Aventus Cloud: From Proposal to Production

The year in one sentence. A year ago, Aventus Cloud was a proposal. Today, it is running.

On 2 October 2025, the Aventus community approved one of the most significant changes in the history of the network.

The proposal established Aventus Cloud as a community-operated infrastructure layer, created the framework for the Aventus DAO to manage its development and growth, introduced a new node network, and set out a model designed to bring more appchains, more utility and more economic activity into the Aventus ecosystem.

At the time, Aventus Cloud existed as an architecture, an economic model and a plan.

One year later, it is a live network.

Aventus Cloud went live on mainnet in April 2026. More than 2,500 nodes are now live, the node software is available across macOS, Windows, Linux and Docker, AVT rewards are being distributed to eligible operators, and the network can provide decentralised oracle services, summary verification and custom business logic execution.

The path from proposal to production was not a straight line.

Some of our original assumptions worked. Others did not.

We changed the node economics when the original model proved less compelling to early operators than we wanted. We restructured the DAO when our operating cost was too high for the revenue environment we were actually experiencing. We spent considerable time pursuing the original appchain strategy and learned that the economics of supporting very early-stage projects were more difficult than they appeared on paper.

Those experiences changed our approach.

This report is an account of what we set out to do, what we delivered, what did not develop as expected, what we changed, and where Aventus goes from here.

One year in perspective

On 2 October 2025, the community approved the proposal titled Aventus Cloud & Aventus DAO Launch to Drive Ecosystem Growth. The proposal was designed to expand AVT utility, create a community-operated compute network and establish a formal DAO structure to steward the ecosystem.

The original model envisaged a network capable of scaling to 40,000 nodes, with operators rewarded for providing decentralised compute rather than simply holding a token.

The principle behind it remains unchanged today: useful work should create useful utility.

Aventus Cloud allows independently operated nodes to perform and verify work requested by connected systems. Instead of every project having to build its own decentralised infrastructure network, Aventus Cloud provides a shared compute layer that can be used across applications and blockchains.

That remains the opportunity we are building towards. What changed during the first year was our understanding of the best way to get there.

Useful work should create useful utility.

First, we had to make node ownership work

One of the earliest lessons came from the economics of node ownership.

The original model was deliberately conservative. AVT emissions increased according to the number of active nodes, which meant that when the network was small, the reward pool was also smaller. Optional staking was comparatively powerful, with every 2,000 AVT adding another unit of reward weight. Appchain rewards were expected to come from an ongoing share of fees generated by connected appchains.

There was logic behind each of those decisions. In practice, the combination created a problem.

At the stage when Aventus most needed to attract node operators, early rewards were less compelling than we wanted them to be. At the same time, increasing reward weight through staking could be economically more attractive than acquiring additional nodes.

Node adoption was not progressing at the rate we wanted. We could have continued with the original model and hoped that demand eventually caught up. We chose to change it.

On 24 March 2026, a new governance proposal, the Aventus Cloud Tokenomics Enhancement, was put forward. It subsequently passed, with participation reaching 192% of the required quorum threshold.

Three fundamental changes followed.

First, the variable emissions curve was replaced with a flat Year 1 pool of 14,625 AVT per day, distributed among eligible active nodes according to reward weight and availability.

Second, the staking requirement for an additional unit of reward weight increased from 2,000 AVT to 10,000 AVT, making additional node ownership considerably more competitive relative to staking alone.

Third, the original continuing 5% fee-share model was replaced with an upfront appchain token allocation model. Under the current model, connected appchains can allocate between 3% and 5% of their token supply to operators, distributed over three years.

These were significant changes. They were also exactly what community governance is supposed to allow.

The Cloud framework explicitly recognised that economic parameters could be changed through governance. We found a weakness in the original model, proposed an alternative, put it to the community and changed course after approval.

That experience set the tone for much of the year that followed.

From proposal to a live network

Aventus Cloud reached mainnet in April 2026.

The Founding Tranche of 2,000 node licences sold out during the initial launch phase, creating the first operator base for the network. Our management accounts recognise $978,950 of Founding Tranche node income during 2026.

As at October 2026, more than 2,500 nodes are live and the network is designed to scale towards 40,000.

An Aventus Cloud node can run on an ordinary computer. The application handles its heartbeat process automatically while it is online, and node operators can monitor uptime, reward weight and rewards through the dashboard.

The network now supports three core categories of decentralised work.

• Summary verification: Aventus Cloud nodes can independently check state summaries before those summaries are accepted elsewhere. Aventus already uses this mechanism to verify the Aventus Parachain's weekly summary to Ethereum.
• Decentralised oracle services: connected applications can ask questions that require information from outside their own blockchain and obtain a consensus response from independent nodes.
• Custom business logic execution: applications can distribute specific computation across Aventus Cloud rather than placing critical logic behind a single centralised service.

Aventus Cloud is not intended to be infrastructure for one application. It is designed as reusable infrastructure that many systems can share.

Node sales: what we learned about the market

Node sales also taught us an important lesson about how we report network growth.

A significant part of our distribution strategy involved specialist node sellers capable of reaching larger buyers, institutions and professional operator communities. That created a different sales cycle from a conventional retail transaction.

A node seller might, for example, be allocated a block of 1,000 licences with the expectation that those licences would be placed over the following six or eight weeks. During that period, the allocation was commercially active, but it was not yet the same thing as 1,000 settled sales.

At the end of the allocation period, the seller might have successfully placed 300 licences and return the remainder.

This created a reporting challenge.

An allocation was not necessarily a sale. A commitment was not necessarily settled cash. A settled licence was not necessarily activated. And an activated licence was not necessarily a node currently online and submitting heartbeats.

Earlier in the year, we did not always communicate these distinctions clearly enough. That is something we are correcting.

Going forward, node reporting should distinguish clearly between seller allocations, settled licence sales, activated licences and live nodes.

This provides the community with a much more meaningful picture of network growth and removes the ambiguity that can arise when large reseller allocations are still in progress.

It is also one of the reasons we chose to produce this comprehensive annual review rather than publish interim numbers that could later require material revision.

Reporting standard. Allocation. Settlement. Activation. Live operation. Each tells us something different.

The appchain strategy: what real business development taught us

The original Aventus Cloud strategy placed considerable emphasis on bringing new appchains into the ecosystem. We pursued that strategy seriously.

Over the course of the year, we spoke with multiple founders and project teams about building on Aventus. Several conversations progressed beyond initial discussions, with at least one reaching a signed memorandum of understanding.

The challenge was not simply finding teams interested in the technology. The challenge was project maturity.

Many of the teams most open to building a new appchain were also at the earliest stage of their development. Some were still working through funding, tokenomics, product design, white papers, MVP development and go-to-market strategy.

That fundamentally changed the economics for Aventus.

Supporting an idea-stage project could mean months of engineering, product, commercial and strategic support before the project was ready to launch.

Under the appchain token model, receiving up to 5% of a project's future token supply can look attractive on paper. Percentages alone do not create value.

If Aventus spends six months helping a project move from concept towards market readiness, and that project ultimately fails to launch, fails to secure funding or fails to establish meaningful adoption, then a large percentage of its token supply does not compensate the DAO for the resources consumed.

That is an asymmetry we had to address.

It led us to an important conclusion: a smaller interest in a proven ecosystem can provide a clearer economic basis than a larger interest in a project that has yet to prove it can reach market.

This does not mean Aventus is abandoning appchains. It means we are becoming more selective about where we invest our resources.

From incubation to strategic partnerships

Our business development strategy is now evolving towards established projects and reciprocal partnerships.

Rather than measuring success by the number of early-stage projects we can persuade to launch an appchain, we are increasingly focused on relationships where both sides already bring something meaningful to the table.

That can take several forms. Aventus may provide decentralised compute, verification or other technical infrastructure to another ecosystem. A partner may contribute its own technology or services to Aventus. Commercial arrangements may include token allocations, token swaps, joint distribution, technical integration or co-marketing.

For node operators, this approach may provide a clearer basis for evaluating potential rewards than exposure to a token from a project that has yet to launch.

The principle is simple. We want to move from speculative future value towards demonstrable present-day utility.

That standard will increasingly guide how we evaluate potential ecosystem relationships.

A project does not become a good partner simply because it is willing to allocate a large percentage of its token supply. Quality matters. Readiness matters. Execution matters. The ability to create lasting value for Aventus and its community matters.

Building a financially sustainable DAO

The most difficult decisions of the year were not technical. They were operational.

When the DAO began operating under the new model, we inherited a large cost base built around significantly more ambitious revenue expectations.

The original 2026 financial model anticipated approximately $2.64 million in revenue and approximately $2.45 million in operating expenditure.

As the year progressed, it became clear that subsequent node licence sales were developing more slowly than that model assumed.

Continuing to operate at the original cost base would have been irresponsible. We therefore made a series of difficult decisions to restructure the organisation.

Roles were consolidated. External commitments were reviewed. Functions that could be performed by a smaller team were brought together. Several positions were removed.

Sean, our Council Chair, took on a broader range of operational responsibilities that had previously been distributed across multiple roles.

The objective was straightforward: protect the DAO's capital and build an organisation capable of operating for the long term.

The effect was substantial.

Our monthly operating expenditure fell from approximately $177,000 in January to approximately $44,000 in October, a reduction of around 75%.

Product and Technology expenditure fell from approximately $114,000 in January to approximately $28,000 per month by October, as the team and delivery structure were reorganised. Commercial and Marketing expenditure was also progressively reduced as we completed earlier campaigns, tested different agencies and routes to market, and removed recurring costs that were no longer justified.

These were not easy changes. They were necessary ones.

We believe protecting the DAO's ability to continue operating, developing products and supporting the community was more important than preserving an organisational structure designed for revenue assumptions that had changed.

Today, Aventus operates with a considerably leaner cost base and a materially longer runway.

January to October 2026. $177k → $44k monthly operating expenditure.

Financial overview

The figures below are taken from internal management accounts and cover January to October 2026 actuals. November and December forecasts have deliberately been excluded from this report.

They should be read as management reporting rather than audited statutory accounts.

The underlying accounts record approximately $1.39 million of revenue against approximately $1.05 million of operating expenditure through October. These figures do not constitute audited profit and should not be interpreted as such. Final statutory results will also reflect year-end accounting adjustments, balance-sheet items and intercompany reconciliations.

There are several points we believe are more important than the headline numbers.

First, node sales were not our only source of income. Aventus also generated recurring service revenue from existing ecosystem relationships and consulting activity.

Second, Product & Technology remained by far the largest area of expenditure. This is consistent with the purpose for which the DAO was created. The governance framework identifies product and technology, business development, marketing, markets and exchanges, and operations as legitimate uses of DAO funds.

Third, we responded to revenue conditions rather than continuing to spend against an outdated forecast.

By October, our monthly expenditure was approximately one quarter of its January level. That reduction is one of the most important financial outcomes of the year because it materially changed the long-term sustainability of the DAO.

Marketing, distribution and the cost of building a market

Commercial and marketing activity was another area where we tested several approaches.

Selling infrastructure licences at scale requires more than publishing posts from an official account. Larger node sellers wanted confidence that Aventus had the commercial and marketing capability to support their activity.

During the year, we therefore used a combination of internal resources, consultants, agencies, content production and seller-facing support.

Approximately $100,000 of Commercial and Marketing expenditure is recorded in the January to October management accounts. Most of that expenditure was concentrated in the earlier part of the year while different approaches were being tested. By September and October, the recurring external marketing cost reflected in those accounts had been reduced substantially.

Not every experiment became a long-term engagement. That is part of operating a new commercial model.

The important question is whether we keep funding an activity after it becomes clear that its return does not justify the cost. Where it did not, we stopped.

The same principle now applies across the DAO: spend must have a clear reason to exist.

What Aventus Cloud looks like today

Aventus Cloud today is materially different from the network described in the first proposal, but the underlying objective is the same.

The current model provides a fixed 14,625 AVT daily Year 1 reward pool for eligible active nodes.

A standard node has a base reward weight of 1 before any applicable tranche-specific bonus. Every additional 10,000 AVT staked adds another unit of base weight.

Availability continues to matter. Nodes must remain online and submit the required heartbeats to receive their full share of a reward period.

Connected appchains can allocate between 3% and 5% of their token supply to the Aventus Cloud operator network, distributed over three years according to the same weight system.

More than 2,500 nodes are currently live.

Authorised sellers currently list Genesis Tranche node licences at $1,755 each, and the broader network remains designed to scale towards 40,000 nodes.

The result is a model where node ownership is tied directly to operating infrastructure.

A licence alone does not perform useful work. The operator runs the software, stays online, submits heartbeats and contributes to the compute layer.

That distinction remains important to us. Aventus Cloud is intended to reward participation, not passive ownership.

What we would do differently

An annual report should not simply catalogue successes.

There are things we would do differently with the benefit of the last twelve months.

We would have made the distinction between allocated nodes and settled node sales clearer from the beginning.

We would have applied stricter maturity criteria to prospective appchains earlier in the business development process.

We would have challenged some of the original revenue assumptions sooner.

We would have brought the organisation to its current cost base earlier.

And we would have communicated the relationship between these changes more regularly to the community.

At the same time, we believe the willingness to change those things is one of the strongest outcomes of the year.

Governance cannot simply mean voting on an initial plan and then defending that plan regardless of what happens in the real world. It has to mean learning.

The first year of Aventus Cloud gave us considerably more real-world information than we had when the original proposal was written. Our job is to use it.

A leaner DAO, with a clearer focus

The Aventus DAO today is a different organisation from the one that entered this reporting period.

It has a smaller operating team. It has a substantially lower recurring cost base. It has a live decentralised compute product. It has an active global node network. Its tokenomics have been improved through community governance. Its approach to ecosystem growth has become more selective.

Its Council now consists of Sean, Pakman and Joff, bringing together operational, community, commercial and strategic experience.

We have no interest in recreating a large organisation simply for the sake of appearing larger.

The priority is execution.

Every additional cost has to compete against the value of preserving capital for product, distribution, partnerships and long-term growth.

That discipline will continue.

The priority is execution.

The next phase

The first year was primarily about creating the infrastructure. The next phase is about increasing what that infrastructure does.

Our business development focus will increasingly be on established projects where the value exchange can be defined from the outset.

We are exploring relationships where Aventus Cloud can provide decentralised compute, oracle functionality, verification or custom execution, while partner ecosystems can provide technology, distribution, commercial value or token participation to the Aventus community.

This approach gives us far more flexibility than requiring every potential partner to become a new Aventus appchain.

A project may need compute without needing a new blockchain. Another may already have a successful chain but benefit from decentralised verification. Another may have an established token and community with which a reciprocal economic relationship makes sense.

We want Aventus Cloud to become useful to all of them.

The technology has already evolved in this direction. Aventus Cloud can provide its compute layer to Substrate systems, EVM-based systems and other architectures capable of submitting work and reading a result.

That considerably expands the addressable market beyond the original concept of simply onboarding more Aventus appchains.

Creating more tangible value for node operators

We also want the value proposition for node operators to become increasingly tangible.

The tokenomics enhancement was the first major step. The next is increasing the amount of useful economic activity flowing through the network.

Aventus currently holds 1.38 billion tokens from its Truth Network allocation in the treasury.

Our intention is to bring a governance proposal to the community setting out a framework under which those tokens can be used to create additional incentives for Aventus Cloud node operators.

No distribution is being presented as guaranteed until the proposal has been finalised and approved by the community.

The broader principle, however, is important.

We want to move towards a model where prospective operators can evaluate Aventus Cloud based increasingly on things that already exist rather than promises about what might exist later.

That is also why established-project partnerships matter.

A smaller allocation from an established ecosystem with a functioning product, active market and existing community can provide a clearer economic basis than a larger percentage from a project that has yet to reach market.

We are adjusting our strategy accordingly.

Transparency going forward

One purpose of this report is to close the information gap that developed during a year of rapid operational change.

Some of that gap resulted from genuinely difficult reporting conditions around seller allocations and settlements. Some resulted from restructuring. Some resulted from the speed at which the commercial model was changing.

None of those reasons removes our responsibility to communicate clearly with the community.

We therefore intend to improve how we report the network from this point forward.

In particular, future reporting should clearly separate licences allocated to sellers, licences paid and settled, licences activated, and nodes currently live.

Financial reporting should distinguish realised results from budgets and forecasts.

Commercial reporting should distinguish a conversation, an MOU, an integration under development and a live partnership.

Product reporting should distinguish a capability that exists from a workload that is actually operating in production.

Those distinctions matter. They make it easier for the community to judge Aventus based on what is actually happening.

That is the standard we want to set.

One year later

A year ago, Aventus Cloud was a proposal. Today it is running.

That does not mean the job is finished. In many ways, the difficult part begins now.

Building the node network proved that the infrastructure can exist. The next challenge is to make that infrastructure increasingly useful.

That means more workloads. Better partnerships. More reasons to run a node. Stronger AVT utility. Disciplined use of the treasury. And a business development strategy based on measurable value rather than speculative numbers.

We learned a great deal during the first year.

We learned that tokenomics have to work in the real market, not just in a model.

We learned that node distribution through professional sellers creates different reporting challenges from conventional retail sales.

We learned that supporting an early-stage appchain can require far more resources than the headline token allocation suggests.

We learned that maintaining a large team without corresponding revenue is not sustainable.

Most importantly, we acted on those lessons.

We changed the economics. We changed the cost base. We changed how we evaluate prospective ecosystem partners. And we continued building.

Aventus enters its second year with a live product, more than 2,500 live nodes, a much leaner operating model and a clearer understanding of where we believe the opportunity lies.

The original proposal gave us the mandate to build Aventus Cloud.

The first year gave us the experience to understand how it should grow.

Year two is about putting that experience to work.

Reporting basis

This annual review covers the period from October 2025 to October 2026. Financial figures are drawn from Aventus DAO internal management accounts and include January to October 2026 actuals. November and December forecasts are excluded.

Network, tokenomics and product descriptions reflect the Aventus Cloud framework and current operating model as at October 2026. Governance decisions referenced in this report include the Aventus Cloud & Aventus DAO Launch proposal approved on 2 October 2025 and the Aventus Cloud Tokenomics Enhancement proposed on 24 March 2026.

Management account figures are unaudited and may differ from final statutory accounts following year-end adjustments, balance-sheet items and intercompany reconciliations.

Important notice

Aventus Cloud node licences are software licences and are not financial products. Node rewards are variable and are not guaranteed. AVT rewards and partner-token distributions can depend on network activity, operator availability, relative reward weight, connected workloads and other factors. Any future token distribution or material change described as subject to governance will require the applicable community approval before implementation.

Aventus DAO, October 2026