State of the Machine Economy: 2025

2025 was a breakout year for the Machine Economy on peaq. Robots moved from hype to reality, autonomous systems scaled across industries, and peaq delivered a string of world‑firsts that turned its long‑term vision into something tangible. From tokenized machines to regulatory breakthroughs in the UAE, the ecosystem grew rapidly in users, builders, and real‑world deployments — signaling that the Machine Economy is no longer theoretical, it’s underway.

Key Ideas

Robotics and tokenized machines hit real adoption - The world’s first tokenized robo‑farm launched on peaq and sold out, already generating yield for holders. Robots across sectors — from agriculture to mapping to autonomous drones — are coming onchain, supported by peaq’s new Web3 Robotics SDK and compatibility with ROS 2. This year marked the moment robots stopped being “the future” and became active economic participants.
Massive ecosystem growth backed by real usage - peaq processed over 174M transactions and surpassed 6M combined machine and human addresses. MachineX, the first DEX for the Machine Economy, hit nearly $60M in volume. The PEAQ token expanded to major exchanges like Kraken and Binance Alpha, while the new peaq app went live in beta. Adoption surged from tens of thousands of devices to millions, showing strong momentum and real-world traction.
Global infrastructure and regulatory foundations took shape - peaq and Pulsar launched the Machine Economy Free Zone in the UAE — the first regulatory and deployment sandbox for machine‑powered economies. Dubai’s digital asset regulator, VARA, formally recognized the zone, opening the door for compliant launches, deeper collaboration, and positioning Dubai as a global hub for robotics, DePIN, and machine‑based RWAs.
A wave of new builders joined the ecosystem - Fourteen new teams joined peaq, many focused on robotics, AI agents, machine vision, and spatial computing. Projects like Auki, OVERTheReality, Homebrew Robotics, CodecFlow, DualMint, and Alpha AI are building everything from robot perception systems to tokenized robot cashflows to autonomous drone infrastructure, which expands peaq’s role as the home for machine‑native applications.

Why It Matters?

2025 proved that the Machine Economy isn’t just a concept - it’s becoming an economic layer with real machines, real users, and real value flows. peaq’s strategy now shifts from pioneering world‑firsts to refining world‑class products, with the peaq app at the center of that experience. As millions of machines come online and more builders join, peaq is positioning itself to lead the next phase: scaling the Machine Economy from early breakthroughs to mainstream infrastructure.