Most people try to fit Zenith into existing categories: L1? L2? It’s neither. Zenith is built as the EVM execution environment for @CantonNetwork, and behaves differently from traditional L2s. It doesn’t compete with the base layer. It reinforces it.

@CantonNetwork is built from the ground up as a network of networks, a privacy-enabled ledger coordinated by the Global Synchronizer and designed for financial institutions like JPMorgan, DTCC, Nasdaq, Goldman Sachs and more. It already processes $9T+ in monthly volume. With native sub-transaction privacy, regulatory controls, atomic multi-party settlement, and enterprise-grade compliance baked in at the protocol level. What it doesn’t natively provide is EVM compatibility. And that’s exactly the gap Zenith is designed to solve. Instead of introducing an L2-like design that redirects transactions and user fees, Zenith brings EVM execution to Canton in a way that addresses the problem of value extraction from the base layer.