Blockchain adoption is growing fast, calling for innovations that scale and deliver like their Web2 counterparts. While the current solutions play a vital role, they still have significant shortcomings that call for solutions like Canopy, which, according to its Co-Founder and CEO, Adam Liposky, is projected to have high adoption for lowering the entry barrier of blockchain networks.
In this interview, we speak with Adam about his background as he explains Canopy, whose mainnet is scheduled for release early in 2026.
Background
Adam spent years as a venture capitalist, a “perfect” career path at the time, until Ethereum showed up in his inbox. He then found himself working on multiple cryptocurrency decks, and that’s how he got into the crypto space.
“Within months, I was spending more time researching crypto than B2B SaaS. I realized I did not want to invest in this space. I wanted to build it in. So I left the fund and started building on Ethereum.”
That was about the same time he met and joined the Pocket Network team, which was building a protocol to organize and coordinate the world’s data, a scope that was too large for Ethereum. After his time at Pocket Network, he met with Andrew Nguyen, and together, they co-founded Canopy.
“Projects with real requirements were being forced into an impossible choice: compromise your vision or launch a chain from scratch. Both paths had brutal tradeoffs. We began considering what infrastructure would be necessary to eliminate that choice. That is what became Canopy.”
We then asked him for his opinion on the biggest challenges facing decentralized platforms today.
For Adam, it was value capture, whereby the crypto protocols are so focused on protecting existing investments that they lose sight of their long-term value. While developments like smart contracts and layer two chains were initially trivial, they still left projects competing for resources, with their tokens ultimately ending up with no real utility.
“L2 tokens became governance-only assets, with no real staking requirement and no fee accrual to holders. The market has figured this out. ARB is down 70%, OP is down 65%, and STRK is down 85%. These tokens are being repriced because they lack backing beyond speculation.”
Canopy’s unique solution
Canopy eliminated the tradeoffs of existing solutions. Smart contracts deny you sovereignty, as you must align with the base layer rules, economics, and infrastructure. The other solution is building a layer, which, according to Adam, is an “18-month engineering effort that requires recruiting validators, building infrastructure, and solving security from scratch.”
Adam identified several benefits of using Canopy:
- Full sovereignty over their chain.
- Real token utility beyond governance.
- Direct value capture without sharing fees with a base layer.
- Deployment in hours, not months.
- Security through Canopy’s validator network
- Native interoperability without bridges or wrapped assets.
- VM-agnostic meaning builders can code in any language.
“They are true L1s, secured by our validator set through what we call economic cross-pollination. Validators earn rewards in the native tokens of the chains they secure, aligning their incentives with the success of each project.”
Canopy makes it easy for teams to build Layer 1 networks, a preserve for teams with substantial resources and deep technical expertise.
Canopy nested chains Vs layered networks
According to Adam, it all boiled down to value capture and sovereignty.
“L2s solve the security bootstrapping problem, but they do so by making your chain economically subordinate to the base layer. The L1 captures your transaction fees. Your token is relegated to governance, which means it has no real economic utility.”
He continued to explain that it was like building a business where your revenue flowed into someone else’s treasury. The base layer, which risks censorship from centralized sequencers, also controls your technical constraints, fee structures, and roadmap.
Canopy’s nested chains offered value capture and sovereignty. In addition to governance, all fees are paid in your native token, and you control your own fee structure and economic model.
With Canopy, projects can adjust their security relationships, modify validator requirements, or transition to full independence at any time, with complete history and community.
“This is why we call it layerless rather than Layer 0 or Layer 2. Nested chains can be composed like layers when shared security is beneficial, but they operate like independent L1s with dynamic relationships and full economic sovereignty.”
Canopy’s NestBFT consensus Vs proof of stake consensus
Adam clarified that NestBFT was a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism, but with added innovations.
“An attacker (in standard PoS) can acquire old validator keys and rewrite history from a previous state, as there is no external cost associated with creating alternative forks. Most PoS chains address this through social consensus or weak subjectivity, which introduces additional trust assumptions.”
Canopy uses Proof-of-Age, a mechanism that utilizes Verifiable Delay Functions, which serve as a cryptographic proof of elapsed time. The functions make it prohibitively expensive for a validator to perform a long-range attack by recreating L1 blocks.
“It adds a time-based cost on top of the stake-based cost.”
The system also utilizes VRF cryptography to ensure fair and unpredictable leader election, thereby preventing manipulation and reducing the risk of DDoS attacks.
One-click L1 deployment with Canopy
Canopy has abstracted the complexity of building an L1 chain. The builders focus on logic and parameters that make their chain valuable. Canopy handles the rest, including consensus, validator coordination, security bootstrapping, and network infrastructure. This setup enables developers to allocate resources where they truly matter, rather than tying up finances in redundant infrastructure.
Canopy is also working on helping projects deploy into the market.
“Most chains launch into a vacuum: no liquidity, no users, no clear path to bootstrap a community. You have built the technology, but you are stuck with the cold-start problem. We are addressing this with infrastructure that turns deployment into launch day.”
Easy blockchain launches often lead to fragmentation rather than resilience. We asked Adam how Canopy prevented fragmentation.
Adam shared three ways Canopy addressed concerns about cohesion and liquidity fragmentation.
- Native interoperability, where all chains in the ecosystem communicate without the need for bridges. Assets and messages move seamlessly.
- CNPY at the settlement layer served as the native currency pair for all swaps, concentrating liquidity rather than fragmenting it.
- Shared security. Validators stake CNPY and earn rewards from every chain they secure, creating a unified economic layer beneath the entire ecosystem.
“More chains actually strengthen the network, because each one adds demand for CNPY security and liquidity.”
Key features and testnet performance
Adam identified four key features:
- VM-agnostic architecture, which allows you to build in any language, opening blockchain development to the broader software engineering talent pool, not just crypto-native developers.
- Security is immediate the moment you tap into Canopy’s validator network. Builders can adjust their security models as they grow, or even opt for complete independence.
- Native interoperability. Chains in the Canopy ecosystem are composed without bridges: no wrapped tokens, no additional trust assumptions on relayers, and no liquidity fragmentation. Assets and messages move seamlessly between chains because they share a common security and communication layer. This is critical because bridges are the attack surface that has cost the industry billions of dollars.
- Validator-based oracles built directly into the protocol. Validators provide oracle services as part of their role, which means you get price feeds, randomness, and external data without introducing new dependencies.
- Built-in distribution infrastructure to help projects launch to a ready audience.
“The entire stack is designed for 10 times faster development.”
We then asked him about feedback from the testnet and performance metrics that they expect on the mainnet.
Their Alphanet launched in April, and Betanet went live in September without a flaw. Throughout the period, they successfully executed network upgrades, consensus changes, and protocol improvements without incident.
“We also have four projects in our incubator program actively building on the stack. The feedback has been overwhelmingly focused on developer experience, which is exactly what we want to hear and exactly what we are optimizing for.”
On performance, he stated that they are seeing numbers comparable to those of Solana. They have consistently achieved 10,000 transactions per second with instant finality, which is critical for applications that require real-time responsiveness, such as gaming, trading, or payments. They target numbers higher than that.
Early traction and partnerships
Canopy is projecting high adoption, primarily because they have lowered the entry barrier in terms of both technical, operational, and financial aspects.
“Four projects are currently being developed in our incubator program, and we have received dozens of high-quality sign-ups for our builder waitlist.”
Canopy has 20 top-tier validators, providing the foundation that allows new chains to inherit security from day one, rather than spending months trying to bootstrap their own validator set.
A recent campaign garnered over 100,000 new X (formerly Twitter) followers, more than 40,000 new Discord members, and over 100,000 connected wallets.
On the advisory side, Canopy is working with CodeCraft on marketing and Distractive on ecosystem development.
Canopy native coin CNPY and mainnet launch
Adam explained that CNPY was the native token of the Canopy ecosystem with four core functions:
- Staking. CNPY staking with Canopy validators helps secure the network and its nested chains.
- Rewards. Native rewards from every project you help secure through your validator, in addition to CNPY block rewards.
- Settlement currency. When chains launch, and users want to participate, CNPY becomes the base currency for those transactions.
- Launching and trading fees. Every time a chain deploys or tokens are traded, fees are denominated in CNPY. These fees flow back into the ecosystem, creating another value capture mechanism tied directly to network activity.
“Owning it (CNPY) means owning a share of every sovereign chain that launches on Canopy. As the ecosystem grows, the CNPY utility compound increases.”
CNPY has a total supply of 504 million CNPY. Block rewards are split 85% to validators, 10% to delegators, and 5% to the DAO—the DAO allocation funds protocol development, ecosystem grants, and governance initiatives. Halvings will occur approximately every two years to create predictable supply dynamics and align with the planned growth phases.
Mainnet will launch early 2026.
“Day 1 of mainnet should feel like day 100, not day 1. The goal is to go live with momentum, not to figure things out in production.”
We then enquired about airdrops for early participants when they go live.
Adam shared that they are working on the details; however, their philosophy is to incentivize people with actual contributions, not speculators. These will entail validators, developers, and early community members.
“The Betanet wallet connection campaign with 100K wallets so far is one way we’re tracking early participation. I’d encourage anyone interested to get involved now rather than waiting for specific airdrop announcements.”
For those interested, how do they become part of the community?
Developers can refer to the Canopy GitHub repository and documentation.
“We’ll soon provide details for end-to-end implementation. We’re actively working with teams building on the Canopy Stack and can provide hands-on support.”
Validators or those interested in staking can reach out about joining the Canopy validator set.
For everyone else, Discord is the main venue.
“That’s where you’ll get the earliest updates, can talk directly with the team, and connect with other builders. X is good too, and you can join our X community for announcements and ecosystem news.”
Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/breaking-down-canopy-with-co-founder-ceo-adam-liposky/