Monero, Zcash, and Canton Network: Who Can Truly Dominate the Future of Privacy Blockchains?

“Businesses cannot operate in a completely transparent environment,” a Wall Street fintech advisor admitted. When institutional investors begin to take blockchain seriously, privacy is no longer an optional feature but a necessity. Behind this is a multi-trillion-dollar question: how to leverage blockchain technology without revealing trade secrets?

The Prelude to Privacy Competition

The blockchain world is experiencing an unprecedented wave of institutionalization. According to CryptoCompare data, by January 2026, institutional investors’ share of the digital asset market has surged from 12% three years ago to 37%. This shift is redefining the rules of blockchain privacy.

Traditional blockchain transparency designs, while ensuring decentralized trust, also expose a fundamental contradiction: corporate transactions need confidentiality, yet every transfer on a public chain can be tracked in real-time by competitors, market analysts, or ordinary users. Such transparency could pose substantial risks to enterprises. Imagine if every payment detail from NVIDIA to Samsung Electronics was made public, or if hedge fund trading timings were fully transparent—market dynamics would be radically altered. Privacy needs have expanded from individual user anonymity to safeguarding corporate secrets.

The Three Layers of Privacy Technology

Blockchain privacy technologies have evolved into three main models, each reflecting the needs and philosophies of different stages.

Monero represents the most thorough privacy protection path. Launched in 2014, this project employs ring signatures, stealth addresses, and ring confidential transactions to ensure sender, receiver, and transaction amounts are completely hidden from everyone. In Monero’s transaction records, the ledger does not display specific numbers but labels them as “confidential.” Each transaction is mixed with multiple decoys, making it difficult for external observers to trace actual fund flows.

Zcash pioneered the concept of selective privacy. It allows users to choose between transparent addresses (similar to Bitcoin’s public transactions) and shielded addresses (private transactions). When using shielded addresses, Zcash encrypts transaction details via zero-knowledge proof technology, and only parties with viewing keys can decrypt the information. Unlike Monero, Zcash transactions are still visible on the blockchain, but their content is encrypted. This leaves room for regulatory compliance.

Canton Network represents the latest evolution in privacy technology. Developed by a digital asset company, this privacy network has been adopted by depositary, trust, and clearing companies, and is currently used by over 400 companies and institutions worldwide. Canton’s breakthrough lies in its fine-grained privacy control capabilities. Unlike Zcash, which only offers a binary choice between “fully public” and “fully private,” Canton allows users to decompose transaction information into different components and set different viewing permissions for various participants.

The Logic Behind Financial Institutions’ Choices

Why are most financial institutions gradually leaning toward selective privacy models rather than fully anonymous solutions? The answer lies in strict regulatory frameworks and compliance requirements. Financial institutions must know their customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) obligations for each transaction. They need to retain complete transaction data internally and be able to respond to regulatory inquiries at any time. In fully anonymous privacy environments like Monero, all transaction data is irreversibly hidden, making it impossible for institutions to fulfill their compliance duties technically.

Although Zcash offers privacy transaction options, its privacy controls are still somewhat rigid. Users can only choose between full disclosure and full privacy, which cannot meet the multi-layered information sharing needs of complex institutional transactions. In contrast, Canton Network’s fine-grained privacy control, implemented via its smart contract language Daml, better aligns with real-world financial workflows.

For example, in a cross-border trade finance transaction, the buyer may need to prove their payment capacity to the bank but does not need to disclose specific supplier information; regulators may need to verify that the total transaction amount complies with regulations but do not need to know the details of the goods. Canton’s modular privacy design enables different participants to access only the information necessary for their roles, rather than the entire transaction data.

Practical Applications of Privacy Blockchains

As the representative of complete anonymity, Monero’s main use cases remain in personal privacy protection and specific markets. Its transaction volume has consistently led among privacy coins but faces increasing regulatory pressure.

Since its launch in 2016, Zcash has been praised technically but has seen relatively limited adoption by institutions. By the end of 2025, less than 15% of Zcash transactions used privacy features, far below developers’ expectations.

Canton Network, on the other hand, has taken a very different path. Since being adopted by depositary, trust, and clearing companies, the network has expanded to over 400 institutional users, handling complex transactions across asset classes.

It’s noteworthy that Canton is not a single blockchain but an interconnected network of blockchains, allowing different institutions to interoperate while maintaining their data privacy. This architecture more closely resembles the actual operation of traditional financial markets.

The key differences among the three privacy technologies lie in their balance between privacy strength and compliance compatibility. Monero leans toward maximum privacy, almost entirely excluding compliance possibilities; Zcash attempts a middle ground but faces practical challenges; Canton favors compliance compatibility, providing a workable framework for institutional participation.

A New Privacy Paradigm for the Institutional Era

Privacy blockchains are undergoing a fundamental shift from personal anonymity to institutional compliance. As financial institutions and large enterprises increasingly explore blockchain technology, the definition of privacy itself is evolving.

Currently, institutional-level privacy no longer means making transactions invisible to everyone but involves protecting commercial sensitive information while still meeting regulatory and compliance requirements. This shift reflects a broader market reality: institutional capital is reshaping the technological priorities of the blockchain industry. The value metrics of privacy technologies are also evolving. Early privacy projects like Monero focused mainly on technical strength and untraceability; newer solutions like Canton Network emphasize practical integration and compliance friendliness.

Market data confirms this trend. According to Deloitte’s 2025 institutional blockchain survey, over 72% of financial institutions consider compliance compatibility of privacy features more important than absolute privacy strength when choosing blockchain solutions. Future development of privacy technologies may follow two parallel paths: one continuing to provide strong privacy for individual users, and another developing more refined, compliant privacy solutions tailored for institutions.

Data Perspective: Market Performance of Privacy Tokens

As of January 12, 2026, according to Gate data, the price performance of major privacy-related tokens shows differentiated characteristics:

Monero’s current trading price is $587.84, with a 24-hour trading volume of approximately $340 million. Despite ongoing regulatory scrutiny, Monero maintains a solid position within the privacy coin category, with the highest market cap.

Zcash’s trading price is $412.72, with a 24-hour trading volume of about $9.1556 million. Notably, although Zcash offers selective privacy features, most transactions still use transparent addresses, reflecting cautious user adoption of privacy functions.

Unlike these public chain privacy tokens, Canton Network does not issue publicly tradable tokens. The network focuses on providing infrastructure services for enterprise clients, with its value more reflected in network adoption and transaction volume rather than token market fluctuations.

Market data indicates growing interest among institutional investors in privacy solutions with clear compliance pathways. This trend may further influence asset valuation frameworks related to different privacy models.

On trading screens, Canton Network’s processing speed has reached 5,000 complex transactions per second, while traditional privacy blockchains still struggle with triple-digit throughput. This is not only a performance gap but also a signal of readiness for large-scale institutional adoption. The real battleground in privacy blockchains has shifted from pure technology competition to a multi-dimensional contest of application integration and compliance adaptability. Traditional privacy coins like Monero still hold a solid niche, but privacy networks tailored for institutions are redefining the game. The evolution of financial infrastructure is often driven not by the most aggressive technology but by those that best balance innovation with regulation, efficiency with risk. When over 400 institutions are processing billions of dollars in transactions on Canton Network, the race for the privacy king seems to have been decided.