What's the story behind Pieverse, which hit the x402 wave just before the Pre-TGE?

By: blockbeats|2025/10/29 04:00:01

Original Article Title: "What is the Origin of Pieverse, Riding the x402 Wave Right Before Pre-TGE?"

Original Article Author: Eric, Foresight News

The x402 wave added fuel to the AI payment narrative, but the fire did not spread to the BNB Chain immediately. The reason for this was that x402, being too early, only supported the ERC-3009 standard, while stablecoins on the BNB Chain, including USDC, do not support this standard.

At this time, Pieverse, a payment protocol supported by Binance and the BNB Chain since being selected as an MVB, stepped forward. Not only did it solve the problem of BNB Chain not supporting x402 by launching the pieUSD wrapped token that supports the ERC-3009 standard, but it also upgraded x402, which originally only supported "payments," to x402b. In simple terms, Pieverse created verifiable receipts for payments, proving that the payment was a transaction between specific parties and not an AI's spontaneous action.

The Binance Wallet will launch Pieverse's Pre-TGE event on October 29th at 4 p.m. By serving the BNB Chain ecosystem, this quasi-new project that adds verifiable proof to on-chain payments is experiencing a small highlight in the era of AI payments.

A Protocol Associated with "Time"

Pieverse's development went through two stages. At its inception, it positioned itself as a "TimeFi" protocol. The core of the introduced Pieverse Timepot model is to allow people or resources that require time to match to find their corresponding targets more quickly through a series of platform mechanisms.

Pieverse's initial three products included Time Bid, Time Draw, and Time Task. Time Bid allows users to bid for professionals' time, and Pieverse will verify the "professional" level through platforms like LinkedIn. Successful bidders can directly communicate with professionals on the platform through Zoom, etc. Time Draw provides opportunities for private interaction with investors, traders, celebrities, etc., through a lottery system. Time Task provides a platform for anyone to post requirements and offer services.

Concept aside, this is just an intermediary platform, and forcibly linking it to time seems rather far-fetched. Currently, these three products, while still operational, appear to have lost any activity. The VC Arena launched by Pieverse later received some attention, as the platform applied the mechanism of the aforementioned products to match VCs with startup teams, catering to some practical needs.

What's the story behind Pieverse, which hit the x402 wave just before the Pre-TGE?

Whether it was an acknowledgment of a design concept issue, Pieverse shifted its focus and released a more financially sophisticated and engaging product, Time Challenge.

Time Challenge essentially transforms daily commitments into structured, time-limited challenges with real financial risks. Whether it's fitness goals, productivity targets, or personal milestones, users can create or join challenges, lock in risks, and receive rewards based on their evaluation of the outcomes.

The challenges are divided into two types: Prediction Challenges require participants to set their own goal and bet a certain amount; other users can also bet on whether the challenger can achieve the goal within the specified time. The ultimate winner receives the money bet by the challenger and the party that predicted incorrectly. Commit Together involves a group of people with the same goal betting the same amount on themselves to achieve the goal; the person who completes it takes the money from those who did not.

It's often said that when individual interests become collective interests, it motivates individuals. This game of inviting everyone to supervise oneself and collectively agreeing to achieve goals, when real money is put on the line, brings about an inexplicable sense of excitement, as evidenced by the number of participants. Although subsequent activities were all about Web3 projects setting challenges to see if they could accomplish certain tasks, it was indeed much more interesting than the previous scenario.

Transitioning into Payments Catches the Trend

On the 9th of this month, Pieverse announced the launch of the payment tool Pieverse Timestamping. Setting it apart from most payment tools, Pieverse leveraged its previous experience related to "timeliness" to automate the process of creating invoices, stablecoin payments, generating receipts compliant with jurisdictional legal and tax requirements, and pairing each transaction with an on-chain timestamp to create an immutable, verifiable proof of payment.

At least for now, transitioning into payments seems to have been the right decision. Shortly after announcing the new product, x402 began dominating the front pages of major tech media outlets, and Pieverse conveniently utilized the freshly released Timestamping to add a verifiable component to x402 and launch it on the testnet, allowing the BNB Chain, which originally lacked token support for ERC-3009, to take a shortcut.

The transaction flow process using x402b is roughly as follows:

1. Client to Resource Server: Send an HTTP request with the X-PAYMENT header, containing the payment amount + optional compliance metadata.

2. Resource Server to Facilitator (Infrastructure service provider for "on-chain payment + validation + settlement"): Verify the signature and initiate settlement via /settle.

3. Facilitator to Blockchain: Use user-signed authorization to call transferWithAuthorization on the pieUSD contract (no need to pay Gas fees).

4. Facilitator to BNB Greenfield (optional): Generate a compliance receipt and upload it to Greenfield, ensuring the receipt is tamper-proof and auditable.

5. Facilitator back to Resource Server and then to Client: Return a standard x402 response, optionally including the Greenfield receipt URL.

In short, a single payment process includes user signature, service provider submission, BNB Greenfield proof preservation, propelling x402 on the BNB Chain forward by a significant step. It has also successfully attracted market attention before the token issuance.

Web3-Savvy Chinese Team

Currently, one of the publicly known co-founders of Pieverse is Colin Ho as mentioned in the funding press release, but further information is not available. However, three individuals on LinkedIn associated with Pieverse have demonstrated a strong Web3 Native background.

Chief Marketing Officer David Chung previously worked on user experience and copy content at the American Bitcoin peer-to-peer trading platform Paxful. An individual self-proclaimed as a "core contributor," H Fran, had prior investment experience at IDG Capital and later founded a startup that was acquired by Alibaba. Another co-founder, Junjia He (most likely the tech lead), worked as a software engineer at Uber and later joined QuarkChain in 2018, where, in addition to researching blockchain scaling through sharding, led various DeFi projects including stablecoins, DEX, and lending markets.

In April this year, Pieverse was selected for the ninth season of the Most Valuable Builder (MVB) on the BNB Chain, and just last week, Pieverse announced the completion of a $7 million strategic funding round led by Animoca Brands and UOB Ventures, with participation from 10K Ventures, Signum Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Serafund, Undefined Labs, and Sonic Foundation, among others.

From being called up by the BNB ecosystem to transitioning to payments, then fundraising and helping the BNB Chain support x402, Pieverse has been keeping up with the pace. If the market hype around AI payments and x402 continues for a while, then Pieverse may once again be in a hurry to list its token.

Original Article Link

Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market has shown strong momentum across multiple dimensions. The mainstream discussion has focused on Coinbase's official entry into the prediction market through the acquisition of The Clearing Company, as well as the intense controversy within the AAVE community regarding token incentives and governance rights.

In terms of ecosystem development, Solana has introduced the innovative Kora fee layer aimed at reducing user transaction costs; meanwhile, the Perp DEX competition has intensified, with the showdown between Hyperliquid and Lighter sparking widespread community discussion on the future of decentralized derivatives.

I. Mainstream Topics

1. Coinbase Acquires The Clearing Company, Officially Entering Prediction Market

This week, Coinbase announced the acquisition of The Clearing Company, marking another significant move to deepen its presence in this field after last week's announcement of launching a prediction market on its platform.

The Clearing Company's founder, Toni Gemayel, and the team will join Coinbase to jointly drive the development of the prediction market business.

Coinbase's Product Lead, Shan Aggarwal, stated that the growth of the prediction market is still in its early stages and predicts that 2026 will be the breakout year for this field.

The community has reacted positively to this, generally believing that Coinbase's entry will bring significant traffic and compliance advantages to the prediction market. However, this has also sparked discussions about the industry's competitive landscape.

Jai Bhavnani, Founder of Rivalry, commented that for startups, if their product model proves to be successful, industry giants like Coinbase have ample reason to replicate it.

This serves as a reminder to all entrepreneurs in the crypto space that they must build significant moats to withstand competition pressure from these giants.

2. Kalshi Launches Kalshi Research and Integrates BSC Network

Regulated prediction market platform Kalshi launched its research arm, Kalshi Research, this week, aimed at opening its internal data to the academic community and researchers to facilitate exploration of prediction market-related topics.

Its inaugural research report highlights Kalshi's outperformance in predicting inflation compared to Wall Street's traditional models. Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara commented that the power of prediction markets lies in the valuable data they generate, and it is now time to better utilize this data.

Meanwhile, Kalshi announced its support for the BNB Chain (BSC), allowing users to deposit and withdraw BNB and USDT via the BSC network.

This move is seen as a significant step for Kalshi to open its platform to a broader crypto user base, aiming to unlock access to the world's largest prediction market. Furthermore, Kalshi also revealed plans to host the first Prediction Market Summit in 2026 to further drive industry engagement and development.

3. AAVE Token Incentive Controversy Persists as Founders and Whales Increase Holdings Against the Market Trend

The AAVE community recently engaged in heated debates around an Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP) titled "AAVE Tokenomics Alignment Phase One - Ownership Governance," aiming to transfer ownership and control of the Aave brand from Aave Labs to Aave DAO.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov publicly stated his intention to vote against the proposal, believing it oversimplifies the complex legal and operational structure, potentially slowing down the development process of core products like Aave V4.

The community's reaction was polarized. Some criticized Stani for adopting a "double standard" in governance and questioned whether his team had siphoned off protocol revenue, while others supported his cautious stance, arguing that significant governance changes require more thorough discussion.

This controversy highlights the tension between the ideal of DAO governance in DeFi projects and the actual power held by core development teams.

Despite governance disputes putting pressure on the AAVE token price, on-chain data shows that Stani Kulechov himself has purchased millions of dollars' worth of AAVE in the past few hours.

Simultaneously, a whale address, 0xDDC4, which had been quiet for 6 months, once again spent 500 ETH (approximately $1.53 million) to purchase 9,629 AAVE tokens. Data indicates that this whale has accumulated nearly 40,000 AAVE over the past year but is currently in an unrealized loss position.

The founder and whale's increased holdings during market volatility were interpreted by some investors as a confidence signal in AAVE's long-term value.

4. Top Articles: DeFi Curators and Ethereum Annual Summary

In this week's top article, Morpho Labs' "Curator Explained" detailed the role of "curators" in DeFi.

The article likened curators to asset managers in traditional finance, who design, deploy, and manage on-chain vaults, providing users with a one-click diversified investment portfolio.

Unlike traditional fund managers, DeFi curators execute strategies automatically through non-custodial smart contracts, allowing users to maintain full control of their assets. The article offered a new perspective on the specialization and risk management in the DeFi space.

Another widely circulated article, "Ethereum 2025: From Experiment to Global Infrastructure," provided a comprehensive summary of Ethereum's development over the past year. The article noted that 2025 is a crucial year for Ethereum's transition from an experimental project to global financial infrastructure. Through the Pectra and Fusaka hard forks, Ethereum achieved significant reductions in account abstraction and transaction costs.

Furthermore, the SEC's clarification of Ethereum's "non-securities" nature and the launch of tokenized funds on the Ethereum mainnet by traditional financial giants like JPMorgan marked Ethereum's gaining recognition from mainstream institutions. The article suggested that whether it is the continued growth of DeFi, the thriving L2 ecosystem, or the integration with the AI field, Ethereum's vision as the "world computer" is gradually becoming a reality.

II. Mainstream Ecosystem Updates

1. Solana: Launches Kora Fee Layer and propAMM Data Research

The Solana Foundation engineering team released a fee layer solution called Kora this week.

Kora is a fee relayer and signatory node designed to provide the Solana ecosystem with a more flexible transaction fee payment method. Through Kora, users will be able to achieve gas-free transactions or choose to pay network fees using any stablecoin or SPL token. This innovation is seen as an important step in lowering the barrier of entry for new users and improving Solana network's availability.

Additionally, a deep research report on propAMM (proactive market maker) sparked community interest. The report's data analysis of propAMMs on Solana like HumidiFi indicated that Solana has achieved, or even surpassed, the level of transaction execution quality in traditional finance (TradFi) markets.

For example, on the SOL-USDC trading pair, HumidiFi is able to provide a highly competitive spread for large trades (0.4-1.6 bps), which is already better than the trading slippage of some mid-cap stocks in traditional markets.

Research suggests that propAMM is making the vision of the "Internet Capital Market" a reality, with Solana emerging as the prime venue for all of this to happen.

2. Perp DEX: Hyperliquid vs. Lighter Competition Intensifies

The competition in the perpetual contract DEX (Perp DEX) space is becoming increasingly heated.

In its latest official article, Hyperliquid has positioned its emerging competitor, Lighter, alongside centralized exchanges like Binance, referring to it as a platform utilizing a centralized sequencer. Hyperliquid emphasizes its transparency advantage of being "fully on-chain, operated by a validator network, and with no hidden state."

The community widely interprets this as Hyperliquid declaring "war" on Lighter. The technical differences between the two platforms have also become a focal point of discussion: Hyperliquid focuses on ultimate on-chain transparency, while Lighter emphasizes achieving "verifiable execution" through zero-knowledge proofs to provide users with a Central Limit Order Book (CLOB)-like trading experience.

This battle over the future direction of decentralized derivatives exchanges is expected to peak in 2026.

Meanwhile, discussions about Lighter's trading fees have surfaced. Some users have pointed out that Lighter charged as much as 81 basis points (0.81%) for a $2 million USD/JPY forex trade, far exceeding the near-zero spreads of traditional forex brokers.

Some argue that Lighter does not follow a B-book model that bets against market makers, instead anchoring its prices to the TradFi market, and the high fees may be related to the current liquidity or market maker balance incentives. Providing a more competitive spread for real-world assets (RWA) in the highly volatile crypto market is a key issue Lighter will need to address in the future.

The Secret Centralization Landscape of Stablecoin Payments: 85% of Transaction Volume Controlled by Top 1000 Wallets

Stablecoin payments have reached nearly half of total transaction volume, but are highly concentrated in a few institutional wallets: the top 1000 addresses contributed to about 85% of the transfer volume. While P2P transactions are numerous, their share of the total amount is significantly low.