The Vana Foundation says expanded staking on the Vana network is live, completing the staking component of its Vega upgrade. The change moves rewards onto three staking pools and gives existing stakers until midnight UTC on 31 October 2026 to move their positions into one of them.
The Foundation also published a paper, 'VANA: The Asset Behind an Open Data Economy,' laying out the token economics behind the network, which is built for moving personal data under the permission of the person it belongs to.
How the fee model pays stakers
The economics rest on a per-read fee. When an application reads a person's data with a granted permission, it pays one cent per scope read. That revenue is split by protocol rule: 60% goes to stakers through staking pools, 20% funds the purchase and burn of VANA, and 20% goes to ecosystem development.
Each buyback and burn is published with its transaction hash. A public dashboard at token.vana.org reports network reads, fee income, buybacks, burns and token supply, with the on-chain record behind each figure. Applications on the network have produced 2,937,447 verified reads to date, as of 28 September 2026.
Art Abal, Managing Director of the Vana Foundation, said: 'Every read of a person's data on the network is a paid transaction, and the fees pay the node operators and stakers who make that movement possible. The split is written into the protocol, and every figure is published on chain.'
Three pools, one deadline
Staking now runs through three staking pools, each charging a 5% operator commission. Rewards are paid from network fees, accrue to the staked position, and can be claimed as they accrue.
Existing staked positions can be moved into one of the three pools in a single transaction at stake.vana.org. The deadline is midnight UTC on 31 October 2026. After that, a position that hasn't moved no longer earns rewards.
Principal is treated differently. It can be withdrawn at any time, with no deadline attached. Total VANA supply and release schedules remain unchanged.
Where the data-portability standard sits
Vana is an open network for personal data portability. Its standard, the Personal Data Portability Protocol, was contributed to Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust as a Community Specification.
The Vana Foundation is a non-profit that supports the development and adoption of the Vana network, and it's a member of Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust. OpenDataLabs builds and operates the products that governments and industry run on the network.
The paper and a whitepaper addendum, 'The Vega Upgrade: Data Portability and Transformations,' are available at token.vana.org, along with the dashboard tracking reads, fees, buybacks and supply. The Foundation notes the release is for information only and does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any token or security.
For stakers holding a position that predates the expanded pools, the next concrete step is straightforward: move it by the 31 October 2026 deadline or stop earning rewards on it.
