Akash Mainnet 17 Upgrade

This proposal upgrades the Akash Network to version v2.0.0 at block height 26063777, estimated to occur on March 23rd, 2026 at ~14:00 UTC.

Note: Block times have high variance. Please monitor the chain for more precise timing estimates.

Upgrade Features

By voting YES on this proposal, you approve the following changes:

1. Burn-Mint Equilibrium (BME) Module

Introduces implementation of AEP-76 as x/bme module, enabling the Akash Compute Token (ACT) — a stablecoin-like utility token backed by AKT collateral. Key capabilities:

• AKT-to-ACT minting — Users burn AKT to mint ACT at oracle-determined prices, with configurable spread
• ACT-to-AKT redemption — Users burn ACT to reclaim AKT, maintaining two-way convertibility
• Collateral ratio circuit breaker — Automatic protection with configurable warning and halt thresholds to safeguard the system during market volatility
• Vault funding — Community or governance-funded AKT buffer to maintain collateral ratio health
• Epoch-based settlement — Pending mint/burn records are processed in EndBlocker with deterministic ordering and configurable batch sizes

2. Governance-Controlled Smart Contracts (CosmWasm)

Introduces implementation of AEP-78 which enables the CosmWasm runtime on Akash mainnet with strict governance controls:

• Code upload restricted to governance — Only governance proposals can store new contract code on-chain, preventing unauthorized contract deployment
• Governance-administered contracts — The governance module address is set as the admin for all deployed contracts, ensuring community control over contract upgrades and migrations
• Custom Akash query bindings — Contracts can query Akash-specific state (oracle parameters, guardian sets) via custom querier plugins

3. Price Oracle Module

Introduces implmenentation of AEP-80 as x/oracle module for decentralized price feeds with aggregation and staleness protection:

• Multi-source price aggregation — Accepts prices from multiple authorized smart contract sources with configurable minimum source requirements
• TWAP calculation — Computes Time-Weighted Average Price over a configurable block window for smooth, manipulation-resistant pricing
• Price health monitoring — Tracks source count, deviation between sources, and staleness to determine feed reliability
• Deviation guardrails — Configurable maximum deviation between sources (basis points) to reject outlier prices
• Governance-managed sources — Authorized price sources are added/removed via governance parameter updates

4. PythNet AKT/USD Price Feed via Smart Contracts

Implements AEP-81.

Deploys two CosmWasm smart contracts during the upgrade to bring Pyth Network's AKT/USD price data on-chain:

• Wormhole contract — Verifies VAA (Verified Action Approval) signatures from Wormhole's 19-validator guardian network (13/19 quorum). Guardian addresses are managed via Akash governance (stored in x/oracle params), not Wormhole governance, giving the Akash community full control over trust assumptions
• Pyth contract — Receives raw VAAs from the Hermes relay service, verifies them via the Wormhole contract, parses Pyth price attestations, and submits validated AKT/USD prices to x/oracle
• Automated relay — An off-chain Hermes client daemon fetches prices from Pyth's Hermes API and submits them on-chain at configurable intervals
• AKT/USD price feed registered as the authorized oracle source, providing the BME module with reliable pricing for collateral ratio calculations

5. Seed BME Vault

Seed the BME vault with a 300,000 AKT volatility buffer from community pool. This covers rare fast‑down moves without taxing leases.

6. Migrate existing deployments to use ACT as compute currency

The objects below that contain price data will be migrated to ACT denom.

• deployment groups in states active and paused
• orders in states open and active
• bids in states open and active
• leases in states active and insuficcient_funds
• escrow accounts in states open and overdrawn

The migration will be carried out in two phases based on the currency used:

1. axlUSDC (ibc/170C677610AC31DF0904FFE09CD3B5C657492170E7E52372E48756B71E56F2F1) - this migration will be performed within the upgrade. All existing price and payment data will be converted to ACT denom in 1:1 ratio by burning axlUSDC and minting uACT
2. uakt - this migration will be carried out in two steps. uact will be minted based on oracle price of the akt:
   • create a list of deployments using uact denom and store in temporary state within x/deployment module
   • migrate objects from AKT to ACT from within EndBlocker of the x/deployment module. it will take some time after upgrade completes and depends on number of active deployments with uakt at the time of the upgrade

For deposits that use authz grants the chain will create a new grant on behalf of granter to grantee with spend limit set to total number of granted deposits for existing deployments for given grantee.

Additional Changes

• Epochs module (x/epochs) — Adds epoch-based scheduling infrastructure
• ACT denom metadata — Registers the Akash Compute Token denom (uact, mact, act) with on-chain bank metadata
• Take module removed — The legacy x/take module is removed and its store deleted; take rate logic has been consolidated

Binary Installation

Option 1: Precompiled Binaries (Recommended)

This upgrade links an info.json file that references the correct release with pre-built binaries.

Option 2: Self-Compiled Binaries

Requirements:

Ensure the following dependencies are installed:

• direnv
• golang >= 1.26
• docker
• make
• git
• jq
• unzip
• wget
• curl
• npm
• readlink
• lz4

Build Instructions:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/akash-network/node.git
# Navigate to the directory
cd node

# Checkout the release tag
git checkout v2.0.0

# Build the binary
make release

Binaries will be located in .cache/goreleaser/main. Select the directory matching your OS and architecture.

Hardware Requirements

This is a major upgrade that adds new modules (oracle, bme, wasm, epochs), removes the take module, deploys two CosmWasm contracts, and performs store migrations. It is recommended for all validators use at least 128GB of RAM with swap enabled.

Upgrade Process

Using Cosmovisor (Recommended)

Validators and RPCs supervised by Cosmovisor with DAEMON_ALLOW_DOWNLOAD_BINARIES=true will automatically download upgrade binaries from the upgrade info file.

Manual Upgrade

If not using Cosmovisor:

1. Wait for your node to halt at the upgrade height
2. Install the new binary
3. Restart your node

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Upgrade Timing Details

• Target Block Height: 26063777

Block times vary significantly. Monitor the countdown on Mintscan for accurate timing.

During the upgrade, there will be no on-chain activity on the network.

Emergency Coordination

In the event of issues during the upgrade, please coordinate via the validators channel in Discord to reach emergency consensus and mitigate problems quickly.

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Additional Resources

• Akash Network GitHub
• Block Explorer