Born on the foundation of the EOS long-standing Layer 1 blockchain, Vaulta aims to build a Web3 bank. It serves as both a banking operating system (Banking OS) for individuals and institutions and a Web3 banking ecosystem composed of the Vaulta mainnet, the exSat protocol, and a series of other products.

Since Vaulta announced its mission as a Web3 bank, the market has immediately reacted. While the entire market was experiencing a downturn or consolidation, EOS saw a significant increase.

Data Source: TradingView

The most significant bullish news driving the EOS price is perhaps the narrative shift of the EOS Network, renamed Vaulta, as it officially transitions into an open financial platform focused on Web3 banking. Alongside this brand and strategic reconfiguration is an upcoming token swap scheduled to launch at the end of May.

Web3 Banking: From Narrative Void to a New Round of Consensus Building

Unlike the past bull markets where Layer 1 public blockchains took the spotlight, in this round of the bull market, the Layer 1 public chain sector noticeably lacked momentum, and the call for "killer applications" has never been as sparse as it is today. In contrast, the narrative around RWAs (Real-World Assets) has been gradually heating up, and the integration of crypto and traditional finance has been elevated to a new level. Especially since early 2024, the approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF has become a landmark event: traditional financial capital has finally entered the crypto world on a large scale and in an organized manner.

This also means that we are on the eve of an explosion in individual financial demands: cross-border entrepreneurs receiving payments in stablecoins, independent e-shop owners accepting USDT, community operators managing project funds through wallets... These changes are quietly eroding the presence of traditional banks and giving rise to a new form of finance: the "bank in your pocket."

Against this backdrop, "Web3 Banking" is gradually moving from a vague concept to a new industry consensus direction—it represents not only the reconstruction of traditional bank architecture but also the reshaping of asset custody, security, composability, and financial intermediation functions.

Vaulta's transformation is undoubtedly in sync with the rhythm of this narrative wave.

With such a narrative driving force, an increasing number of service providers offering custody, lending, clearing, and yield products, such as Cobo, Matrixport, and Sinohope, have begun to receive more attention. What these platforms have in common is that they not only provide services to crypto-native users but also strive to “break out” and gradually permeate markets such as US stocks and gold, attracting traditional financial flows and asset pools.

Unlike similar platforms, Vaulta focuses on becoming a compliant channel for traditional funds to “enter the circle.” The core difference lies in giving users more choice. Vaulta is a platform that integrates an ecosystem with an operating system, providing a variety of options and services aimed at allowing users and financial institutions to easily make choices based on their needs.

In Vaulta’s network architecture, some users or institutions prefer assets entirely on-chain, some are more inclined towards off-chain management, and some wish for a combination of on-chain and off-chain to form a new model of CeDeFi (Centralized and Decentralized Finance combination). All of these can empower users to have “choice.”

The core advantages of Vaulta's operating system (OS) are: High Reliability: Achieving 100% uptime; High Customizability: Supporting C++ language development and Virtual Chain infrastructure; Predictable Costs: Providing extremely low and predictable costs, supporting large-scale system expansion.

Furthermore, at the product level, Vaulta provides both on-chain yield options and supports the CeDeFi model, both of which can meet the different needs of bank and institutional clients. The core advantage of Vaulta’s products is that, first, it connects to the Bitcoin ecosystem through the Bitcoin Gateway and, second, it provides diverse choices for users and institutions through flexible product design.

More specifically, Vaulta focuses on four core business scenarios: Wealth Management (such as on-chain asset yield appreciation), Consumer Payments (such as stablecoin transaction settlement, virtual card payments), Portfolio Management (such as on-chain robo-advisory, yield strategy aggregation), and On-chain Insurance (such as on-chain insurance mechanism for custody risk).

For a real-life use case: For example, more and more cross-border independent station merchants can increasingly bypass Stripe and PayPal. Through stablecoins like USDT/USDC, Vaulta can help these users not only receive payments but also transfer the received funds to an on-chain yield account, achieving automatic financial management with “earning interest while receiving payments.”

VirgoPay: Building the first “payment network” for the Vaulta Web3 Bank

If Vaulta's vision is to build a truly on-chain, global financial operating system, then the first step of this vision has quietly landed—the cross-border payment network VirgoPay is set to officially launch in May.

On April 4, 2025, Vaulta announced a strategic partnership with the global integrated digital asset service provider VirgoCX Global Holdings (Virgo) to jointly launch the cross-border remittance solution VirgoPay. VirgoPay will officially launch in May, combining traditional fiat transfer channels with innovative stablecoin payment mechanisms, backed by the underlying settlement and clearing capabilities of the Vaulta chain.

In this system, Vaulta is not just the underlying chain that "provides TPS," but also serves as the default settlement layer of the VirgoPay network—a blockchain-based, bank-grade infrastructure that can support the operation of a global payment network.

Traditional cross-border payments rely on the SWIFT network or third-party clearing institutions, which are not only costly and cumbersome but also deterred by the typical several days for funds to arrive. VirgoPay will allow users to initiate transfers through local bank transfers, wire transfers, credit cards, or directly top-up from a crypto wallet, then complete remittances and exchanges on-chain through a stablecoin bridge. The transfer process, which used to take "several days to arrive," will shorten to "completed in minutes," with an estimated overall fee reduction of up to 70%.

The payment process is as follows: the user initiates a transfer, selects a local fiat or cryptocurrency channel→the system settles and confirms nearly instantly through the Vaulta chain with a fee "less than a penny per transaction"→the recipient can choose to withdraw in the destination country's preferred currency or hold the stablecoin directly.

This "off-chain channel + on-chain stablecoin + compliant settlement" structure not only enhances payment efficiency but also effectively mitigates fiat volatility risks, providing end-to-end auditable on-chain transparency.

Unlike many projects that opt to establish themselves in lax offshore jurisdictions, Vaulta's compliance path begins with strategic siting. Its parent body, the EOS Network Foundation, is registered in Canada and the state of Delaware, USA—a jurisdiction with a mature banking regulatory environment and robust financial infrastructure. Canada not only requires crypto firms to comply with anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) rules but also offers a clear digital asset tax framework, laying the groundwork for Vaulta to attract institutional funds.

The licensing advantage of partner Virgo further reinforces this path. As a leading compliance service provider in Canada, Virgo holds a Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) Money Services Business (MSB) license and has access to the local banking clearing network. Following the partnership, it's not just an integration of the on-chain scenario but a rebuilding of the cross-border payment system—from compliance-driven initiatives to bridging off-chain and on-chain operations.

This is exactly the consensus of Vaulta and Virgo: the bank of the future must start with compliance and truly serve real-world payment scenarios.

The first phase of VirgoPay will launch in multiple major financial markets including the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, and Argentina, with subsequent expansion to high-growth global remittance networks in South America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. It is estimated that the global cross-border remittance market will exceed $1 trillion by 2029, and the combination of Vaulta + VirgoPay is building an on-chain channel for this blue ocean.

Unlike traditional Web3 projects, Vaulta is not in a rush to lay out a technical blueprint but rather starts from the most painful real-world scenarios, gradually piecing together an on-chain banking operating system: VirgoPay is the first scenario to land under the Vaulta Banking OS framework; through Virgo's global payment network, Vaulta's chain will onboard a large number of non-crypto users for the first time; this is not just a product collaboration, but also a milestone for Vaulta's transition from an "L1 chain" to an "on-chain banking system." From Virgo's ecosystem perspective, this collaboration also means that its stablecoin payment capability will be formally embedded in the sovereign chain and become part of the blockchain settlement system.

In the coming weeks, Vaulta and Virgo will gradually disclose the official launch time of VirgoPay and how the product will be deeply integrated into Vaulta's Banking OS system.

Furthermore, a more recent announcement from Vaulta is its strategic partnership with Ultra. Ultra is an all-in-one game platform for gamers, publishers, and developers. This partnership will bring more games and GameFi (Game Finance) opportunities to Vaulta's community.

In the future, Vaulta and Ultra will collaborate to accelerate the creation of a comprehensive platform, enabling digital assets to be tokenized, freely traded, and monetized across different games, leveraging a fast, low-cost, and highly interoperable infrastructure. Additionally, the platform will support decentralized markets, cross-game integration, and metaverse banking services, expanding the boundaries of the digital economy. Related Reading: "Vaulta and Ultra Establish Strategic Partnership to Jointly Promote the Future of Finance and Gaming"

Vaulta Is Not Equal to EOS

In this world, more distressing than having a difficult ex is having a malevolent "former parent company."

Looking back at Vaulta's history, you will find that EOS's issue was never the lack of technology but rather a misalignment of power: by the end of 2019, EOS's price fell below $5, reaching a low of $1.8 the following year, plummeting over 90% from its all-time high of $23. When the super nodes faced a crisis, developers left, and market liquidity dried up, the EOS ecosystem most needed a lifeline from the parent company Block.one.

As we all know, through EOS's ICO, Block.one raised $4.2 billion, becoming the largest fundraising event in crypto history. In theory, these funds could support EOS's long-term development, support developers, drive technological innovation, and sustain ecosystem growth. When EOS ecosystem developers pleaded for assistance, Block.one cut a $50,000 check—a sum still insufficient to pay a Silicon Valley programmer's two months' salary. However, according to recent overseas media reports, Block.one's CEO BB extravagantly spent $172.8 million to buy a mansion, nearly setting a record for the highest real estate transaction amount in Italian history.

More shocking than Block.one's governance turmoil is that Block.one is increasingly resembling a "family business" centered around CEO BB. The sister parachuted in as CMO, with her only visible "achievement" being to change the EOS brand color from tech blue to a "softer Morandi gray"; the mother leads the EOS VC venture capital fund, and the flagship social app Voice, she led raised less than 10,000 users in a year after investing $150 million. EOS founder BM self-disclosed on Twitter that he has "no decision-making power" and can only watch as the team pours resources into the enterprise-level toolkit EOSIO—a project customized for giants like Walmart, completely unrelated to the EOS mainnet. Related reading: "42 Billion USD, The Largest Fundraising Project in History Announced Failure."

In 2021, the community launched a "fork rebellion" in an attempt to sever Block.one's control. "Initially, I was just a validator who helped deploy the mainnet, not leading the network, just a community member involved in technology." But after witnessing EOS being shelved for three years, Yves La Rose established the EOS Network Foundation.

"At the beginning, we didn't even have the intellectual property of EOS, GitHub repository, or even social media accounts. This brand reshaping is actually a reclaiming of identity," Yves La Rose said.

Over these three and a half years, Vaulta has been rebuilt brick by brick, with every new feature added and every product created leading towards one goal: the Web3 banking industry. The final piece of the puzzle is the name and token code change.

This also means that in reality, Vaulta has no relation to the early EOS or its parent company, Block.one. It is a "child" that has been painstakingly separated and reconstructed from the old system by the community piece by piece. Vaulta, derived from the EOS Network Foundation, is a completely community-driven new team and independent entity.

Vaulta is not a case of old wine in a new bottle, nor is it a "continuation of EOS," but rather the "starting point of the Web3 banking industry." Vaulta's story is just beginning.

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