Alephium Launches PoWFi Bringing Liquid Staking to PoW

Neuchâtel, SWITZERLAND, September 23rd, 2026

Alephium, the sharded Layer-1 Proof-of-Work blockchain, has officially launched Powfi, its core DeFi application, on mainnet. This milestone marks the activation of “Phase Two: Aligned Economics”, introducing foundational liquidity and staking layers designed to strengthen ALPH utility and create a more connected DeFi ecosystem on Alephium.

Purpose-built for Alephium’s native sUTXO model, Powfi combines a high-performance Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker (CLMM) DEX and liquid staking through xALPH. Together, these components introduce new primitives for liquidity, capital efficiency, and ALPH utility across the ecosystem.

A New Liquidity Layer for ALPH

Powfi’s CLMM introduces concentrated liquidity to Alephium, allowing liquidity providers to allocate capital within specific price ranges and enabling more efficient on-chain trading markets. Its initial foundational market, ALPH x USDT, creates an on-chain liquidity venue for ALPH that can compete for trading flow alongside ALPH markets on centralized exchanges including Bitget, MEXC, and Gate.

Through the Alephium Bridge, this also creates a new on-chain relationship between ALPH x USDT markets across Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and Alephium, connecting liquidity across Uniswap, PancakeSwap, and Powfi. This gives ALPH a more connected market structure across multiple ecosystems, with Powfi providing the Alephium-side liquidity layer, and the Alephium Bridge enabling token flows between these 3 chains.

Liquid Staking Through xALPH

The second foundational layer is xALPH, Powfi’s liquid staking primitive.

Users can now stake ALPH and receive xALPH, a liquid representation of their staked ALPH that can remain usable across DeFi. Instead of choosing between staking ALPH and using it as DeFi capital, xALPH enables staked ALPH to remain liquid and composable.

This creates a foundation for future integrations including yield strategies, lending, collateralized applications, and other DeFi use cases across the Alephium ecosystem.

“Powfi is designed to serve as a trusted cornerstone of Alephium’s DeFi ecosystem,” said Maud Bannwart, Alephium COO. “It lowers the barrier to entry for DeFi and ALPH utility while providing composable primitives that other applications can integrate with and build upon. The introduction of liquid staking via xALPH is an important foundational building block for the Alephium ecosystem to grow together in true alignment.”

From DeFi Application to Ecosystem Infrastructure

Powfi is designed not only as a consumer-facing DeFi application, but also as infrastructure that other participants in the Alephium ecosystem can build on.

Through its White Label infrastructure, third-party businesses can integrate ALPH staking and xALPH directly into their own products and services. As an initial pilot, ASIC manufacturer Goldshell (via Goldshell Stake) and DXPool have integrated Powfi’s White Label staking solution and will make ALPH staking available to their miners (more details coming soon).

This introduces a B2B2C distribution model for xALPH, allowing liquid staking to reach ALPH users through existing businesses and platforms rather than relying solely on direct DeFi adoption.

The same infrastructure opens the door for institutional and professional liquidity providers to participate in Alephium’s DeFi markets through Powfi’s CLMM. Concentrated liquidity gives larger LPs the ability to deploy capital strategically around defined price ranges, creating a framework that can accommodate more sophisticated liquidity strategies as market depth develops.

Powfi therefore provides both the on-chain primitives and the infrastructure needed to expand ALPH DeFi through individual users, businesses, and larger liquidity providers.

Launch Incentives

To boost liquidity and participation, Powfi will activate two initial incentive campaigns.

The ALPH x USDT farming campaign has an initial target of $200,000 in liquidity, with rewards equivalent to a 15% APY at that target level.

Liquidity must be two-sided and in range to qualify, while the campaign does not offer a fixed APY. If liquidity remains below the $200,000 target, the same monthly reward allocation is distributed across less liquidity, creating the potential for significantly higher APYs for early liquidity providers.

The xALPH staking campaign has an initial target of 15% of circulating ALPH being staked, representing approximately 20.5 million ALPH. At that participation level, the campaign targets a 5% APY.

As with the farming campaign, this is not a fixed APY. If the amount of ALPH staked remains below the target, the same reward allocation is distributed across less staked ALPH, creating higher potential APYs for early participants.

Both campaigns will be re-evaluated monthly, allowing reward allocations and target participation levels to be adjusted according to actual participation and market conditions, while still maintaining sustainable incentives. Other farming pairs will also be announced at a later date, once a sufficient amount of TVL and ALPH staking has been achieved.

Aligning Protocol Activity With ALPH

Powfi also introduces a mechanism designed to connect protocol activity directly with ALPH. A share of Powfi’s protocol fees will be used to buy back ALPH. The purchased ALPH will then be split, with 50% burned and 50% distributed to stakers.

As activity grows, this creates a direct relationship between the use of Powfi and ALPH. Trading activity generates fees, fees contribute to ALPH buybacks, and the resulting ALPH is either removed from circulation through burns or distributed to those securing the network through staking.

Building the Next Phase of ALPH DeFi

Powfi’s mainnet launch is a foundation, not a finish line. With core liquidity and liquid staking infrastructure now in place, the next phase is about enabling more of the Alephium ecosystem to grow around it. That means supporting the launch and expansion of community-built applications such as Linx, Aura, Factor, and many more, while opening the door to new integrations, tokenized assets, liquidity providers, businesses, and institutional participants.

This will happen step by step, as liquidity, adoption, and infrastructure mature. The goal is not to build everything at once, but to create the foundations that allow more participants to build, connect, and grow together, strengthening Alephium’s DeFi ecosystem one layer at a time.

Powfi is live on the Alephium mainnet at www.powfi.alephium.org.

This is only the beginning.

About Alephium

Alephium is a scalable Layer 1 blockchain that merges the security of Bitcoin’s PoW with the programmability of Ethereum. Utilizing the BlockFlow sharding algorithm, Alephium achieves over 20,000 transactions per second while maintaining a single-chain user experience. It is the first project to successfully scale the UTXO model for high-performance DeFi. With Powfi now live, it delivers concentrated liquidity and is the first PoW L1 to implement liquid staking.

Website: www.alephium.org