State of the Machine Economy: 2025

Rise of the Robots

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That’s 2025 in a sentence. The robots are here, from 1X’s humanoid butlers to entire dark factories in China — dark because they don’t keep the lights on. They’re fully autonomous, they don’t need lights. So yes, tomorrow is today. We’re now living in the future. 

And on peaq, this future belongs to you. This year, the Machine Economy saw massive growth across a wide variety of verticals, but even more importantly, it saw an abundance of world-first launches that put its core tenets into practice. In other words, peaq’s vision is coming to life — and if you’re reading this, you’re still early.

See peaq’s co-founder Leonard Dorlöchter unveil peaq’s vision for the rise of robots at Korea Blockchain Week:

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A peaq at the stats

Before we dive into the biggest events of the year, let’s quickly go over some of the key stats and metrics that describe the first calendar year of the Machine Economy. As of the publication date, peaq:

• Has processed 174M+ transactions
• Is home to 3.35M+ machine addresses and 2.67M+ human wallets
• Handles from 70,000 to 120,000 machine transactions per day

Additionally, MachineX, the world’s first DEX for the Machine Economy, has accumulated almost $60M in trading volume since its launch in June.

Find more stats and figures on our Dune page — we’re working on additional dashboards, slated for release in January, which would share more light on peaq’s onchain economy.

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The World’s First Tokenized Machine is Live

Now, the first one of many world’s firsts this year. In the Machine Economy, you can earn from autonomous machines creating real-world value — and the first one of them is up and running. Built by Kanaya AI and tokenized with DualMint, the automated robofarm in Hong Kong went live in November, and sold out swiftly. Furthermore, it has already produced its first yield and paid off the first rewards to its holders. The farm is projected to deliver an APY of 18% to those who minted the 630 tokens representing rows of smart seed beds on its racks. More tokenized machines are coming up — sign up for the newsletter to not miss the next one.

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The Machine Economy Free Zone in the UAE

In another world’s first, peaq partnered with Pulsar Group to launch the Machine Economy Free Zone in the UAE — the first-ever dedicated sandbox environment for the Machine Economy. The Free Zone was unveiled in June, combining regulation, machine and infrastructure deployment, research, and investment in one place. It’s a space for founders and policymakers to test, deploy, and scale new ideas for how humans and machines can build a future that works for all humans — and one day, for conscious machines too. 

The announcement followed the Machine Economy Days peaq and Pulsar organized in the UAE in spring 2025, bringing together builders, enterprises, and government decision-makers. Check out the videos below for the highlights.

In October, the Machine Economy Free Zone made another major stride with a memorandum of understanding between peaq and the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, Dubai’s official regulator for digital assets. As part of the MoU, VARA recognized the Free Zone; the document also set the stage for further initiatives related to building the Machine Economy in the country: 

• It facilitates clear and open communications between Machine Economy builders and Dubai officials and regulators. 
• Supports Machine Economy builders aiming for a compliant launch in Dubai.
• Bolsters VARA’s efforts in regulating the nascent Machine Economy with data and builder insights.
• Further establishes Dubai as the top destination for teams building Robotics, DePIN, and Machine RWA projects.

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peaq’s Web3 Robotics SDK Went Live

2025 was the year when the world realized: Robots aren’t coming, they’re here. With robotics as one of the core pillars of the Machine Economy, it was only natural that peaq spearheaded the push for community-powered robotics. Launched in September, peaq’s Robotics software development kit (SDK) was a major milestone in that regard. The SDK enables robotics builders to make their robots Machine Economy-ready with a few lines of code, connecting them with peaq and outfitting them with peaq IDs. Learn more about it from in this overview below.

The SDK is already compatible with ROS 2, the world’s most popular open-source robotics operating system, and its range of supported stacks and models will only grow with future updates. Learn more about the SDK here or start building with it now — and check out the video below to see what the SDK paves the way to.  

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All the More Ways to Join the Machine Economy

PEAQ token, the lifeblood of the Machine Economy on peaq, is now available on even more platforms than before — and that includes both traditional exchanges and a few more innovative platforms. PEAQ got listed on 7 new exchanges, including, most notably, Kraken and Binance Alpha. The token is now also live on the Lucid Labs app. Lucid pioneers vested emission offerings (VEOs) that let venture funds and the community buy locked tokens at a discount. PEAQ VEOs see locked tokens from early investors go on offer, with a part of the proceeds going towards liquidity on MachineX. All of them so far sold out fast — keep an eye out on peaq’s social channels to not miss the next one.  

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The Adoption is Growing

At the end of 2024, peaq was home to 43,700 onchain devices and roughly 100,000 human wallets. Now, though, both stats have skyrocketed, growing manyfold in a clear sign of growing adoption and momentum. 

Today, peaq is home to 3.35M+ onchain machines — that includes smartphones running Silencio and MapMetrics, computers with Teneo and DATS software, SkyX weather stations, and more. These devices have generated 45.7+ million transactions so far, and the number will only grow as more and more machines come onchain, and more real-world apps on peaq reach their maturity stage.

The number of human wallets as of today is 2.67M+ — another dramatic rise compared to last year’s results. With the peaq app now live, peaq will become even more user-centric, and the strong growth so far gives the project good momentum for the next year.

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Meet the New Builders

This year, 14 new builder teams officially joined the peaqosystem, bringing the total number of apps on peaq to 60+, counting both those that have been announced and those that currently remain in stealth-mode. With the rise of robots as a major theme of the year, many of the teams joining peaq are focused on this flourishing sector, positioning peaq as the ultimate place for bringing robots onchain. Here are just some of the highlights:

• Auki is building the eyes and ears for robots, enabling them to confidently navigate and interact with the physical world.
• OVERTheReality is building the largest-ever 3D map of the world, unlocking spatial computation for robots and AI and powering augmented reality experiences.
• Homebrew Robotics is building an open-source robotics network that will incentivize developers to share their data and models, accelerating the industry’s growth.
• CodecFlow leverages machine vision to enable robots and AI to interact with interfaces meant for humans, unlocking next-level automation.
• DualMint tokenizes cashflows from real-world robots doing real-world jobs, such as the automated smart farm in Hong Kong — first of the Boring Robots it tokenized on peaq.
• Newcoin is building an AI agent ecosystem where agents can learn from their interactions and people can earn by launching agents that others are using.
• Alpha AI is using drones to conduct autonomous surveys of buildings and structures for easier maintenance work in smart cities.

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A look ahead

In the coming year, peaq’s biggest resolution is simple: to go from world’s first to world’s best.

We’ll be concentrating our efforts on delivering stellar products that empower you to earn in the Machine Economy.

At the center of it all will be the peaq app — set up your account now and join the Machine Economy while you’re still early.