VeChain: A Token Breakdown

VeChain is a layer-1 blockchain built for enterprise supply-chain tracking rather than open finance. The project was founded in 2015 by Sunny Lu, formerly chief information officer of Louis Vuitton China, and launched its own blockchain, VeChainThor, in 2018 after starting life as a token on Ethereum. Its core pitch is simple: let businesses record a product's journey on a shared ledger that no single company controls.

A dual-token design built for predictable fees

VeChain supports smart contracts — self-executing programs that live on-chain — but its most distinctive feature is its dual-token model, a design that splits the roles of one cryptocurrency across two. VET is the value and staking token, while VTHO is the gas token — the currency used to pay transaction fees on the network.

The reasoning is aimed squarely at businesses. If a company pays fees in a volatile coin, its operating costs swing with the market. By separating the fee token from the speculative one, VeChain lets enterprises forecast network costs with more confidence. For most of the network's history, simply holding VET generated VTHO automatically at a fixed rate, and a portion of the VTHO spent on fees was destroyed. VET has a fixed total supply of roughly 86.7 billion tokens.

From proof of authority to broader staking

VeChainThor originally ran on proof of authority — a system where a limited set of vetted, publicly identified operators validate transactions instead of anonymous miners or stakers. For years the network relied on 101 authority masternodes, each approved by the VeChain Foundation and required to hold at least 25 million VET.

That changed with the Hayabusa upgrade, part of the project's "Renaissance" roadmap, which went live on mainnet in December 2025. Hayabusa moved the network to a weighted delegated proof of stake model — a system where ordinary token holders can stake VET or delegate it to validators, who compete to produce blocks based on total stake and performance. VTHO generation is now tied to staking rather than passive holding, with overall issuance reduced. The Foundation has also positioned the new tokenomics as aligned with the European Union's MiCA framework for crypto assets.

What the network is used for

VeChain's flagship deployments center on traceability — proving where a product came from and what happened to it along the way:

• Walmart China launched a food traceability platform on VeChainThor in 2019, letting shoppers scan codes to see a product's supply-chain history.
• DNV, the global assurance and certification firm, has been a long-standing partner using the network for digitized audits and certifications.
• BMW tested a pilot called VerifyCar around 2018 to combat odometer fraud, though there have been no substantive public updates since.
• ToolChain, VeChain's no-code platform, lets businesses attach NFC or RFID tags to goods and log data on-chain without blockchain expertise.
• VeBetter, launched in 2024, is a sustainability ecosystem of apps that reward users for verifiable eco-friendly actions.

Trade-offs and genuine concerns

The enterprise blockchain wave largely receded. The late-2010s boom in corporate blockchain pilots has cooled considerably — IBM and Maersk shut down their high-profile TradeLens shipping platform in 2023 — and many of VeChain's announced pilots, like BMW's, appear to have quietly wound down rather than scaled up.

Token value is loosely tied to enterprise usage. Companies can use ToolChain while paying in ordinary currency, and VTHO fees are deliberately cheap. Heavy enterprise activity therefore does not automatically translate into demand for VET, a disconnect critics have long highlighted.

Centralization legacy. Proof of authority gave the Foundation significant control over who validated the chain. Hayabusa broadens participation, but the validator set is still relatively small and the Foundation remains influential.

Risks

VET is highly volatile, and its price history includes drawdowns of more than 90 percent from its 2021 peak. Regulatory treatment of staking rewards and utility tokens remains unsettled in many countries. The project also faces competition from other chains courting real-world asset and supply-chain use cases, and its fortunes are closely tied to the Foundation's execution.

In summary

VeChain is one of the longest-running attempts to apply blockchain to supply chains, with a thoughtful dual-token design and at least a few verifiable enterprise deployments. Its 2025 shift to delegated proof of stake opened the network to everyday stakers and modernized its tokenomics. Even so, the link between enterprise adoption and token value remains weak, and the broader enterprise blockchain narrative has yet to recover. This article is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice.

Sources

• VeChain's Renaissance: Why Hayabusa Matters — VeChain Official
• Dual-Token Economic Model — VeChain Docs
• VeChain (VET) — CoinGecko