Canton
CC#22Canton Coin (CC) pays for network use and rewards participants on Canton, a privacy-focused blockchain for regulated finance.
- Market cap
- $5B
- Volume 24h
- $24.6M
- All-time high
- $0.1942
- −35.21% from ATH
- Circulating supply
- 39.7B
Does not clear all 8 Shariah criteria. Needs caution: interest (riba), nature of the asset, gambling (maysir), business model, excessive uncertainty (gharar), and benefit and harm (maslahah). Fails: usage.
- 1 pass
- 6 caution
- 1 fail
Verdict history
- DoubtfulCurrent
First publication
Fundamentals, market picture and news will appear here.
Halal analysis
Can a Muslim hold Canton?8 Shariah criteria
1 pass · 6 caution · 1 failHolding CC pays nothing, but some reward schemes pay more than the fees burned or reward large firms for holding CC.
Riba means interest or any guaranteed increase on a loan. Simply holding CC earns nothing; it even carries a small holding fee per coin contract, and there is no delegated staking for ordinary holders. New CC is minted as payment for work: running Super Validator or Validator nodes and bringing traffic through approved applications, which fits the view that rewards for network work are not riba. Two features make the picture less clean.
First, app rewards could exceed the fees an app burned; the Super Validators capped them in January 2026 (CIP-0098) because of reward farming, yet the cap still allows about 50% more back than was paid in fees, which some would see as a surplus on money paid. Second, the Digital Asset Treasury programme approved in April 2026 (CIP-0114) gives listed companies Super Validator weight, and so a share of new CC, in proportion to the CC they buy and keep holding; that is a return on held capital rather than on work. Because part of the reward design is disputed, this criterion is 'caution'.
Canton is a working network and CC pays for its traffic, but official religious bodies disagree on whether cryptocurrency is property (mal).
Mal is property that Islamic law recognises as having value and that can be owned and traded. Canton works: the Global Synchronizer has run since July 2024, the Canton Foundation reports 756 validators, and large institutions settle transactions on it. CC is used to buy network traffic, as a reward and optionally as a currency for application fees, although much institutional activity pays for traffic without holding CC as an investment.
Malaysia's Securities Commission Shariah Advisory Council (2020), for assets under its supervision, treats digital currency without an underlying asset as goods ('urudh) that may be traded on registered exchanges. Other tier-1 bodies disagree: Egypt's Dar al-Ifta (2017), the UAE General Authority of Islamic Affairs (2018), Turkey's Diyanet (2017) and Indonesia's MUI (2021) prohibit dealing in cryptocurrencies, and the OIC Fiqh Academy (2019) deferred a ruling. None of them names Canton. Because authoritative bodies disagree, this criterion cannot be 'pass'.
CC is not a gambling token, but most of its exchange trading is in perpetual futures.
Maysir is gambling: winning or losing by chance rather than through productive exchange. Ordinary price swings are not maysir, and CC has no chance-based payout. Its market, though, leans on derivatives: in a 24-hour snapshot on 27 September 2026, perpetual futures on Binance, Bybit and OKX traded about $20.2 million of CC against about $11.7 million of spot on Bybit, OKX, Kraken, KuCoin and Gate, about 63% derivatives. Binance offered a perpetual contract but no spot pair. The Canton Network website also lists crypto derivatives among its main use cases.
A real function exists alongside this, since traffic on the network is paid by burning CC, so the asset is not built for gambling.
Fees are service charges that are burned, but the network's reward budget largely pays firms running interest-based finance, and treasury use is undisclosed.
This criterion asks how the issuer or protocol earns, and whether any of that income is impermissible. There is no company that sells CC or collects fees for holders: traffic fees are service charges priced in US dollars and paid by burning CC. What the protocol does distribute is new CC: to Super Validators, to Validators and, increasingly, to providers of featured applications, with 5% set aside since October 2025 for a Development Fund run by the Canton Foundation.
The largest institutional applications on Canton are repo (Broadridge's DLR, in effect secured loans) and tokenised Treasuries (DTCC), which are interest-based. Broadridge holds Super Validator weight, and weight is held in escrow for DTCC, Nasdaq and others, so a notable part of the reward budget goes to firms whose activity on the network is disputed or impermissible. The split of rewards by application type is not published, and neither the Foundation nor Digital Asset discloses how reward treasuries are held, so the 5% and 20% thresholds cannot be checked. This criterion is therefore 'caution'.
The minting curve and code are public, but a small group of large firms controls governance and has changed the tokenomics often.
Gharar is excessive uncertainty or hidden information in a deal. Much is disclosed: the minting curve (up to 100 billion CC in ten years, then 2.5 billion a year) is in the Canton Coin paper, the Global Synchronizer code is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence, and every rule change goes through a public Canton Improvement Proposal. But control is concentrated.
The MainNet configuration of 17 September 2026 lists 13 Super Validator node operators, with Digital Asset's two nodes at about 8.5% of reward weight and DRW's Cumberland at about 7.3%, and the Super Validators also set the CC-to-USD rate used for fees and rewards. They changed the tokenomics many times in 2025–2026 (fee removal, a 5% development fund, removal of liveness rewards, capped and traffic-based app rewards, a holding-based treasury programme), and escrowed weights for new members are released by their vote. CryptoUmmah could find no security audit of the core protocol, and how foundation treasuries are held is not disclosed. These are partial-opacity concerns, not unilateral minting, so the status is 'caution'.
The network's main institutional use by value is repo lending and tokenised Treasuries, which are interest-based finance.
This criterion looks at what the network is actually used for. By far the largest activity by value is Broadridge's Distributed Ledger Repo platform, which runs on Canton and reported about $280 billion of daily repo transactions in August 2025; Broadridge itself describes a repo as, in effect, a loan with Treasuries as collateral. DTCC plans to tokenise US Treasury securities, which pay interest, on Canton, and the network's website headlines '24x7 on-chain financing' and crypto derivatives next to stablecoin payments.
Permissible uses exist: settlement infrastructure, payments and CC's own role in paying for traffic. But the headline use cases are interest-based finance and derivatives. The network does not itself pay interest on CC; this criterion is about how the network is used, and on that measure the main purpose is impermissible, so the status is 'fail'.
Fully paid spot CC is available on several major exchanges.
This criterion asks whether the asset can be owned in a permissible way. On 27 September 2026 CC traded spot, with full payment and delivery, on Bybit, OKX, Kraken, KuCoin and Gate. Holding CC outside an exchange requires a party hosted on a Canton validator node, which is less simple than a typical self-custody wallet but still direct ownership. Binance offered only a perpetual futures contract, which is assessed separately under trading mechanisms. Ownership therefore does not depend on derivatives or leveraged wrappers.
Canton makes settlement between institutions faster and more private, but much of that benefit serves interest-based markets and early rewards invited farming.
Maslahah weighs public benefit against harm. The benefit is real: Canton lets regulated firms settle assets atomically, so payment and delivery happen together, which reduces counterparty risk, while keeping each party's data private. Against this, much of the settled activity is repo and Treasury financing, so the benefit largely serves interest-based markets (counted under usage, not again here).
The Super Validators also acknowledged in January 2026 that uncapped app rewards had encouraged reward farming rather than real use, and a large share of new CC has gone to a small group of large firms. No large-scale fraud or abuse against retail users was found in the sources reviewed.
How you can use it
Tap a card for the ruling and sourcesBuying CC with full payment and immediate delivery is available on Bybit, OKX, Kraken, KuCoin and Gate. Spot is acceptable for a DOUBTFUL asset for those who follow the permissive view.
No spot exchange-traded fund holding CC was found in the sources reviewed. Listed treasury companies such as Canton Strategic Holdings hold CC, but they are operating companies, not funds, and their structure was not assessed.
CC can be used to pay traffic and application fees on Canton. Tier-1 bodies such as Indonesia's MUI rule that using cryptocurrency as currency is not permissible, and paying with crypto is restricted in some jurisdictions.
There is no delegated staking of CC for ordinary holders. Running a Validator or Super Validator node earns rewards for infrastructure work, which is closer to pay for service. The Digital Asset Treasury programme (CIP-0114), which rewards listed companies with Super Validator weight for holding CC, and exchange "earn" products are not work-based and are caution.
Margin trading is never acceptable: it is a deferred exchange with borrowed money and leverage (AAOIFI SS 20).
CC perpetual futures on Binance, Bybit and OKX trade more than CC spot. Futures, perpetuals and options always fail under AAOIFI SS 20: deferred exchange without delivery, usually with leverage.
Lending CC through exchange or on-chain lending programmes pays depositors interest from borrowers. This is riba.
CC yield products built on lending, leverage or basis trading pay interest or interest-like returns and fail. No native yield exists for holding CC.
Scholars quotes
Penggunaan cryptocurrency sebagai mata uang hukumnya haram, karena mengandung gharar (ketidakjelasan), dharar (bahaya) dan bertentangan dengan Undang-Undang nomor 7 tahun 2011 tentang Mata Uang dan Peraturan Bank Indonesia nomor 17 tahun 2015 tentang Kewajiban Penggunaan Rupiah di Wilayah Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia.Sebagaimana mata wang yang lain, mata wang digital hendaklah tidak digunakan sebagai bayaran kepada barangan, perkhidmatan dan aktiviti tidak patuh Syariah seperti pembelian dadah, pelacuran, perjudian dan pendanaan aktiviti keganasan serta penggubahan wang haram.The SAC has also resolved that investment and trading of Digital Assets that fulfil the above requirements and which are traded on Digital Asset Exchange (DAX) registered with SC are permissible.Third: In light of the above and given the significant risks associated with this type of currencies and the instability of their transactions, the Council of the Academy recommends pursuing research and studies on issues affecting its ruling.Bitcoin is a digital currency that does not meet the legal and Sharia criteria that make it a currency subject to the rulings of dealing with official legal currencies recognized internationally.بناءً على ذلك: فلا يجوز شرعًا تداول عملة "البتكوين" والتعامل من خلالها بالبيعِ والشراءِ والإجارةِ وغيرها، بل يُمنع من الاشتراكِ فيها؛ لعدمِ اعتبارِها كوسيطٍ مقبولٍ للتبادلِ من الجهاتِ المخُتصَّةِ، ولِمَا تشتمل عليه من الضررِ الناشئ عن الغررِ والجهالةِ والغشِّ في مَصْرِفها ومِعْيارها وقِيمتها، فضلًا عما تؤدي إليه ممارستُها من مخاطرَ عاليةٍ على الأفراد والدول.However, the application layer presents an issue: while the core business of providing a blockchain network is permissible, the exact breakdown of the protocol's revenue is unknown, preventing a definitive assessment of its financial purity and resulting in a Doubtful status for simply buying and holding the token.According to research and opinion of experts so far, cryptocurrency is not considered ‘ maal ’ (wealth) in Sharia.Muhammadiyah memandang transaksi dan investasi kripto pada dasarnya mubah (boleh) tetapi dengan syarat tertentu.The opinion on this is the same as doing the same with any halal assets such as shares – 1) is permissible, 2) is more debatable and there are differing opinions on short-term trading.Our current position is 'tawaquf'; we can't say it is halal or haram, but we say it is better not to engage in itAs I mentioned at the beginning of this article it is not necessary to substantiate the permissibility of something as long as there are no prohibited factors involved in it or surrounding it.AI-assisted analysis checked against sources. Not a fatwa or investment advice.
Where it trades
No exchanges from our coverage trade Canton yet
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