- The Hayabusa hard fork shifts Vechain’s consensus model, tokenomics, and participation mechanics.
- The next phase, Interstellar, will bring even more support for interoperability, JSON-RPC, and full EVM compatibility.
In a previous report, CNF revealed that in September, VeChain launched the Hayabusa Devnet, the first step in its plan to enhance its blockchain following community approval of the upgrade.
Now, the project has reached another phase: the Hayabusa Testnet, the second stage of VeChain’s 2025 roadmap, known as the Renaissance upgrade, has officially gone live.
With the Testnet now activated, a seven-day transition period has commenced and will conclude on November 11, as the team prepares for a full mainnet launch by the end of 2025, as VeChain plans to enter the Interstellar Phase in 2026.
In an X post, the Vechain team has explained that,
The name Hayabusa was chosen carefully. Like the Japanese spacecraft that overcame daunting challenges to deliver asteroid samples back to Earth, VeChain undertook this phase of the Renaissance to unlock radical improvements, empowering people, reinvigorating our tokenomics, and unlocking the next phase of growth for the VeChainThor protocol.
What’s in it for the Stakers, Validators, and VET
On July 1, the network introduced Stargate with a whopping 5.48 billion VTHO committed to reward early participants. Described as the heart of the new ecosystem, Stargate serves as the primary access point that links Hayabusa’s economic model to a streamlined user experience, enabling scalable participation without added complexity.
Under Hayabusa, VET holders can stake their tokens and delegate them to validators, rather than passively holding. The network also transitions to a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) system where the stakers become Delegators, choosing which validators to support. Here, the amount of VET delegated helps determine who gets to validate blocks and earn rewards.
Instead of the previous model, where VTHO, VeChain’s utility token’s issuance was more static, Hayabusa links VTHO generation and rewards more directly to staking, delegation, and network participation.
This means holding idle VET may earn less. But actively staking and delegating becomes key; the more VET is staked and the network activity rises, the more participants benefit.
Hayabusa will reduce VTHO inflation by ensuring issuance reflects real activity rather than just token ownership. Because the model enables more VET holders to delegate rather than needing to run a full validator node, participation opens to a broader range of users. The result? increased decentralization and community engagement.
They explained, “VTHO issuance, at launch, will shrink to ~60/70% of current levels, with users, builders, and partners continuing to benefit from low, predictable transaction costs.”
With the introduction of DPoS, VeChain’s validator model is moving from a fixed group of authority nodes to a dynamic, performance-based system where both delegation and reliability determine validator status.
In this new framework, validators are expected to maintain consistent uptime, demonstrate strong performance and transparency, and earn community delegations to secure their positions
The legacy Economic Node and X-Node system from the pre-Hayabusa era is being gradually phased out or restructured to align with the updated consensus model.
The X article reads, “Adoption requires trust.” In particular, VeChain has aligned itself with the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), the European Union’s comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets.
Further, both VeChain and VeBetterDAO have had their whitepapers officially verified and listed in the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)’s interim MiCA register.
The alignment of VTHO issuance with network activity means VET’s utility and value proposition improve: the faster and stronger the network grows, the more meaningful the staking/delegation rewards become.
According to our earlier update, the VET price has remained subdued, hovering around $0.015, which analysts describe as an accumulation phase, and has been oscillating in the range between $0.009-$0.013, while forming a strong support.
A breakout above the $0.035–$0.05 resistance zone could confirm renewed bullish momentum. The token is currently trading at $0.014 after a 5.33% surge over the past 24 hours, with trading volume down 17% to $41 million.