2025 was the turning point
2025 was certainly the year of execution for the YOM team. This was where we went from our vision of how to create the best game distribution platform to actually going live. We had conversations with publishers and partners and started signing commitments and shipping content. 2025 was all about building momentum and validating the concepts with working products, and this is just the beginning. There is much more to come as we build on the foundation that was laid in the past 12 months, scaling the gaming network and providing more avenues for revenue for both the players and the developers.
Let’s run down some of the highlights from the year and look at what is in store for 2026.
global presence & external validation
Increased visibility and market validation was a theme for the business division. To that end, the team attended a number of the largest conferences in the world, most focused on gaming, some focused on blockchain, and some blending the two. If you were a frequent traveller, you might have seen YOM highlighted at:
- GDC in San Francisco, USA
- Gamescom in Cologne, Germany
- Tokyo Game Show, Japan
- Korean Blockchain Week
- Token 2049 in both Dubai and Singapore
- Pocket Gamer and Slush in Helsinki, Finland
Through this exposure, the project added two awards to the growing list of accolades. At Gamescom, we rose above 350 other game tech projects to win Game Tech Start-Up of the Year. While the award was a bit of a surprise considering the competition, it was consistent with our assertion that what we are building will change the gaming industry profoundly.
And then from 0xLabs we secured an award for technical excellence for decentralized cloud performance. Technology awards like this further cemented our place in the gaming industry as a technology with which they want to be involved.
market demand became undeniable
With this travel came a large number of face-to-face meetings with game publishers and developers to allow them to test out our technology and sign on for Mainnet launch in the coming months. The business development team in the second half of the year was able to secure over 40 studios and partners with 400+ titles in their collective catalogues. This stack of AA and AAA titles, both traditional and web3 game projects, could provide upwards of 5M monthly users and approximately 50M monthly streams in the first months of Mainnet operation.
Validation of our approach came fast. Developers and publishers alike quickly recognized why the decentralized approach both opened doors to new players and accelerated game adoption at significant savings over the traditional approaches. Concepts like providing gameplay inside of social apps and allowing game demos to broadcast as advertisements on any URL immediately brought excitement from the industry.
the network actually came alive
The technology team had an even stronger performance in 2025, taking the network live outside of the controlled lab conditions and launching the Alpha testnet. So many parts had to come together to make this launch successful and robust, and the team executed with the professionalism we’d come to expect.
Testnet went live in March of 2025, covering 6 regions including Europe and North America, and expanded in September to 19 full regions. The current testnet spans from Australia and Japan to South America up to Canada. This required the production and shipping of prototype NANOs to the far corners of the world and real-world handling the various configurations of home gaming rigs and networks. This was the proof that YOM works outside of ideal conditions.
Beyond launching testnet, we stacked up multiple other wins. The team worked to harden the HyperOrch scheduler to be able to recognize the regions where gamers were playing from and setting up the connections with the nearest and fastest test node. We created and shipped the Rig Test app, allowing interested parties around the world a guide to possible earnings if they chose to participate in the network. And the team enabled play through the important social media apps like Telegram and Discord, a key element to the business proposition of having AAA quality games available anywhere a player would like to play.
token & infrastructure strategy evolves
One of the largest changes that this past year brought to YOM was our introduction to Avalanche and the move to join their ecosystem. The move has opened the door to the massive gaming community already thriving on their chain, providing an easy onboarding for those projects onto the YOM network. While this shift did affect timelines for the token launch, with TGE now targeted for Q1 of 2026, it also opened the door to the longer term strategy of YOM launching our own Layer 1. This path helps to solve a challenge that remains present, balancing the various regional costs for operating a node and the payout of rewards to hosts. The migration to our own layer 1 will hinge on network adoption and is made much easier with the power of the Avalanche technology stack.
community & operator growth
The second half of 2025 also brought in a reinvigoration of our community as we onboarded a larger inhouse marketing team and launched into our NANO pre-sales. From our recent campaigns, our X followers more than doubled to currently over 200K, and our Discord and Telegram channels grew proportionately.
We also announced the partnership with Freshminers for our Founders Edition NANO, the earliest edition of the shipping hardware that provides an onramp to passive income through the YOM network. This run, limited to only 1000 nodes, has gained significant traction from the gaming and web3 community as the YOM narrative spreads.
Different from other DePIN networks, the YOM team is keeping in mind that scaling of the network needs to match adoption, to ensure that those who are initially operating nodes for YOM receive significant rewards before we move to expanding. Flooding the ecosystem with nodes dilutes earnings for operators, and our approach of balancing sales with network adoption is one important way that we ensure long-term viability and community involvement. We scale nodes alongside demand, not ahead of it.
looking ahead: why 2026 is the payoff year
As much as we enjoy looking back and seeing all that we’ve accomplished in the past year, we aren’t really allowing ourselves to rest on our wins. The next year, from the very first quarter, has so many milestones to conquer. Three of the biggest project goals, our TGE, the launch of Mainnet, and the move to the Universal Pixel Streamer, loom. The past twelve months have been helped to prove out the technology, validate the demand, and build the proper pipelines and partnerships. The next few months will be about our full technology launch and then expansion of our live network.
We want to thank our community of gamers, studios, and partners and wish everyone a great next year. If you would like to get involved, here are the paths:
- Play the experiences at YOM.net and feel the power of decentralization.
- Run the rig check app and validate your ability to earn passive income.
- Reach out via the website to launch your project on our easy-to-reach network.
- Follow our social media on X and join our community on Discord.
We are exiting the launchpad as the thrusters are fired up. You should prepare your ear protection, because it is about to get loud.
FAQ
what awards did YOM win in 2025? YOM won Game Tech Start-Up of the Year at Gamescom (out of 350+ projects) and an award for technical excellence for decentralized cloud performance from 0xLabs.
how many studios has YOM partnered with? Over 40 studios and partners with 400+ titles in their collective catalogues, representing up to 5M monthly users and approximately 50M monthly streams.
how far does YOM’s testnet reach? The testnet launched in March 2025 with 6 regions and expanded to 19 full regions by September, spanning from Australia and Japan to South America and Canada.
why did YOM migrate to Avalanche? The move opened access to Avalanche’s massive gaming community and the longer-term strategy of launching YOM’s own Layer 1, which helps balance regional operating costs and operator reward payouts.
what is a NANO node? The NANO is YOM’s plug-and-play hardware device that provides an onramp to passive income by operating as a node on the YOM network.
