Dev Update: Althea L1 Unlock!
As September 8th 2025 Althea L1 governance has voted to enable transfers. This makes ALTHEA token transferable and allows for EVM transactions (which require ALTHEA) to pay gas.
With the chain now unlocked it's time to deploy the technology that we've been working on, including the iFi DEX and new firmware for the Althea telecom routing and billing protocol and integrate Liquid Infrastructure to Althea L1, enabling revenue on chain.
The iFi DEX
The iFi DEX is the foundation of DeFi on Althea L1, allowing users and machines to onboard and interact with Althea L1 and other protocols, such as Liquid Infrastructure, on the chain smoothly and automatically.
The DEX itself has been deployed and adopted by governance. The creation of new pools, and swapping on existing ones is permissionless with settings such as fees directly controlled by governance vote.
Currently v0.5 of Althea.link is deployed, with governance and staking functionality designed to operate while the chain was not yet unlocked. Version 1.0 of Althea.link, which includes bridging, LP, and swap pages has not yet been deployed for mainnet. You can check out v1.0 of Althea.link on the testnet at test.althea.link
Right now we're working on v1.5 of Althea.link, which dramatically simplifies the internal data handling and resolves some of the data dependency loops that can make v1.0 less responsive than we would like. Version 1.5 is expected to be the next version deployed live to Althea.link.
We're excited to take community feedback on what features we should be looking at in v2.0. Here are some that have already been proposed.
* More in depth trading view
* Chain activity and fees page
Althea Firmware
We've been working on a lot of new features for the Althea Firmware (for embedded devices like routers in telecom networks) in preparation for Althea L1. The most substantial feature is appliance exits which allows new networks to onboard to Althea L1 entirely out of the box, instead of requiring significant technical knowledge to setup an exit.
Now that the chain is unlocked and various constants like the stablecoin addresses and DEX addresses are known we can move forward with deploying the exit root of trust on Althea L1 and preparing firmware with out of the box configuration for Althea L1.
We hope to have images ready, tested, and distributed by the end of the month.
Althea L1 Relayer
We've talked about universal permit tx support before - this is an ecosystem of tools on Althea L1 that allows anyone to interact with the chain without having to already hold ALTHEA. This is essential for a chain with many machine users and real world applications, as acquiring some native token dust for fees can often be complicated so Althea L1 has an ecosystem wide solution.
That solution is the Althea L1 relayer. This program, which anyone can run to permissionlessly, relays gassless transactions, paying some ALTHEA in exchange for another token amount of slightly greater value.
These initial relayer tool is very straightforward and lacks fun features, like auto swap for the reward token back to ALTEHA, but is functionally complete. Looking forward to more polish and extra features in the next version.
Next up
If you're interested in more updates, have questions, or just want to interact with the Althea L1 community drop by the forum and discord!