Layer 1 blockchain
Akash ticker AKT
Summary
Proof-of-stake application chain (akashnet-2) built on the Cosmos SDK with CometBFT consensus. It records a compute marketplace: tenants post deployment orders, providers bid, accepted bids become leases, and payments stream from on-chain escrow accounts. The containers themselves run off-chain on provider hardware. AKT is staked to up to 100 active validators; a block commits once validators holding more than 2/3 of voting power precommit it, assuming less than 1/3 is byzantine. Akash is secured by its own validator set, not by Cosmos Hub stake. 12313272829
Design
- System
- Layer 1 blockchainAkash runs today as a sovereign Cosmos SDK chain (chain ID akashnet-2) secured by its own AKT-staked validators. Its AEP-79 migration documents (draft version 0.9, August 2026) plan to wind this chain down and re-implement the marketplace on Solana or on an Ethereum layer 2; no target had been chosen and no date set when reviewed, and no community signal proposal on the migration had been submitted on chain as of 27 September 2026 (the latest proposal was number 341), so the class describes the chain as it currently operates.
- Settlement family
- Cosmos SDK
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Economic finality
- Who makes blocks
- Validators take turns proposing in a weighted round-robin, so a validator with more voting power proposes more often. The active set is capped at the top 100 validators by stake; a public node query on 27 September 2026 showed 82 validators in the active set.
- Fork choice
- No fork choice in the Nakamoto sense: each height is decided by more than 2/3 precommits. Conflicting commits would need at least 1/3 of voting power to double-sign, which Akash's documentation says is slashed and permanently barred. If more than 1/3 of voting power is offline the chain stops producing blocks rather than forking.
Qualifications
- Ibc · Applies. Akash supports IBC token transfers verified by on-chain Tendermint light clients. IBC links independent chains; it does not make Akash or its counterparties layer 2s of each other. It is recorded under bridge support.
- Shared security · Not applicable. Today Akash is secured by its own AKT-staked validators, not by Cosmos Hub stake or Interchain Security. AEP-79 seeks to change this by leaving the sovereign chain, not by joining Cosmos Hub security.
- Chain continuity · Contested. AEP-79 migration documents (draft 0.9) describe freezing new deployments at a cutover height, settling existing leases for 90 days, then halting the chain and reissuing balances on Solana or an Ethereum layer 2 via claims signed with existing keys. The target, governance approval and dates were not settled when reviewed, and no community signal proposal on the migration had been submitted on chain as of 27 September 2026.
- Off chain compute verification · Partial. The chain records orders, bids, leases and escrow payments; deployment manifests go directly to providers and are not stored on-chain. Audited-provider attributes and confidential-compute enclaves help, but the chain does not prove a workload ran as agreed.
- Tps · Unknown. No classified Akash throughput figure was found or recorded. Documentation gives an average block interval of roughly 6 seconds, which is not a capacity measure.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Security and Decentralization
- Gives up
- On-chain scale and capital efficiency. The chain only keeps marketplace bookkeeping while the compute runs on providers it cannot verify; the validator set is capped at 100; blocks stop if more than 1/3 of voting power is offline; and Akash's own migration proposal calls the staking capital needed to secure a sovereign chain inefficient, which is the stated reason it plans to move.Decentralization here refers to running validators and full nodes, not to the compute market, whose provider concentration was not reviewed. Whether providers actually deliver the resources they lease rests on audits, reputation and, for some workloads, hardware enclaves rather than on consensus.
- Full node at home
- Practical at home 3457Akash's node-operator guide lists 4 to 8 CPU cores, 16 to 32 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD (1 TB recommended) for a full node, and its build guide gives a lower minimum (4 cores, 8 GB RAM, 100 GB SSD, 1 TB recommended) and offers an hourly snapshot of about 15 GB compressed. The Mainnet 18 upgrade guide recommends 32 GB RAM, 8 or more cores and 1 TB or more. Validators are told to plan for 128 GB RAM. Figures differ between Akash pages.
- Throughput claims
- No classified figure recorded
Scaling layers
No scaling layer recorded in this profile.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Unknown | No hash-locked or equivalent trust-minimized swap mechanism was found for Akash. IBC token transfers and the AKT-to-ACT burn and mint are not atomic swaps between parties. |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; no feature was found through which a publisher makes data available for others to retrieve and check against a chain-recorded commitment. The oracle module accepts signed AKT/USD prices relayed from Pyth into chain state, a single price feed, which does not count as publication. Absence was not exhaustively verified, so the rule that absence needs a source makes this unknown rather than not present. 9 |
| Light clients | Built into the protocolLimited scope | CometBFT consensus produces the validator-signed commits that IBC light clients check. IBC on Akash uses the on-chain Tendermint light client to verify counterparty chains; relayers carry proofs but do not replace verification. Limited: this light verification serves IBC, where counterparty chains' on-chain light clients check Akash's commits; no user-facing light client for Akash itself was reviewed. 1320 |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Unknown | No payment or state channel layer anchored to Akash was found. Lease charges accrue per block against an on-chain escrow account and are settled on chain when the provider withdraws or the lease closes; that is ordinary on-chain settlement, not a channel. 813 |
| Programmable spending | Partial (layer not stated) Earlier definition | Standard Cosmos SDK tools give some spend conditions beyond a single key: authorization grants that let one account spend or deposit for another within limits, fee grants and vesting accounts. Akash includes CosmWasm, but new contract code can only be uploaded through governance (the live upload permission is set to nobody), and the migration team's code review says CosmWasm exists only to host the Pyth price contracts, with a filter blocking most actions contracts could take. General user-written spending logic is therefore not available. 21332 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; Akash uses standard Cosmos SDK account types including vesting accounts, which time-lock grants rather than letting a sender cancel a payment or an owner recover an account. No feature for reversible or delayed transfers, or for recovery of ordinary accounts, was found. 2 |
| Rollups | None found Earlier definition | No rollup settles to Akash in reviewed sources. The migration draft considers moving Akash's own marketplace onto an existing Ethereum rollup, which would make Akash a user of a rollup, not a host for one. 14 |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | Unknown | The review did not verify absence on Akash, so the rule that absence needs a source makes this unknown rather than not present. Earlier finding: no exchange running on Akash itself was found, and contract uploads require governance approval. AKT trades on Osmosis, a separate chain, and on centralized exchanges. The burn-and-mint specification names an Osmosis 30-minute price average as one oracle input, but the live oracle settings list only Pyth price contracts as sources. 210111331 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | None found | ACT is a protocol-issued compute credit worth one US dollar, but it cannot be transferred between accounts and only pays for leases, so it is not recorded as a stablecoin. Circle's USDC list does not include Akash; USDC arriving over IBC would be a voucher from another chain. 111322 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | None found | ACT's peg is maintained by burning AKT at an oracle price, holding it in a vault, slowing new ACT when the vault's value falls below 95% of outstanding ACT and stopping new ACT below 90%. That resembles an algorithmic design, but ACT is non-transferable and does not circulate, so none is recorded here. 11 |
| Bridges | Native to the protocolIBC token transfers (ICS-20) | Akash runs IBC token transfers only, with the Tendermint light client. The migration rollout names Osmosis and Cosmos Hub as counterparties where AKT vouchers would need to be returned. No other bridge to Akash was verified. Risk: Each IBC path depends on the counterparty chain's validators, correct light-client updates and working relayers; AKT held on another chain is a claim on Akash-side escrow. If the migration proceeds, the draft asks holders to return those vouchers before the cutover snapshot and mentions a redemption process for vouchers left behind and a channel wind-down; those details were not reviewed and are not final. 131520 |
| Block explorers | Established in the ecosystemMintscan, Ping.pub, ATOMScan, ezstaking, Stakeflow, staking-explorer.com, WhisperNode, Crouton Digital | The Cosmos chain registry record for Akash lists twelve explorers, including these eight (the others are Decloud Nodes Lab, Arcturian Tech, Valopers and moon-runners); Akash's own upgrade page links Mintscan for proposals. Listing is not a quality or completeness check, and explorer data is provider-indexed. 61821 |
| Hardware wallets | Unknown | See custody rows: Trezor states it does not support Akash, and Ledger Wallet's Cosmos chain list does not include Akash. A Keplr-with-Ledger path is plausible because Keplr supports Ledger for Cosmos app chains, but no page confirming it for Akash was found, so no hardware-wallet surface is recorded as verified. 232425 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | UnknownSame as native: Unknown | Cannot: Add an Akash account in Ledger Wallet itself; Akash is not among the Cosmos chains in Ledger Wallet's source codeNo Ledger coin page for Akash was found (the address tried returned 404). Keplr, which Akash's self-custody console recommends, supports Ledger's Cosmos app for Cosmos app chains, and Akash uses the same key derivation coin type (118), but signing AKT this way was not confirmed on a page naming Akash. 10182324 |
| Trezor | None foundSame as native: No | Cannot: Manage Akash accounts in Trezor Suite; Trezor's page says it does not currently support Akash NetworkThird-party signing paths for Akash with a Trezor device were not checked. 25 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Akash yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Review overdue Reviewed Sep 27, 2026; next review was due Oct 7, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
-
Akash node v2.1.2 released with fixes for Pyth signer rotation
Akash published node v2.1.2, which GitHub marks as the latest release. Both fixes concern the pyth_vaa contract that checks Pyth price messages. When Pyth replaces its set of router signers, a signed rotation message can now be submitted through the contract's normal message path, and the contract checks it against the current set before moving to the next one; previously the set could only be changed by a manual configuration update. Quorum, signature, ordering, target-chain and replay checks are kept. In the developers' tests the old contract rejected Pyth's genuine rotation message. The pull request says the fix passed a governance proposal on a sandbox network and that no mainnet contract migration had been done when it merged.
- Proposal:no mainnet proposal named; the pull request reports that sandbox proposal 36 passed with the tested contract
- Implementation:pull requests 2081 (merged 2026-09-14) and 2082 (merged 2026-09-23) change the pyth_vaa contract
- Release:released 2026-09-24; marked Latest on GitHub; not a pre-release
- Activation:no mainnet contract migration as of 2026-09-23 per the pull request; later status and validator adoption not checked
Sources: akash-network/node maintainers — Akash node v2.1.2 release (external site) · akash-network/node maintainers — fix(pyth): automate router set rotation via vaa (external site) · akash-network/node maintainers — fix(pyth): accept signed router governance rotations (external site) · akash-network/node maintainers — akash-network/node upgrades/software at tag v2.1.2 (external site) · Akash Network — Hermes price relayer (external site) · akash-network/node maintainers — Release notes from node (Atom feed) (external site)
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Akash published a draft plan to leave its sovereign chain
Migration documents for AEP-79 (draft version 0.9) describe winding down akashnet-2 and re-implementing the marketplace on Solana or on an existing Ethereum layer 2, with balances reissued through claims signed by existing keys. The target is to be chosen at a decision gate that includes a community signal vote; no dates are set.
- Proposal:AEP-79 marked final as a request for proposals; migration documents are a draft
- Implementation:only target-neutral preparation is allowed before the first decision gate; no signal proposal on chain through proposal 341
- Release:None
- Activation:no cutover date set
Sources: akash-network/AEP maintainers — AEP-79 migration docs: rollout and cutover (external site) · akash-network/AEP maintainers — AEP-79 migration docs: executive summary (external site) · akash-network/AEP maintainers — AEP-79 migration docs: target selection (external site) · Akash Network — AEP-79: Akash on Shared Security (external site) · Polkachu public Akash REST node — Most recent governance proposals (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
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Akash announced confidential-compute deployments
Akash announced that tenants can request trusted-execution hardware (Intel TDX or AMD SEV-SNP, with NVIDIA GPUs in confidential mode) so that provider operators cannot read workload memory, under AEP-83. The post says provider capacity is at an early stage and that automatic attestation is still being built.
- Proposal:AEP-83
- Implementation:announced as available with early provider capacity
- Release:Announced
- Activation:not a chain upgrade; availability depends on provider hardware
Source: Akash Network — Confidential Compute Comes to Akash (external site)
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Akash node v2.1.1 released with an escrow fix and a new Pyth price verifier
Akash published node v2.1.1, a patch release on the v2.1 line. It changes the order in which the escrow module saves a closing account: related payments are now stored as closed before the account itself, because a market-module hook could otherwise see a closed account with a still-open payment and fail with an 'account closed' error. It also adds a CosmWasm verifier contract for Pyth's upgraded price messages, which checks signatures from a 3-of-5 quorum of Pyth router signers instead of Wormhole guardians. The release notes name no upgrade height or governance proposal.
- Implementation:escrow fix (pull request 2078, merged 2026-07-07) and Pyth router-signer verifier contract (pull request 2079, merged 2026-07-23)
- Release:released 2026-07-24; not a pre-release
- Activation:no upgrade height or proposal named; applies per node once installed; validator adoption and mainnet deployment of the verifier not checked
Sources: akash-network/node maintainers — Akash node v2.1.1 release (external site) · akash-network/node maintainers — fix(escrow): save closed payments before account hooks (external site) · akash-network/node maintainers — feat(contracts): add pyth pro verifier (external site) · akash-network/node maintainers — akash-network/node upgrades/software at tag v2.1.2 (external site) · Akash Network — Mainnet 18 upgrade guide (v2.1.0) (external site) · Polkachu public Akash REST node — Applied upgrade plan v2.1.0 (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
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Akash node v2.1.0 released for Mainnet 18
Akash released node v2.1.0 for the Mainnet 18 upgrade (proposal 328), scheduled at block 27,230,465 around 11 June 2026. It redesigned the oracle module, which reset stored price history, and added provider-initiated resource reclamation (AEP-82) with a tenant grace period whose default bounds are 1 hour to 30 days.
- Proposal:on-chain proposal 328 passed (voting ended 2026-06-10)
- Implementation:v2.1.0 released; later patches v2.1.1 and v2.1.2 published
- Release:released 2026-06-08
- Activation:applied on chain at height 27,230,465 (estimated 2026-06-11 in Akash's guide; the roadmap marks AEP-82 complete that day)
Sources: akash-network/node maintainers — Akash node v2.1.0 release (external site) · Akash Network — Mainnet 18 upgrade guide (v2.1.0) (external site) · Akash Network — Akash 2026 roadmap (external site) · akash-network/node maintainers — akash-network/node releases (external site) · Polkachu public Akash REST node — Applied upgrade plan v2.1.0 (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
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Burn-mint equilibrium scheduled for Akash Mainnet 17
Akash announced that burn-mint equilibrium (AEP-76) would activate with the Mainnet 17 upgrade, approved as proposal 318, at block 26,063,777 around 23 March 2026. Tenants burn AKT to mint ACT for leases, and providers redeem earned ACT for AKT at the current price. Akash's Q1 report says the upgrade went live on 23 March 2026.
- Proposal:on-chain proposal 318 passed
- Implementation:implemented in the Mainnet 17 upgrade
- Release:Released
- Activation:activated 2026-03-23 per Akash's Q1 2026 report; applied on chain at height 26,063,777
Sources: Akash Network — What Burn-Mint Equilibrium Means for Akash (external site) · Akash Network — Akash Network: Q1 2026 Report (external site) · Akash Network — AEP-76: Burn Mint Equilibrium on Akash (external site) · Polkachu public Akash REST node — Applied upgrade plan v2.0.0 (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Akash through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- AEP-79's first decision gate (choosing Solana or an Ethereum layer 2, with a community signal vote on Akash) had not visibly started: no signal proposal appeared on chain through proposal 341 (submitted 18 September 2026), and the latest migration documents are a draft dated August 2026 with no dates. Off-chain discussion of the gate was not reviewed.
- Akash's own parameter descriptions lag the live chain: the architecture and migration pages give a 14-day unbonding period, and the migration pages give a 2,500 AKT proposal deposit and no downtime slash, while live parameters queried on 27 September 2026 show 21 days, a 1,000 AKT minimum deposit and a 0.01% downtime slash with a 10-minute jail. Parameters can change by governance.
- Hardware guidance differs across Akash pages (8 GB to 32 GB RAM for a full node); the most recent figure is the Mainnet 18 guide's 32 GB recommendation.
- The chain registry still lists v2.0.1 as the recommended node version, although the v2.1.0 upgrade was applied on chain at height 27,230,465 and Akash's releases page shows v2.1.2.
- No Ledger page for Akash was found and a Keplr-with-Ledger signing path for AKT was not confirmed; Ledger custody is left unknown.
- No atomic-swap mechanism, reversible or delayed transfer or recovery feature, or channel layer was found for Akash; absence was not exhaustively verified.
- Provider concentration and how much leased compute is actually delivered could not be verified from reviewed sources.
- Current IBC channel list and counterparties were not enumerated beyond those named in the migration rollout document.
- How few validators together hold more than a third of voting power was not measured in this review; the decentralization emphasis rests on node requirements and the 100-validator cap, not on a measured stake distribution, and should be re-checked against that figure.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- Consensus layer (node architecture) (external site)
- Application layer (node architecture) (external site)
- Node operators: getting started (external site)
- Node build: CLI (external site)
- Running a validator (external site)
- Network upgrades (external site)
- Mainnet 18 upgrade guide (v2.1.0) (external site)
- Providers and leases (external site)
- Hermes price relayer (external site)
- Console Air onboarding (external site)
- AEP-76: Burn Mint Equilibrium on Akash (external site)
- AEP-79: Akash on Shared Security (external site)
- AEP-79 migration docs: current architecture (external site)
- AEP-79 migration docs: target selection (external site)
- AEP-79 migration docs: rollout and cutover (external site)
- AEP-79 migration docs: executive summary (external site)
- akash-network/node releases (external site)
- Akash chain registry record (external site)
- Akash asset list (external site)
- IBC overview (external site)
- Mintscan Akash explorer (external site)
- USDC contract addresses (external site)
- Ledger Wallet Cosmos chain modules (external site)
- Connect your Ledger with Keplr Extension (external site)
- Akash Network wallet (external site)
- What Burn-Mint Equilibrium Means for Akash (external site)
- Live staking parameters (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
- Live slashing parameters (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
- Bonded validator count (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
- Most recent governance proposals (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
- Live oracle parameters (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
- Live CosmWasm upload permissions (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
- Applied upgrade plan v2.1.0 (akashnet-2 chain state) (external site)
Report an error
Found something wrong or out of date? Reporting is free, and every chain goes through the same process. Published corrections appear in the public log.
Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding