BlockDAG Keynote 3: From a $208M Presale to a Mainnet-Ready Platform in Just 12 Months

The Presale That Caught Everyone Off Guard

Most presales talk a big game. BlockDAG focused on execution. With no help from venture capital firms, the team raised more than $208 million in under 10 months. That kind of backing doesn’t happen without trust. People bought into a vision that was clear from the start: build something secure, scalable, and useful.

Antony Turner, the CEO, described it best:

“This isn’t just capital—it’s fuel.” Fuel for what? Building real tools, growing a team, and locking in collaborations, like its recent brand moves with Inter Milan and UFC.

That money is being used to build a complete ecosystem, not a one-off app or a shallow demo. It’s about longevity, not quick wins.

The Tech That Keeps Driving the Hype

The real engine behind BlockDAG isn’t the presale—it’s the tech. At its core is a hybrid system that blends DAG for high-speed throughput and Proof-of-Work to keep things secure. CTO Jeremy Harkness put it simply: “We’re mixing the best features of two systems to create something faster and safer.”

That combo allows for many transactions to go through at once—and at a much lower cost. BlockDAG is targeting 2,000 TPS at launch and aims to scale that up to 15,000 within two years.

It’s not just talk either. Beta Testnet V1 is live and includes faster transaction tools, a revamped explorer, and an easy token creation platform that doesn’t require any coding. The first X30 and X100 ASIC miners are also shipping, and the team expects around 10,000 of these devices to be running by the time the mainnet launches.

And let’s not forget the mobile crowd. The X1 Miner App and Tap Miner Game have already onboarded over a million users. More than 750,000 people mine daily on their phones, and 400,000+ are active in the Telegram-based Tap Miner. It’s mining, reimagined as a casual experience.

BlockDAG’s Mainnet: Security, Speed, and a Full Set of Tools

So what’s waiting on the other side of launch day? Quite a bit. BlockDAG is coming to mainnet with everything users expect: at least 2,000 TPS to start, full EVM compatibility, DeFi features like swaps, staking, and bridges, and a native setup for governance voting. All of this is being built directly into Layer 1.

But the plans stretch beyond the launch. Grants and hackathons are already being planned to help developers build within the ecosystem. A bug bounty program is also coming soon to ensure code reliability. Meanwhile, the BlockDAG Academy is opening doors for users who want to learn how to build or contribute to the network.

The team wants to support over 1,000 dApps by 2026, covering everything from finance and gaming to digital identity and healthcare. And they’re taking the steps to make that happen.

On the security side, BlockDAG is taking no chances. Certik and Halborn have reviewed critical components. Multi-Party Computation (MPC) helps manage treasury access, while parallel validation through DAG reduces the risk of slowdowns and attacks. As Chief Security Officer Dr. Youssef Khaoulaj said, “Security isn’t a separate module—it’s built into the entire system.”

Final Word: Proof Over Promises

In crypto, it’s easy to promise the moon. It’s much harder to build something people can use. BlockDAG seems to be doing just that.

In just under a year, it’s gone from unknown presale to a project with real tools, a live testnet, a growing user base, and a launch date in sight. With the hybrid tech, easy mining tools, and strong focus on security and usability, BlockDAG is looking more like a full platform than a typical token project.

As 2025 approaches, this may be one of the few projects that delivers on what it promised.