Foundation Built, Future Ignited.

What a standout quarter for Taiko! We deployed Pacaya on mainnet,  unveiled pre-confirmation on testnet, launched our DAO, and secured a listing on Binance. Q2 2025 has significantly deepened Taiko’s technical capabilities, governance structures, and ecosystem footprint, fortifying our path toward an Ethereum-equivalent, based rollup.

Let's look at what we've accomplished so far in Q2 2025 and the momentum we're building for the future:

Q2 2025 Highlights:

• Pacaya Hardfork Live: Activated on Alethia mainnet, introducing batch-based proofs and multiproving, crucial for pre-confirmation advancements.

• Based Pre-Confirmations on Hekla: Launched on testnet, achieving ~2 sec finality, a key step towards better user experience on mainnet.

• TAIKO Listed on Binance Alpha & Futures: TAIKO/USDT trading launched, distributing 1,495,000 TAIKO rewards, enhancing market presence.

• Taiko DAO Launch on Mainnet: Activated Security Council and governance proposals, enhancing decentralized decision-making.

• Trailblazers Season 5 Launched: 3M TAIKO rewards, including 700k for Liquidity Royale.

• Fabric & Commit-Boost Partnership: Collaborated on validator tooling and pre-confirmation standards, strengthening infrastructure.

• Taiko & Nethermind Partnership: Enhanced rollup performance and decentralization through Ethereum client expertise.

Onchain Activity

Taiko's growth has been nothing short of exponential, with over 847 million transactions processed in the past 12 months, including more than 150 million done in Q2. The network has seen tremendous user activity, evidenced by more than 2.5 million unique wallet addresses created and an average of 289,000 daily active users.

Pacaya Hardfork Live

The Pacaya Hardfork was activated on the Alethia mainnet, introducing batch-based proofs and multiproving. Batch-based proofs group multiple transactions into a single proof, reducing computational overhead, while multiproving allows parallel proof generation, enhancing efficiency. This upgrade is crucial for pre-confirmations, improving proof system efficiency and supporting faster transaction processing.

Based pre-confirmations were rolled out on the Hekla testnet, achieving super fast transaction finality of approximately 2 seconds. Pre-confirmations provide early assurance of block inclusion, reducing wait times from Ethereum's ~12-second block time.

DAO

The DAO had a soft launch on May 1, 2025, with the Security Council operational and proposal infrastructure in place. A full mainnet launch will follow once based pre-confirmations are live, at which point the community will gain the ability to submit proposals directly for Security Council review. This marks a key step toward transparent, community-driven governance, where stakeholders play an active role in shaping the protocol's future.

TAIKO is officially listed on Binance Futures, bringing deeper liquidity and greater access to the Taiko ecosystem. This listing enables users to trade TAIKO perpetual contracts with leverage, marking a major milestone in expanding Taiko’s global presence.

Taiko collaborated with Fabric and Commit-Boost to develop validator tooling and standards for based pre-confirmations. This partnership focuses on creating interoperable protocols, ensuring pre-confirmations are secure and efficient. Standardization enhances ecosystem cohesion, reducing fragmentation and fostering adoption.

The collaboration focuses on enhancing protocol performance, sequencing, and execution layers. By leveraging Nethermind’s deep Ethereum client expertise, this partnership strengthens the technical foundation of Taiko’s based rollup design, driving scalability, decentralization, and broader developer adoption.

Taiko TakeOff

Taiko’s Takeoff program has already proven its value with real traction. Avalon has completed three successful rounds of distribution directly to the Taiko community, rewarding early supporters and showcasing how builders can meaningfully engage with our ecosystem.

And this is just the beginning, we have a growing pipeline of projects preparing to take flight through Takeoff. More launches, more rewards, and more ways for the community to get involved are coming very soon.

DeFi

• Axion Finance Campaign - a collaborative campaign with Axion offered over $8,000 in rewards through a DeFi-powered adventure experience that blended finance and gamification.

• Bitget Wallet Support - Taiko reaffirmed its mission as a public good by supporting the Crypto for Everyone initiative, bringing crypto access to a broader user base via wallet integrations and education.

AI, Tooling & Infrastructure

• AI-Powered Oracles by Rivalz - launched artificial intelligence-powered oracles on Taiko, offering developers dynamic, trustless data sources for building intelligent decentralized applications.

• Hashlock - joined the Taiko Takeoff initiative to provide security services such as audits and infrastructure consulting for early-stage projects within the ecosystem.

• Quack AI Passport Drop - All holders of Taiko Status were eligible to claim an AI-generated identity passport via Quack AI, showcasing integrations between on-chain credentials and AI tooling.

Others

• Brigade Multiverse - launched its Alpha Season on July 1. In this pixel-style game, players can farm, build, and compete for a share of the Taiko prize pool, combining GameFi and community-driven creativity.

• D’Cent Wallet Campaign - a collaborative campaign with D’Cent Wallet brought smooth mobile-native interactions and reward opportunities to wallet users, lowering the barrier for mainstream participation.

• Streamlined Bridging via Interport - USDC and USDT can now be bridged or swapped to Taiko with one click through Interport, simplifying the user journey and improving onboarding UX for first-time DeFi users.

In Q2, Taiko continued to strengthen one of the most vibrant and fast-growing communities in Web3. Surpassing 1 million combined followers across X and Discord, the community remained central to the evolution of the protocol.

The Trailblazers program entered its fifth season, engaging hundreds of thousands of users through interactive quests, on-chain tasks, and gamified learning experiences.

Alongside Trailblazers, monthly Galxe campaigns highlighted key ecosystem projects, like Pheasant Network, PoPP, Symbiosis, TakoTako, and others,  which served as an effective tool for onboarding and expanding Taiko’s audience.

Together, these initiatives were instrumental in driving community participation, incentivizing engagement, and broadening awareness of the Taiko ecosystem.

Community education and accessibility remained a top priority.

In Q2, the team consistently delivered new educational blog posts and published explainer videos on YouTube to support user understanding and developer onboarding.

Taiko’s global visibility grew rapidly through its presence at major blockchain events. Over the Q2, the team participated in:

• EthereumAsia

• The Boundless House of ZK

• ETHBratislava

• Hong Kong Web3 Festival

• LBank x AI

In Q2, Taiko led panels, hosted workshops, and connected with the community at major events, strengthening its role as both a leading Layer 2 and a respected voice in the Ethereum ecosystem.

On July 1st, Taiko hosted the second Based Rollup Summit, this time in Cannes, bringing together over 500 participants from across the Ethereum and broader Web3 ecosystem. The summit featured a strong lineup of thought leaders, including Justin Drake, Tomasz K. Stańczak, Ryan Kim (Hashed), Shiv Sankar (Boundless), Alon Muroch (SSV Labs), and many others.

The event focused on the future of rollups, sequencing, and the principles of decentralization. Through panels, keynotes, and informal discussions, the summit reinforced Taiko’s vision for open research, protocol neutrality, and collaboration across the L2 space.

More than just a conference, the Cannes summit marked another step in establishing Taiko as a leading force in the rollup movement, not only building infrastructure but helping shape its future.

And yes, the Based Rollup Summit will return again. Stay based.

The past quarter has been incredible, but in many ways, Taiko is just getting started. As we move through the rest of 2025 and beyond, we remain focused on a few core priorities that will shape the future of the protocol:

Our top priority is activating based pre-confirmations on mainnet, which are set to go live this summer. This upgrade will bring users near-instant transaction confirmations for everyday use cases without compromising on decentralization or neutrality.

With the Taiko DAO now live, we're preparing for a hard launch of DAO governance following the activation of pre-confirmations. This next phase will shift decision-making power over upgrades, protocol parameters, and treasury management fully to the community. On-chain voting and open proposal discussions will play a growing role as we move toward deeper decentralization.

Work continues on Taiko Gwyneth, our synchronously composable booster rollup. After successful demos and ULTRA TX implementation in Q1-Q2, booster functionality was successfully implemented. Gwyneth support was added to foundry to make it easy to test and deploy cross chain apps. The next steps include launching a developer-focused devnet, collecting feedback, and preparing for a public testnet later this year.

Our incredible community continues to be the heart of Taiko. Programs like Trailblazers, Taiko Takeoff, and Taiko Status will evolve with new challenges, rewards, and opportunities for participation.

We’re committed to creating even more pathways for people to contribute and be recognized—whether you're a developer, researcher, content creator, or simply an active user.

Looking ahead, you’ll find us at major Ethereum events including KBW, DevConnect, TOKEN20249, ETHGlobal hackathons, and more community-driven gatherings as we expand our footprint across the ecosystem.

None of this progress would be possible without you - our global community of developers, users, and supporters. Your feedback, energy, and belief in the mission have powered everything we’ve built so far.

Whether you were testing on early testnets, helping shape governance, or simply spreading the word, thank you for being part of this journey. We’re just getting started.

Explore open positions on our job board.

Get the latest from Taiko:

• Website: https://taiko.xyz.

• Discord: https://discord.gg/taikoxyz.

• GitHub: https://github.com/taikoxyz.

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/taikoxyz.

• Community forum: https://community.taiko.xyz.

• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@taikoxyz.

• Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/taikoxyz.

Contribute to Taiko on GitHub and earn a GitPOAP! You will also be featured as a contributor on our README. Get started with the contributing manual.