PALO ALTO, California, July 24, 2026 — The DATA Network has surpassed 100 million onchain data registrations, a milestone the project said coincides with an onchain revenue model tied to real network usage for real-world AI data.

The milestone comes as Upbit, one of South Korea's largest digital asset exchanges, runs a four-day trading competition for $DATA, which has traded on the exchange since July 8. South Korea consistently ranks among the world's largest retail cryptocurrency markets by trading volume, making Upbit listings a notable visibility channel for token projects targeting Asian retail participation. The event is being held from July 24 to July 27 through Upbit's official event page.

During the four-day event, eligible participants can take part in a quiz explaining what $DATA is, available on the first and fourth days, deposit $DATA onto Upbit, and complete trading missions to compete on a leaderboard for top-trader rewards.

The trading event is available exclusively on Upbit and only in eligible jurisdictions. It is not available to U.S. persons or residents of jurisdictions restricted by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Full rules and eligibility requirements are published through Upbit's official channels.

A Network Built for Real-World AI Data

After the organization rebranded from Story to The DATA Foundation, it said it focused the DATA Network on a single purpose: sourcing, proving, and processing real-world data for AI labs that need it. The foundation said its priority has been building products that are useful and that generate revenue for the long-term health of the network.

The network has launched Trace, its flagship product, as an audit layer designed to provide AI labs with legal records needed to trust the data used in model training. It has also onboarded Kled as an anchor data contributor.

The DATA Foundation said AI has run out of usable public internet data for training, and that the next generation of models depends on real-world data that largely resides with people rather than on the open web. According to the organization, such data has not previously had a clean way to be licensed, paid for, or proven. This concern reflects a broader industry discussion: multiple AI research teams and institutions have published studies on the approaching limits of high-quality public training data, sometimes described as the "data wall," and major AI developers have increasingly turned to proprietary and synthetic data sources to supplement public web crawls.

Independent analysts value the market for licensed AI training data in the billions of dollars today, and the market is expected to continue on a path of exponential growth over the next decade. The DATA Network said it is building infrastructure for that market, and described the 100 million registrations as early evidence that such rails can be built.

DATA's Revenue Model

Network activity now generates daily onchain revenue, according to the foundation. Chain fees are running in the thousands of dollars per day, up more than 200 times from levels recorded a few weeks ago, which the organization said has moved the network into the top 20 by chain fees. Network fee data is available through public dashboards, including DefiLlama.

Each registration is recorded permanently onchain through Trace, providing proof of what the data is, who contributed it, whether the contributor was paid, and the terms involved. Creating the record requires a fee paid in $DATA.

The foundation said the provenance that AI labs are willing to pay for is also what generates network revenue, because both arise from the same registration event. As registrations scale into the millions per day, revenue scales with them, which the organization said is why revenue has increased alongside registrations rather than in place of them.

New registrations are currently running at roughly three million to five million per day. Kled alone is still processing a backlog of more than one billion files, with more than 900 million files remaining to register at a rate of more than three million per day. Network activity can also be tracked through the DATA Network's 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. The network provides onchain provenance, licensing, and payment rails so human-contributed data can be trusted and used by AI labs.

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

Contact: Henri Viès, henri.vies@piplabs.xyz

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