Configurable privacy is not the absence of oversight. Done right, it means the right parties — counterparties, auditors, regulators — see exactly what they're entitled to see, and nothing more.
This piece examines the trade-offs, the cryptographic underpinnings, and the open questions that remain.
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