CoinGeckoResearch notes
Additional context for this history.
About Alephium
Alephium is an open-source Layer 1 blockchain combining Proof-of-Work mining, native sharding and smart contracts. Development began in 2018 under founder Cheng Wang, and the mainnet launched on 8 November 2021. ALPH is the network's native coin, used for transaction fees and mining rewards.
Its BlockFlow architecture distributes transactions across multiple interconnected chains. The current network uses four address groups and 16 chains, with an eight-second target block time per chain following the Danube upgrade in July 2025. This structure allows transaction processing to run in parallel while supporting transfers between groups.
Alephium uses a stateful UTXO model, combining UTXO-based assets with mutable smart-contract state. Developers write contracts in Ralph and execute them through the Alphred virtual machine. The ecosystem includes native tokens, decentralised applications, wallets, a block explorer and bridges connecting Alephium with other networks.
Mining uses Blake3 hashing. Alephium's Proof of Less Work, or PoLW, design extends Proof of Work with a mechanism that can replace part of miners' external expenditure with ALPH burning once its activation conditions are met. This is distinct from the protocol's transaction-fee burning mechanism.
ALPH no longer has a fixed maximum supply. The Danube upgrade introduced an uncapped emission model, replacing the former 1,000,000,000 ALPH limit. Mining rewards depend on time and network hashrate rather than a Bitcoin-style halving schedule, and transaction fees are burned. At genesis, 140,000,000 ALPH were allocated across sales, ecosystem development, and treasury and team allocations.
The ecosystem expanded with the mainnet launch of Powfi on 22 September 2026. Developed by Alephium's core team, Powfi provides token swaps, concentrated-liquidity and constant-product pools, and an ALPH staking application that issues xALPH. These application features operate above the mining-based blockchain consensus.
Alephium's reference node, development tools and technical documentation are publicly available. Its original whitepapers provide historical context, while current documentation and implementation code describe the network's subsequent upgrades and present design.
