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Zug, Switzerland – Alephium, the only scalable Layer 1 blockchain powered by Proof of Work and native sharding, will activate its long-awaited Danube upgrade on July 15, 2025. The release marks a major milestone in Alephium’s roadmap, bringing faster block times, seedless onboarding, and a simplified user experience.
Danube introduces a series of innovations designed to enhance Web3 usability without sacrificing decentralization or security.
“Danube is the moment everything clicks,” said Maud Bannwart, COO of Alephium. “We’re not just improving UX, we’re delivering a Web2-grade experience natively on a decentralized, energy-efficient Proof of Work chain.”
What to Expect from Danube
The Danube upgrade includes several technical improvements aimed at both developers and end-users:
- Faster Block Time: Block times will drop to 8 seconds, doubling Alephium’s throughput to 2 blocks per second and bringing confirmation speeds in line with top Proof of Stake chains.
- Higher Throughput: With optimizations to its BlockFlow consensus, Alephium now supports over 20,000 transactions per second (TPS) and up to 3x faster node synchronization.
- Invisible Sharding: The introduction of Groupless Addresses eliminates user-facing shard logic, making Alephium the first chain to deliver seamless, scalable sharding without added complexity.
- Passkey Onboarding: Danube adds support for Passkeys, allowing users to log in with Face ID, Touch ID, or YubiKey. Seed phrases become optional, lowering barriers for mainstream adoption.
- Chained Transactions: Smart contracts can now reuse assets across multiple function calls in a single transaction, streamlining complex flows like token swaps or multi-step interactions.
- Improved Developer Tooling: New virtual machine capabilities and simplified logic (e.g., I256 bitwise operations, auto-handling of dust and deposits) make smart contract development easier and more efficient.
Alephium team says these upgrades will allow dApps to feel more like Web2 products: intuitive, fast, and frictionless, while still benefiting from the decentralization and security of a Proof of Work network.
Why It Matters
Danube is Alephium’s biggest step yet toward fulfilling what it calls “the Web3 we were promised”, one where performance and decentralization coexist.
With the scalability of sharding, programmability of smart contracts, and the robustness of the UTXO model, Alephium is staking its claim as a credible alternative to both Proof of Stake Layer 1s and Layer 2 rollups.
The upgrade arrives at a time when discussions around L2 fragmentation, account abstraction, and stateless design are gaining momentum. Alephium offers a different path: delivering those concepts natively on Layer 1, without the complexity of rollups or sidechains.
Key Date and Upgrade Instructions
- Mainnet Upgrade Date: July 15 at 12:00 GMT+02:00
- Node Operators: A new node version will be released ahead of the upgrade. Operators will need to update to this version before July 15 to remain in sync with the network.
- Download link: https://github.com/alephium/alephium/releases/latest
Official upgrade instructions can be found here: https://docs.alephium.org/integration/danube-upgrade/
Looking Ahead
Post-Danube, the Alephium team plans to focus on latency improvements, expanded smart contract capabilities, and highlighting real-world use cases that showcase its new architecture.
With the second-highest TVL among Proof of Work chains, Alephium sees Danube as the launchpad for the next phase of growth in its developer and user ecosystem.
“Web3 was supposed to be better. With Danube, it finally is,” the team said in a statement.
About Alephium
Alephium is a sharded Layer 1 blockchain that combines the security of the UTXO model with smart contract support and high throughput. Built from scratch using its own virtual machine and consensus protocol, Alephium is designed to bring scalability, simplicity, and decentralization to the next generation of Web3 apps.
More Information
🌐 https://alephium.org
📖Danube upgrade details
📩 press@alephium.org
🐦 @alephium
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