Accessing a validator on the Canton Network provides a secure, private gateway to connect and transact with digital assets, services, and applications across the Canton ecosystem.
Your validator is your private view, or slice, of the global virtual ledger created by the network of Canton nodes transacting via different smart contract applications and Canton synchronization infrastructure. Unlike other public blockchains, validators in Canton are only active in transactions to which they are a party. Data is segmented and replicated only to those validators permissioned to view the data. This segmentation is preserved even when composing transactions across privacy sets.
This means that running or accessing a validator guarantees that you are in real-time synchronization with other participants, while maintaining complete control over privacy and direct asset ownership.
Connectivity with the Canton Network’s decentralized synchronization infrastructure, the Global Synchronizer, and its public applications and utilities, is enabled with a validator node. Once connected you can unlock atomic cross-application transactions and the ability to interact directly or indirectly with the Global Synchronizer’s native utility token, Canton Coin. Canton Coin is used to pay for traffic and application fees on the Global Synchronizer. The use of the Global Synchronizer (and thus Canton Coin) is optional for application operators and users.
Canton Coin benefits from a healthy ecosystem of independent apps, users, and activity across the network and the utility they provide. Tokenomics favors infrastructure providers (validators connected to or running the Global Synchronizer) over application providers at the beginning and favors applications over time.
Read the Canton Coin Tokenomics whitepaper for details.
The primary ways to be eligible to mint Canton Coin are to run a validator or a super validator node—or to operate an application connected to the Global Synchronizer. Once connected, participants can explore different ways in which Canton Coin supports network utility and application usage.
In summary, your validator is your computer, browser and primary entry point into the Canton Network. You can download and run multiple, interoperable smart contract applications on your validator, whether permissioned, or available publicly.