Palo Alto, California, July 24, 2026, Chainwire

The DATA Network has surpassed 100 million data registrations onchain, marking a milestone driven by real network usage and a growing revenue model for real-world AI data. Coinciding with the achievement, Upbit — one of Korea's largest digital asset exchanges — has launched a four-day trading competition for $DATA, a token that has been listed on the exchange since July 8.

Upbit Four-Day $DATA Trading Competition

Upbit is running the event from July 24 through July 27 on its official event page. Over the four days, participants can complete a quiz explaining what $DATA is (available on days one and four), deposit $DATA onto Upbit, and undertake trading missions to climb a leaderboard for top-trader rewards.

The competition is available exclusively on Upbit and only in eligible jurisdictions. It is not available to US persons or residents of OFAC-restricted jurisdictions. Full rules and eligibility details are published on Upbit's official channels.

A Network Built for Real-World AI Data

Following its rebrand from Story to The DATA Foundation, the organization focused the entire DATA Network on a single purpose: sourcing, proving, and processing real-world data for AI labs. The priority has been to build useful products that generate sustainable revenue for the Network.

The Network launched Trace, its flagship product — an audit layer that provides AI labs with the legal receipts needed to trust the data they train on. The organization also onboarded Kled as an anchor data contributor.

AI models have largely exhausted the usable public internet for training. The next generation of models depends on real-world data that predominantly resides with individuals rather than on the open web, and that data has historically lacked a clean mechanism for licensing, payment, and verification. Independent analysts value the market for licensed AI training data in the billions of dollars today, with expectations of continued exponential growth over the next decade. The Network aims to build the infrastructure for that market, and the 100 million registration milestone serves as early evidence of its viability.

DATA's Revenue Model

Network activity now generates daily onchain revenue. Chain fees run in the thousands of dollars daily, up more than 200x from levels seen a few weeks ago, placing the Network among the top 20 chains by fees.

Every registration creates a permanent onchain record through Trace: proof of what the data is, who contributed it, whether they were paid, and on what terms. Creating that record requires a fee paid in $DATA. The provenance that AI labs are willing to pay for is the same event that generates network revenue. As registrations scale into the millions per day, revenue scales alongside them.

For readers assessing whether the Network is being used beyond exchange activity, the article points to two observable metrics: registration count and chain fees. Both are tied directly to the process of creating data provenance records rather than to the Upbit competition itself.

New registrations are currently running at approximately three to five million per day. Kled alone is working through a backlog of over one billion files, with more than 900 million remaining to be registered at a rate exceeding three million per day. Network activity can be tracked on public dashboards including DefiLlama and the Blockscout explorer.

"Registration count is the KPI we watch most closely, because it is the most direct measure of the Network being used for its actual purpose," said Andrea Muttoni, CEO of The DATA Foundation. "What exists today is the early part of a curve we expect to compound. The pipeline of contributed data is large and growing, the apps driving it are still ramping, and each new registration adds to a base of licensable, rights-cleared data that AI labs increasingly need and cannot get from the open web."

About the DATA Foundation

The DATA Foundation supports the DATA Network, an infrastructure network for sourcing, proving, and processing real-world data for AI. It provides onchain provenance, licensing, and payment rails so that human-contributed data can be trusted and utilized by AI labs.

Disclaimer: The Upbit trading event is operated by Upbit and limited to eligible jurisdictions. It is not available to US persons or residents of OFAC-restricted jurisdictions. Nothing in this release constitutes financial advice or an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any digital asset.

Media contact: Henri Viès — henri.vies@piplabs.xyz