VeChain & BeInCrypto AMA 2025: NFT Staking Revolution, Real-World Utility & The Next Big Leap
VeChain just dropped bombshells in their latest AMA—here's what matters.
NFT Staking Isn't Just Hype Anymore
Forget JPEGs collecting dust. VeChain's staking mechanics now turn digital assets into yield-generating machines—finally bridging DeFi and NFTs without the usual vaporware promises.
Real Utility or Bust
Supply chain tracking? Carbon credits? VeChain's 2025 roadmap reads like a corporate ESG checklist, but with blockchain that actually works. Take that, legacy finance paper-pushers.
The 2025 Playbook
Partnerships you haven't heard of yet. Enterprise adoption metrics that might—just might—make Bitcoin maxis sweat. All while TradFi still struggles to spell 'smart contract.'
VeChain's playing chess while others recycle 2017 ICO pitches. Whether that translates to price action? Well, even blockchain can't fix Wall Street's addiction to irrationality.
AMA Session With VeChain
Being decentralized is hard. Not everyone can run a node. The real question is: how to eliminate the technical barrier for ordinary users to be part of protocol security to ensure real decentralization. That’s the NFT mechanism of StarGate — as long as you know how to “operate” an NFT, you can participate in staking from your wallet very easily. On top of that, NFT holders will receive protocol rewards directly, rather than through some middleman. Users don’t need to worry about the rewards or security of assets staked.
So far so good! There are more than 10,000 NFTs minted or migrated, a total of 5.4B VET staked, and the number is still growing. Check out https://app.stargate.vechain.org for the most updated info. The community loves that as a novel and inclusive way to enable real decentralization in general. Meanwhile, the validator onboarding is in very good progress so far — a staking platform from the VeChain community (Redeno.org) has onboarded 125M+ as new validators, and it’s planned to be 250M–350M range as the first target. We are pushing for more staking for sure.
Sure. There were 42 applications by last week, and more to come. In terms of user growth, Mugshot.eco is No.1 with 1.8M users now. Mugshot is the DApp to incentivize people to use reusable mugs for coffee or tea instead of disposable cups. Very simple use case: take a photo of your coffee or tea, and then the AI will decide the reward based on your submission.
GreenCart.ai is No.2 with more than 1.5M users as well — it incentivizes users to do sustainable shopping or shop for sustainable goods.
There are also other interesting examples — EvEarn.io is integrated with Tesla systems already. Users can log in to EvEarn with their Tesla account, and the charging data will be automatically loaded to the smart contract to incentivize people by charging their car.
And not mentioning BYB — VeBetter dApp branded by the UFC, made for UFC fans and fans of fitness (yes, you are right, THE UFC).
One more fun one: ScoopUp.vet — to motivate people to pick up the dog poop while walking the dogs. It’s a real application. And you gotta do KYD — Know Your Dog — process to start.
Institution onboarding is one of our top priorities now. There are three types of institutional engagement ongoing:
Additionally, some partners, such as Franklin Templeton, are being onboarded with multiple roles, including Benji token integrations, soon.
Last but not least, we have Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as our go-to-market partner to build the ecosystem together and onboard more enterprise applications and partnerships.
MiCAR is the most comprehensive crypto regulation so far in the main jurisdictions of the world, covering 27 countries in Europe. And VET/VTHO was confirmed in MiCAR through the Central Bank of Ireland early this year. It opens up the door to the mainstream, including institutional investors, partners, and enterprise adoption.
We are also working on expanding more classes in MiCAR (covering B3TR token, custodian for wallets) for mass adoption.
In terms of the other jurisdictions, the U.S. is one of the priorities for sure, and we’re monitoring the regulatory developments. And we’ve got the best advisor to help on this — Dana White, president of UFC.
We are also going to explore more jurisdictions like the Middle East and Asia step-by-step.
In a nutshell, VeChain has achieved MiCAR compliance in Europe, which is always considered an “over-regulated” jurisdiction — it will help us to ease the process to achieve the others and get to 100%.
We have clear strategies in VeChain for mass adoption. Firstly, the VeChain Renaissance is for sure our base: it’s just halfway there. Hayabusa, as the 2nd stage, is ongoing, which is even more critical than Galactica (the first stage), with some critical upgrades:
- Validator target: 600M VET
- Lower VTHO issuance significantly
- Many other technical upgrades for scaling and security
Secondly, we’ll continue to boost the growth of VeBetter.com. We’re aiming to achieve 100 apps and 20M users as the first milestone.
Third, compliance work — to go to more jurisdictions, including MiCAR for B3TR, and get more readiness for mass adoption.
Last but not least, institutional onboarding remains a main focus.
Questions by the Community
2025 is critical. I just mentioned the changes I believe are happening globally. Also, the regulation clarity across the world — MiCAR in the EU, Genesis Act in the U.S., and others — really opens the door to the mainstream.
To answer this, I’d like to share feedback I got from one of my friends who attended a digital assets seminar organized by Goldman Sachs a few weeks ago:
It proves my theory.
Constant deliveries with such longevity. I was called by my friends — VeChain is a ‘dinosaur coin’ — has been in the crypto space “forever,” haha.
In my view, technology is always evolving, and iteration is the main theme. VeChain, as one of the pioneers in the crypto space, has always been delivering. And such longevity has shown a proven record.
VeChain has iterated three times with successive WHITE papers (2017, 2019, and 2023), and we are still delivering the iterations and upgrades.
As a veteran in the crypto space (starting from 2013), I have always believed decentralization sits at the top of crypto principles. But being decentralized is hard — in PoW, mining pools or miner manufacturers could be centralized. In PoS, staking services can be centralized.
The obstacle is very simple — not everyone is capable of setting up and running a node.
The NFT mechanism of StarGate eliminates the technical barriers. As long as you know how to operate an NFT, you can stake from your wallet easily.
NFT holders receive protocol rewards directly — no middleman. You don’t have to worry about rewards or the security of staked assets.
We introduced delegators represented by NFTs to participate in decentralization. And rewards are pretty juicy — check out https://redeno.org/simulator to run your simulation.
Institutions can be investors, validators, delegators, and service providers. More than a year ago, we set up a new team called “Institution Growth,” led by Johnny Garcia, who has DEEP experience in TradFi. His last job was BTC ETF Product Manager at Bitwise.
Johnny is now leading the team to engage and onboard institutions. I’m sure you’ve seen the news about VeChain partnering with BitGo, KeyRock and Franklin Templeton — and we’re just getting started.
Our 8-year survival with constant delivery tells the story. VeChain has been here through multiple cycles and is still delivering. We’ve iterated through three whitepapers and kept building.
I believe the TradFi and crypto worlds are meeting in the middle. There are so many opportunities.
Conclusion
This AMA gave the community a closer look at VeChain’s steady progress and bold vision — from NFT-based staking and sustainability DApps to enterprise-grade compliance and institutional adoption.
Want to hear even more from Sunny Lu — in his own words, jokes, and energy?
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“The future is bright — and we’re just getting started.”
