Canton Network Gets Its First Order Book-Based Derivatives Exchange as Ekiden Launches Mainnet

Canton Network Gets Its First Order Book-Based Derivatives Exchange as Ekiden Launches Mainnet

Ekiden announced its mainnet launch and introduced the first order book-based derivatives trading infrastructure on Canton Network.

The platform is aimed at professional trading firms, market makers, funds, banks and institutional trading desks.

In its first week on the Canton Network testnet, the project recorded 1,502 active users, more than 72,000 trades and around $8.9 million in trading volume.

Ekiden is launching its mainnet, bringing the first order book-based derivatives exchange infrastructure to Canton Network . The launch will add a professional trading layer to the Canton ecosystem, which is designed around privacy, compliance, settlement, and institutional asset movement.

Ekiden is designed for professional trading firms, market makers, funds, banks, and institutional trading desks that need execution workflows closer to traditional capital markets than retail-focused DeFi venues.

The platform combines CLOB and RFQ-based settlement with PropAMM integration, trading terminal, and API connectivity for trading aggregators, algorithmic platforms, exchanges, and funds.

The launch comes as institutional interest in digital assets continues to rise, while on-chain derivatives infrastructure remains early compared with traditional markets. Recent survey data shows that 73% of institutional decision-makers plan to increase allocations to digital assets in 2026, while 56% expect to engage with DeFi protocols by 2028. Traditional derivatives markets remain far larger, with OTC interest rate derivatives alone reaching $7.9 trillion in average daily turnover in April 2025.

Ekiden argues that existing on-chain markets have largely been shaped around retail flow, passive liquidity, and public execution environments. Professional trading firms, by contrast, need deeper liquidity, deterministic exe даcution, better price discovery, custom privacy, a reliable API, and infrastructure capable of supporting larger and more systematic order flow.

“Tokenization alone does not create institutional markets,” said Vitali Dervoed, founder and CEO of Ekiden. “For tokenized assets to trade at scale, institutions need execution quality, liquidity, privacy, and workflows that reflect how professional trading actually works. Canton provides the institutional environment. We add the trading infrastructure layer for on-chain derivatives.”

“Ekiden’s mainnet is a notable addition to Canton’s application layer, bringing order book execution, privacy, and settlement into a single venue designed for professional trading,” said Viv Diwakar, Head of the Canton Foundation . “Launches like this act as a catalyst as the network broadens its offerings in on-chain derivatives, and we look forward to seeing a range of venues and participants contribute to that growth over time.”

During its first week on the Canton testnet, Ekiden recorded 1,502 active users, more than 72,000 trades, and approximately $8.9 million in trading volume. The company is also working with 11 integration partners and has integrated 12 market makers as it prepares to expand liquidity on mainnet.

In May 2026, Ekiden raised $2 million in a seed round to build institutional-grade infrastructure for on-chain derivatives. The round included investors and strategic participants connected to GSR, Flowdesk, Pyth, Aptos, G20, DCF God, Curiosity Capital, and Keyrock.

With the mainnet live, the full lifecycle of an institutional derivatives trade, from execution to settlement, can now happen on-chain without exposing positions, order flow, or capital movements. Liquidity on the platform is currently supported by market makers, including Keyrock, Kappa Lab and Flowdesk. Ekiden plans to expand liquidity further, onboard additional market makers, and broaden its product range as trading activity on Canton