NEUCHÂTEL, Switzerland, March 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Alephium, the sharded Layer-1 Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain, has officially launched Powfi, its Core dApp, on Testnet. This significant milestone signals the activation of Phase Two: Aligned Economics, a strategic shift that transforms the network from a high-performance infrastructure layer into a self-sustaining, fee-generating economic ecosystem.
Powfi is designed to go beyond the usual parameters of a decentralized exchange, acting as a protocol-owned benchmark to showcase the full power of Alephium’s unique technology. Built from the ground up on its own sUTXO (stateful Unspent Transaction Output) model, the dApp consists of a Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker Decentralized Exchange (CLMM DEX) that aims to deliver institutional-grade security and capital efficiency.
Unlike many projects that favor rapid prototyping, Alephium’s development team spent several months in a “Paved with Production” phase, ensuring that every line of code was battle-tested before any public exposure. Key milestones achieved during this period include the implementation of the fully functional CLMM & CPMM DEX and core staking contracts in Ralph (Alephium’s purpose-built programming language).
Powfi establishes a vertical integration model and “Aligned Ecosystem Loop”, intended to anchor Alephium’s capital formation. As the network’s primary liquidity venue, the dApp routes economic value directly back to the native asset. DEX transaction fees will be used for $ALPH buybacks, staking rewards, and burns. This design ensures that as trading activity increases, long term participants (stakers) are rewarded.
A core objective of Phase Two is to solve the structural fragmentation often seen in Layer 1 blockchains, where application-level success fails to benefit the base-layer token. Alephium’s upcoming composable staking layer will act as a unifying economic anchor. While Powfi’s DEX is the inaugural contributor to this model, other revenue streams will progressively be added to further unify Alephium protocol activity with ALPH.
Alephium COO, Maud Bannwart, explains that “Powfi is designed to serve as a trusted, open-source cornerstone of Alephium’s DeFi ecosystem. It lowers the barrier to entry into DeFi and ALPH utility, while providing a composable base layer that other ecosystem applications can integrate with and build upon. More than just a DeFi product, it’s a foundational building block that empowers other applications to integrate, extend, and grow alongside it.”
Beyond its consumer-facing features, Powfi is engineered as a fully open-source infrastructure supported by comprehensive developer SDKs. By providing accessible pricing, routing, and liquidity layers, the dApp functions as a ‘DeFi primitive.’ This allows third-party developers to integrate Powfi’s deep liquidity directly into their own applications, accelerating the growth of the broader Alephium ecosystem through shared alignment.
The Testnet, which began on February 17th, will focus on auditing the backend and smart contract logic. Importantly, the team noted that the full UI/UX experience is being reserved for the Mainnet release later this year, along with new branding and ideas.
To ensure the highest standards of security, Alephium is inviting the community to participate in the ‘bug hunt’ phase of the Testnet. Technical contributors and users are encouraged to stress-test the smart contracts and backend logic, with rewards for identified vulnerabilities and constructive ideas. This collaborative auditing process, managed via Discord, is a vital step in the transition toward a resilient Mainnet environment.
Powfi can be accessed at https://powfi.alephium.org
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.
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