A pilot program led by the American Idea Foundation, founded by former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, and blockchain firm Digital Asset will test a blockchain-based system for distributing state-administered benefits across three U.S. states. The RISE program is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2027, consolidating multiple benefit types into monthly or twice-monthly payments with spending rules applied to categories such as food, child care and cash.
The system will automatically adjust benefit levels as household income changes and enable participating agencies to monitor payments, balances, spending and compliance data through the Canton Network. Digital Asset will manage the rules, permissions and transactions for benefit distribution while restricting access to sensitive information. The pilot aims to reduce penalties that often occur as benefit recipients’ incomes rise, according to Ryan.
The companies did not disclose the participating states or specify which benefit programs would be included. The pilot remains subject to federal approval. The RISE program represents a potential expansion of Canton’s use cases beyond institutional finance, where recent growth has focused on projects involving government securities and tokenized assets.
In April, Japan Securities Clearing Corporation, Mizuho, Nomura and Digital Asset launched a proof of concept using Canton to test Japanese government bonds as digital collateral, including for real-time cross-border transactions. The project was selected for support under Japan’s Financial Services Agency Payment Innovation Project. In July, Canton was used to settle a tokenized U.S. Treasury trade between Franklin Templeton and Virtu Financial, with Tradeweb handling execution and price discovery. The Treasury changed hands against USDCx in real time, described as an industry first.
Canton’s native token, Canton Coin (CC), used to pay fees for transactions through the network’s Global Synchronizer, has a market capitalization of approximately $4.1 billion and ranks 23rd among cryptocurrencies, according to CoinGecko data. CC is up about 10% over the past week.
