Canton Catalyst Research

The Canton Quadrant

A public, rubric-scored map of pre-token Canton Network projects. Two axes: what a project has verifiably built, and how far it has moved toward a token. Confirmed evidence only. Published monthly, never edited after the fact.

The record

Issues

One issue per month, end of month. Each issue is a permanent page: archived the day it publishes, never edited after that. The newest link here is always the current issue.

Issue	Published	What it holds
Issue 02 Current	July 2026	Eight projects placed, six of them new. Two corrections to issue 01 carried openly. Two projects reviewed and not charted, each with the reason. The first read of what the distribution shows.
Issue 01 Archived	July 2026	The founding issue: rubric published, three projects placed, one reviewed and not cleared. One correction since publication, carried in issue 02 and on the affected project page.
Issue 03 Next	End of August 2026	Monthly cadence: rechecks of every placed project, plus two or three full new scorings, chosen where public evidence looks strongest.

How to read it

The vertical axis is verified substance, scored 0 to 7. One point per confirmed item on a seven-item checklist. Nothing is weighted and nothing is subjective: an item is either publicly verifiable or it scores zero.

The horizontal axis is token intent, an ordinal ladder from 0 (no token statement of any kind) to 4 (token live, at which point the project exits this chart's scope). Position on this axis describes what a project has said and shipped about a future asset. It is not a prediction and not a recommendation.

A dashed marker above a project shows where it would sit if its announced claims verify. Announcements move the dashed marker. Only confirmed evidence moves the placement.

Between issues, five things can happen to a project. New entrant first appearance, the inclusion bar cleared. Verified movement the world changed, new evidence confirmed, the score moved. Riser resolved an announced claim verified and the dashed marker became part of the solid score. Correction my record changed: a prior issue scored something wrong, and the next issue says so with the reason. Exit a token went live and the project left the chart at intent 4. The null case, unchanged, means rechecked and held.

The distinction that matters most is movement against correction. A movement means the world changed. A correction means I was wrong. Both get the same prominence in every issue, because a record that only shows the first kind isn't a record. And being off the chart is a placement too: reviewed-not-charted and held both come with stated reasons, in the issue.

The substance checklist

Seven items, each binary. A project either shows the evidence publicly or it scores zero on that item. Here is what each one means and why it earns a point.

S1 · Live mainnet deployment. Working software on Canton mainnet that outside users can touch, even behind a whitelist. A demo, testnet, or "coming soon" page does not count. This is the most basic proof that a team ships.
S2 · Named institutional counterparty. A real institution doing real business with the project, confirmed by that institution or visible on-chain. "In talks with major banks" scores zero. A bank saying it themselves scores one.
S3 · Official ecosystem status. Recognition from the network itself: a canton.network listing, Featured App status, or Canton Foundation membership. Weak on its own, but it means the project cleared someone else's bar, not just mine.
S4 · Infrastructure role. The project runs part of the network: a Super Validator or node operation. Operating infrastructure means capital committed and reputation at stake, which is harder to fake than marketing.
S5 · Identified legal entity and named leadership. A registered company and real people with names and faces attached. Anonymous teams can build great things, but accountability starts with knowing who you are dealing with.
S6 · Named, disclosed backers or funding. Investors named by the project and verifiable through a third party. "Backed by leading investors" without names scores zero.
S7 · Independent audit or regulatory registration. A published audit by a recognized security firm, or registration with a financial regulator. Someone outside the team, with a reputation to lose, has examined the thing.

Inclusion bar: a project appears on the chart only if at least one of S1, S2, or S4 is confirmed. Projects reviewed that do not clear the bar are listed beneath the chart, not hidden.

The intent ladder

0 · No token statement
1 · Structural hints (language, architecture, or assets that imply a future token)
2 · Incentive program live (points, rewards, allocation mechanics)
3 · TGE on a published roadmap
4 · Token live. The project exits Quadrant scope.

Evidence standards

Every claim behind a placement is tagged one of three ways. Confirmed: filed, live, on-chain, or verified by the counterparty. Announced: stated by the team but not yet independently verifiable. Speculated: my read, or ecosystem chatter. Only confirmed evidence scores points. Announced claims are shown, marked, and worth zero until they verify. Speculated claims never appear in a score.

Unverifiable pedigree claims are a standing category: track records or AUM figures that cannot be checked are not counted, not repeated as fact, and noted as unverifiable in the scorecard.

The Canton caveat. Canton is private by default. Unlike public chains, most activity cannot be confirmed on-chain by an outside observer. That makes independent verification harder here than anywhere else in crypto, and it is exactly why this chart scores only what can be verified. Where privacy limits confirmation, the scorecard says so.

Disclosure and record-keeping

I hold positions in the Canton ecosystem, including $CC, the collateral asset behind Alpend's ONE. Full public portfolio is on the home page. Positions are disclosed in every issue that touches them. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell anything.

Every issue is archived and never edited after publication. Corrections appear in the next issue with a note saying what changed and why. Placements move on confirmed evidence only. If you can show a scoring error with a verifiable source, I will correct it and credit you: hello@cantoncatalyst.xyz.