PerpSwap Public Beta: How to Trade Perpetual Futures on Canton Network
PerpSwap has launched its public beta on Canton Network, bringing permissioned perpetual futures trading to institutional and retail users. This guide covers how to access the platform, supported pairs, margin mechanics, and why Canton Coin (CC) powers every trade.
PerpSwap, Canton Network's first native perpetual futures exchange, has entered public beta. The platform lets traders open leveraged positions on Canton assets using Canton Coin (CC) as the margin and gas currency: a design choice that ties every trade directly to Canton's network economics. This guide walks through how to access PerpSwap, which pairs are live, how margin and fees work, and what makes this exchange structurally different from public chain perpetuals.
PerpSwap Beta: Fast Facts
| Status | Public Beta (May 2026) |
| Margin currency | CC and USDCx |
| Gas currency | CC (burned on execution) |
| Settlement | Atomic, private per counterparty |
| Network | Canton Global Synchronizer |
How to Access PerpSwap
PerpSwap is accessed through a Canton Network wallet. The platform is not gated by KYC at the wallet level during the public beta, but participant access is governed by Canton's permissioned architecture: your Canton identity contract determines what markets you can interact with. Retail participants can connect via Temple Wallet, Canton's consumer facing browser wallet. Institutional participants typically connect via API using Canton's Ledger API with a Canton application node.
Steps to get started during the public beta:
- Install Temple Wallet and create or import a Canton Network wallet
- Fund your wallet with CC (available on Kraken, Bybit, Gate.io, and Temple DEX)
- Navigate to the PerpSwap app at the Canton DeFi hub
- Allocate CC or USDCx as margin
- Select a trading pair and open a position
Supported Trading Pairs
The public beta launches with a focused set of pairs designed around Canton's most liquid native assets. CC/USDCx is the primary pair, allowing traders to take leveraged directional views on Canton Coin against the dollar denominated USDCx stablecoin. CBTC/USDCx is the second live pair, using Canton's wrapped Bitcoin as the underlying. Additional pairs are expected as the beta progresses, with tokenized equities and bond futures planned for institutional access tracks.
The pair selection reflects Canton's asset composition. Because all assets on Canton are issued under the CIP-56 token standard with native privacy and atomic settlement, every pair on PerpSwap settles with the same finality guarantee as a spot trade on Temple: no optimistic rollup delays, no bridge risk, no mempool exposure.
Margin and Gas Mechanics
Every perpetual position on PerpSwap requires CC or USDCx as margin collateral. The initial margin rate varies by pair: CC/USDCx operates at 10% initial margin during the beta, implying a maximum 10x leverage on the base asset. CBTC/USDCx runs at 15% initial margin (approximately 6.6x maximum leverage) reflecting higher underlying volatility.
Gas fees on Canton are denominated in USD but paid in CC: the same mechanism that applies to every Canton transaction. This creates a direct demand driver: every PerpSwap trade execution, liquidation event, and position modification burns CC from circulating supply. At current Canton volumes, the network burns approximately $2.4 million per day across all transaction types. PerpSwap activity adds to that burn rate in proportion to its usage.
Why CC as Gas Matters
Every executed trade on PerpSwap burns CC. This is not a protocol incentive: it is the base Canton fee mechanism (CIP-0078 eliminated transfer fees in September 2025, but execution fees on Daml contract choices remain). As PerpSwap volume scales, each additional trade is a permanent supply reduction event for CC.
Privacy and Settlement Guarantees
PerpSwap inherits Canton's sub-transaction privacy model. Position sizes, entry prices, and counterparty identities are not visible to other network participants. Only the parties to a given trade, plus the Canton Network validators who process the batch, interact with the transaction data: and validators see only cryptographic attestations, not financial content.
This is the core structural difference from perpetuals on public chains. On Ethereum based perpetual venues, position data is publicly visible in the mempool before execution and in the ledger afterward. Front running and position tracking by sophisticated participants are structurally enabled. On Canton, that information asymmetry does not exist: the 42 active Super Validators confirming transactions do not see the financial content of what they are processing.
What the Beta Period Means for Users
Beta status means liquidity is building and the team is monitoring for edge cases. Liquidation parameters, funding rates, and oracle sources are all configurable by governance during the beta phase. Traders should size positions conservatively during this period and monitor the PerpSwap governance announcements for parameter changes.
For Canton Coin holders watching the macro picture: PerpSwap's volume trajectory during the beta will be one of the cleaner reads on how much incremental CC demand DeFi applications can generate. If PerpSwap reaches Temple's current daily volume ($7 to 9 million in CC), the additional burn from perpetuals execution alone would represent a meaningful addition to Canton's current supply reduction dynamics.