Digital Asset and the American Idea Foundation Plan the RISE Benefits Pilot on Canton
The pilot would combine state safety-net benefits into programmable payments on Canton, starting in three unnamed states in early 2027, subject to federal approvals.
Digital Asset and the American Idea Foundation announced on 21 August 2026 a plan to test a new way of paying state-run safety-net benefits on the Canton Network. The pilot, called RISE (Resources for Independence, Stability, and Employment), is planned to start in three states in the first quarter of 2027, subject to federal approvals. The states have not been named.
What RISE would change
According to the announcement, RISE would:
- Combine benefits into a single payment made monthly or twice a month.
- Adjust automatically as household income rises.
- Program payments by category, with rules that can cover food, child care and cash.
The partners say the aim is to ease the burden that separate eligibility rules, payment schedules, reporting and benefit phase-outs place on families. The release does not name specific benefit programmes and gives no budgets or caseload numbers.
Who does what
- The American Idea Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Janesville, Wisconsin, founded by former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, supports the states that run pilots.
- Digital Asset provides Canton as the technology foundation for distributing benefits and supports participating states.
- The states implement the pilots and encode the benefit requirements.
- Case managers, agencies and evaluators. Nonprofit case managers, authorised state agencies and independent research evaluators would get access to the transaction, participation and compliance data appropriate to them.
How Canton would be used
Digital Asset says Canton would coordinate the programmable rules, permissions, transactions and oversight, while keeping sensitive information under appropriate controls. The release describes dashboards showing enrolment, pending approvals, payment eligibility, total funds distributed and aggregate spending. It also lists intended features such as identity and participation verification, mobile access, fraud prevention and a complete audit trail.
An evaluation is planned to look at employment and earnings, benefit use, education and training, and housing and household stability. Findings from the first pilots are meant to shape later ones.
Why it matters
Public benefits involve sensitive personal data, so the case for using Canton here rests on its privacy controls: each party sees what it needs, while auditors and evaluators get the oversight they require. A public-sector pilot would also bring a very different kind of user to a network best known for banks and asset managers.
