Building on Success: A Foundation for the Future

What an incredible first quarter it's been for Taiko! From launching our DAO to strategic partnerships, hosting industry-defining events, expanding our ecosystem and introducing new community initiatives, Q1 2025 has set the stage for continued growth and innovation throughout the year.

Let's look at what we've accomplished so far in 2025 and the momentum we're building for the future.

Q1 2025 Highlights:

• Launched the Taiko DAO on Hekla Testnet, empowering community governance.

• Partnered with OpenZeppelin to advance the next generation of Based Rollups.

• Successfully deployed the Pacaya upgrade with initial support for based preconfirmations.

• Increased ZK coverage to over 30%, achieving 100% for Taiko-proposed blocks.

• Launched Taiko Takeoff, Taiko Status and Trailblazers Season 4 to foster community and ecosystem growth.

• Hosted the inaugural Based Rollup Summit in San Francisco featuring Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

• TAIKO listed on Revolut, opening access to 45 million users.

Governance Evolution

Taiko DAO Launch and Security Council Announcement

In January 2025, we proudly took a significant step toward decentralization by deploying the Taiko DAO on Hekla Testnet. Collaborating with Aragon, we've designed a governance system that balances security, efficiency, and community participation through a multi-threshold multisig system with optimistic governance and community veto power.

Following this development, we announced the Taiko Security Council in early April. This council plays a crucial role in the DAO structure, with responsibilities including proposal creation and approval, managing standard and emergency multisigs, maintaining protocol security, and serving as gatekeepers for community proposals. The Council comprises eight distinguished members from across the ecosystem, including research organizations, security firms, public goods initiatives, and protocol experts.

This governance evolution represents a fundamental shift toward community-driven decision-making while maintaining the robust security and responsiveness needed for protocol management.

Strategic Partnerships

OpenZeppelin Collaboration

January also marked the announcement of our strategic partnership with OpenZeppelin to develop a minimal, modular Based rollup protocol with different design elements. This collaboration aims to create a foundation for new Based Rollups, focusing on improved governance, neutral sequencing, optimized fee mechanisms, and enhanced cross-chain messaging.

One design element that we called Proposer-Prover Separation (PPS) is already being adopted and will be part of Taiko's Shasta upgrade.

Preconfirmation Partners

In Q1, we also established key partnerships with Nethermind, Gattaca, and Chainbound to develop preconfirmation solutions. These collaborations are critical to our goal of delivering faster transaction confirmations while maintaining Taiko's decentralized nature. Each partner brings unique expertise to complement and enhance the preconfirmation implementation.

Technical Advancements

Pacaya Protocol Upgrade

Late March saw the successful deployment of the Pacaya upgrade on Hekla Testnet, a major step towards 2-second user experiences through based preconfirmations. The initial phase includes whitelist-based preconfirmations and enhanced protocol stability, paving the way for a future permissionless mainnet upgrade.

ZK Coverage Expansion

Throughout Q1, we made substantial progress in our ZK implementation. Starting at 5% ZK coverage in February, we gradually increased this to over 30% of total blocks by the end of March. Most significantly, we achieved 100% ZK coverage of our own proposed blocks, marking a major advancement toward our goal of transitioning to a complete ZK-Rollup.

Block Aggregation Innovation

March also saw a noteworthy technical achievement when a user successfully aggregated 150 blocks in a single transaction—demonstrating the scalability and efficiency of our protocol design. This kind of innovation showcases the potential for further optimization and performance improvements in the Taiko ecosystem.

Pre-confirmation Testnet

Building on the Pacaya protocol upgrade, our Q1 preconfirmation testnet efforts focused on implementation and partner integration. We updated our client and node software to support the Pacaya hardfork and successfully upgraded the Hekla testnet in March. In parallel, we collaborated with Gattaca, Chainbound, and Nethermind to support the development of their respective preconfirmation sidecar software. Development for all sidecars has now been completed, and we are currently in the testing phase, working closely with each partner to resolve bugs based on testing feedback. Our goal is to officially launch the preconfirmation testnet on Hekla by the end of April.

Gwyneth Innovation

The new ULTRA TX design makes it possible to achieve Gwyneth’s vision of a unified chain in a very practical and efficient way without requiring any changes to the Ethereum protocol. Block builders can seamlessly mix transactions of L1 and Gwyneth L2 chains, offering synchronous composability with the fast confirmation times of based preconfs. It also achieves blob and proof aggregation by design, making the system extremely efficient.

Network Growth and Innovation

Taiko Alethia & Gwyneth: Dual Paths to Ethereum Scalability

In February, we reaffirmed our commitment to Ethereum's vision by renaming our mainnet to Taiko Alethia. Derived from ancient Greek philosophy, "Alethia" represents truth and the pursuit of disclosure which perfectly aligns with our goal of building a permissionless, decentralized, censorship-resistant network.

This was accompanied by a website upgrade enhancing user understanding. Simultaneously, Taiko Gwyneth, our synchronously composable based rollup, saw progress with successful Uniswap L1-L2 liquidity sharing demos and ULTRA TX implementation, advancing developer adoption.

Network Metrics

Since mainnet launch in 2024, Taiko has processed approximately 700 million transactions, averaging 2 million daily transactions in Q1 2025, demonstrating the robustness and growing adoption of our infrastructure.

Community and Ecosystem

Taiko Takeoff

February saw the launch of Taiko Takeoff, our initiative to support projects building on Taiko by offering marketing, funding, networking, and technical assistance, along with airdrop opportunities for TAIKO holders. Avalon Labs was the first featured project and as part of this partnership, Avalon featured a heavily incentivized TAIKO pool, offering a 134% APY to anyone who supplied TAIKO tokens.

Taiko Status

To complement Taiko Takeoff, we introduced Taiko Status in February, an indicator based on TAIKO tokens held on the network. With five levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Based), this system rewards holders with enhanced community access, voting privileges, and improved airdrop allocation opportunities.

Trailblazers Season 4

March saw the launch of Trailblazers Season 4, our flagship community program with a 4.5 million TAIKO token reward pool. Key updates include the split of Liquidity Royale into two tracks, integration with Taiko Status, adjusted XP, and expanded badge opportunities.

Ecosystem Growth

Taiko continues to strengthen its ecosystem ahead of its upcoming UX improvements. Taiko’s TVL now exceeds $220M, ranking it as the 29th largest chain by DeFiLlama. This growth is driven by tier-1 DeFi protocols (Curve Finance, Etherfi), gaming innovations (Intraverse setting usage records), and sustained community engagement. Native projects like UnagiSwap (by the DODO team), TakoTako (by Lendle), and Brigade Multiverse (by Taco Studios) are preparing to launch their tokens on Taiko through the Takeoff acceleration program.

Funding and Development

Taiko x DoraHacks Grant Factory Hackathon

In February, we concluded our Grant Factory Hackathon with DoraHacks, which featured the largest number of MACI-powered votes to date. The event, featuring three tracks and over $20,000 in prizes (plus a special Goldsky bounty), identified promising projects and fostered innovation within our developer ecosystem.

$25M Grant Fund

March saw the announcement of our 2025 Grant Fund, allocating $25 million to support innovative projects and community builders. The program targets developers, researchers, and builders working on groundbreaking ideas in DeFi, AI, RWA, SocialFi, Gaming, and beyond.

Lifestyle App/Wallet RFP

To bridge real-world actions with blockchain rewards, we launched an RFP for a Taiko Lifestyle App/Wallet in March. This initiative aims to gamify everyday activities by allowing users to:

• Earn XP for real-life achievements in fitness, education, gaming, and more

• Convert XP into TAIKO and ecosystem tokens

• Redeem rewards for merchandise, protein bars, books, event tickets, and other perks

Exchange Expansion

Revolut Integration

Capping off a strong quarter, Taiko expanded its reach through integration with Revolut, Europe's leading financial super-app. This strategic move:

• Opens access to 45 million users across 50 countries

• Validates the importance of Layer 2 Based Rollup solutions

• Provides a convenient on-ramp for new users

• Maximizes liquidity for TAIKO holders

• Helps push TAIKO to a global audience

Events and Community Engagement

Q1 2025 saw Taiko take center stage at several industry-defining events, further cementing our leadership in the Ethereum scaling ecosystem.

Consensus Hong Kong & ETH Denver

During February, we represented the based rollup ecosystem at Consensus Hong Kong, and maintained a strong presence at ETH Denver, one of the premier Ethereum community events of the year. Our team showcased based rollup technology, engaged with developers, participated in panel discussions, and hosted workshops on synchronous composability featuring Gwyneth's approach to seamless L1-L2 interactions.

Based Rollup Summit San Francisco

In March, we hosted the inaugural Based Rollup Summit, bringing together thought leaders including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. The event showcased discussions on decentralized scaling, live preconfirmation technology demonstrations, and the future vision for Ethereum scaling via based rollups, generating significant social media engagement with millions of views across platforms.

Educational Content

To further community understanding, we launched the "Taiko Explained" video series, with the inaugural episode focused on block building in Taiko as a based rollup, explaining how our approach differs from traditional rollups and benefits the broader Ethereum ecosystem.

News Coverage

This quarter, we have also grown awareness of Taiko outside of the community with an uptick in media coverage. With over 20 dedicated items of media coverage in publications such as The Block, The Rollup, Yahoo Finance, and Cointelegraph, we are ensuring interest in Taiko’s developments and involvement in key ecosystem conversations.

Looking Ahead

Following the severe market downturn and current volatility, we made the difficult decision to downsize our team to ensure Taiko's long-term sustainability. While this was not a decision taken lightly, we remain firmly focused on our core mission and the following key initiatives for 2025:

Preconfirmations

Our top priority remains implementing Based preconfirmations to provide users with confirmation speeds that feel instantaneous for practical use cases, with implementation targeted for the coming weeks/months. As demonstrated at the Based Rollup Summit, this technology will dramatically improve user experience while maintaining decentralization.

DAO Implementation

Following our testnet deployment, we're moving forward with our mainnet DAO launch, further decentralizing Taiko's governance.

Gwyneth Development

Work continues on Taiko Gwyneth, our synchronously composable booster rollup, with devnet/testnet launches planned for later this year. Building on Q1 achievements with ULTRA TX and L1-L2 composability demos, we're focused on expanding developer tooling and refining synchronous composability use cases. Gwyneth’s goal is to make Ethereum feel like a single chain, and we’re building the tech and tools to make this possible. Users and devs won’t have to care which chain they are on using our unified RPC gateway that allows querying chain data from multiple chains. Developers will only have to deploy and update their application once.

Community Growth

With Trailblazers Season 4, Taiko Takeoff, and Taiko Status all in full swing, we're creating more opportunities for community participation and rewards.

Upcoming Events

The first Based Rollup Summit was a hit, bringing together the brightest minds of Ethereum for a day of ideas and fruitful conversations. In Q2, we have even more in store for the entire Ethereum community. More information will be shared in due time—and the basedness will continue.

Thank You to Our Community

None of these achievements would be possible without our incredible community of developers, users, and supporters. Your enthusiasm, feedback, and participation have been instrumental in making Taiko what it is today.

As the first Based Rollup, we remain committed to scaling Ethereum without compromising on being permissionless, decentralized, and open. Together, we're building a more accessible and efficient future for Ethereum.

Here's to an even more remarkable rest of 2025! 🥁✨

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