Akash Network teases its biggest upgrade yet for March 23, signaling major improvements to its decentralized cloud and AI ecosystem.
Author: Arushi Garg
20th March, 2026: Akash Network has announced the Burn-Mint Equilibrium (BME) hard fork, its biggest upgrade in network history. The upgrade will introduce a permanent burn mechanism on all AKT tokens used for compute workloads while adding full WASM smart contract support to boost programmability and developer tools. This major overhaul aims to create sustainable tokenomics as demand for decentralized cloud and AI infrastructure continues to surge.
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Caden Meis
@CadenMeis
@akashnet @gregosuri $AKT I wonder if people actually understand how big this is, and what it means not just for the price of the coin but for the growth of the company!
Every compute transaction on Akash will now burn $AKT. Burn-Mint Equilibrium makes $AKT essential to every deployment while maintaining USD pricing and pegged payments for tenants and providers. The biggest upgrade in Akash Network's history is scheduled for March 23rd at 14:00
10:12 PM·Mar 19, 2026
PT003
@PT003__
@akashnet Burn tied to actual usage is powerful. If demand grows, supply dynamics change fast 👀
Every compute transaction on Akash will now burn $AKT. Burn-Mint Equilibrium makes $AKT essential to every deployment while maintaining USD pricing and pegged payments for tenants and providers. The biggest upgrade in Akash Network's history is scheduled for March 23rd at 14:00
07:31 PM·Mar 19, 2026
Alex Napheys
@anapheys
@akashnet Akash Console needs an embedded wallet so normal people can use Akash without having crypto. https://t.co/rZjboAFuxz
@akashnet To make this proposal truly succeed post-upgrade, an embedded wallet in Akash Console needs to be prioritized ASAP. Now with simple "credits" on the platform -> including an in-console embedded wallet option would SOLVE onboarding friction for normal / non-crypto users and drive
07:05 PM·Mar 19, 2026
Steady attention without excessive speculation.
Akash Network is planning its biggest upgrade ever, called the Burn-Mint Equilibrium (BME) hard fork. This upgrade is meant to make the AKT token more useful and sustainable, especially as more people use the network for decentralized cloud and AI computing. The upgrade will burn AKT tokens used for workloads, reducing supply over time, and add WASM smart contracts, giving developers more tools to build on the network.
Akash has already done big upgrades before, like Mainnet 14 in October 2025, which fixed long-standing technical issues, and Mainnet 16 in March 2026. The market reacted positively to the news. Just the proposal for BME caused AKT prices to jump 14–24% in 24 hours, with trading activity rising sharply as investors liked the focus on token scarcity and real-world usage.
How Akash’s latest upgrades evolved from maintenance improvements to a major tokenomics and developer unlock
The upgrade introduces Akash Compute Token (ACT), a new stable USD-pegged token used exclusively for compute payments. Tenants will burn AKT to mint ACT when deploying workloads, while providers receive ACT and can later burn it to claim AKT, directly linking real network usage to token demand.Validators must upgrade to software version 2.0.0 ahead of activation at block height 26,063,777. Governance Proposal 318 passed with overwhelming support and the team has seeded a 300,000 AKT volatility buffer from the community pool to ensure stability during market swings.
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