What is XELIS?
XELIS is a proof-of-work blockchain that launched in April 2024 with no premine. It keeps account balances and transfer amounts encrypted, but leaves addresses visible, and it has supported smart contracts since a December 2025 upgrade.
Utility Lens
What XELIS actually does
Lets users hold and send coins and custom assets with encrypted balances and amounts, and run smart contracts, on a mineable network.
- Real-world usage
- earlyPayments, assets and smart contracts are live, but activity and trading volume remain small.
- Token necessity
- essentialXEL pays every transaction fee and contract deployment, and miners are paid in it.
- Decentralization
- moderateMining is open and there was no premine, but a small core team builds the software and takes a protocol-set 5% of block rewards for development.
- Track record
- developingLaunched in April 2024 and upgraded six times since, including a short-notice security patch in December 2024 whose details were not disclosed and a June 2026 upgrade rushed out during a network problem.
What it’s used for
Miners secure XELIS with CPUs and GPUs, and users send XEL with hidden amounts, create assets and, since December 2025, deploy smart contracts written in the Silex language. Trading is thin and offshore: MEXC lists an XEL/USDT pair, and Coinbase does not offer the coin.
Role of the XEL token:
Evidence of real use
- The XELIS main network went live at 3 PM UTC on April 20, 2024. Source (opens in a new tab)
- The V3 network upgrade on December 14, 2025 turned on smart contracts and cut the target block time from 15 to 5 seconds. Source (opens in a new tab)
- The V6 upgrade on June 7, 2026 added contract events and changes to the BlockDAG. Source (opens in a new tab)
Privacy: what’s hidden, what isn’t
- Privacy model
- default (every transaction)
- What it hides
- Account balances and transfer amounts for XEL and confidential assets.
- What stays visible
- Sender and receiver addresses, which accounts transact with each other, timing, fees, and smart contract data unless a contract is written to protect it.
- Reality check
- XELIS is closer to confidential transactions than to full anonymity: the project itself says addresses and transaction relationships remain visible. It is not offered on Coinbase, and the EU's planned 2027 ban on regulated providers handling anonymity-enhancing coins may still affect where it can trade.
How XELIS works
XELIS uses accounts rather than coin outputs, and every account balance is stored on-chain as an encrypted value. The encryption is a variant of ElGamal, which the developers picked because it is well studied and lets nodes add to and subtract from encrypted balances without decrypting them. Zero-knowledge proofs attached to each transfer let nodes confirm the transfer is valid without ever learning the amount.
Instead of a single chain, XELIS arranges blocks in a BlockDAG, a structure where several blocks can be found at the same height and are later put into one agreed order. This wastes less mining work, and since the V3 upgrade the network targets a block every 5 seconds. Mining uses XELIS Hash, which the project designed for ordinary CPUs and GPUs, and its documentation says there is no premine.
Smart contracts are written in Silex, a typed language that compiles to bytecode for the XELIS Virtual Machine, and they can create assets, keep state and call other contracts. The project notes that contract data is not automatically confidential; what stays hidden depends on how each contract is written. Anyone can also issue confidential assets that use the same encrypted-amount system as XEL.
Key moments
- 2024XELIS mainnet launches on April 20 with no premine, followed in July by the XelisHash V2 upgrade.
- 2024A short-notice upgrade on December 30 adds multisig wallets and an undisclosed security patch.
- 2025The V3 upgrade on December 14 enables smart contracts and cuts block time to 5 seconds, with further fixes days later.
- 2026The V6 upgrade on June 7 adds contract events and BlockDAG improvements. The team says it brought the upgrade forward because of a network issue, during which exchanges paused and mining pools were told to halt payouts; the project said funds were safe.
Supply
XEL has a maximum supply of 18.4 million coins, issued through mining rewards that shrink gradually as more coins exist, with no halving schedule. There was no premine; instead the protocol directs a share of block rewards to development, 10% until block 3,250,000 and 5% after that.
Risks to understand
- Trading is thin and offshore: Coinbase does not offer XEL, and liquidity is concentrated on a small number of exchanges such as MEXC.
- Addresses and the links between them stay public, so XELIS hides how much moves but not who transacts with whom.
- The codebase is young and has needed several hard forks, including a December 2024 security patch whose details were not published and a June 2026 upgrade pushed out early during a network issue.
- From July 10, 2027 EU-regulated crypto service providers may not handle anonymity-enhancing coins, which could further limit trading venues.
XELIS FAQ
Does XELIS hide who I'm paying?
No. XELIS encrypts balances and amounts, but the project says account addresses and transaction relationships remain visible.
Was there a premine?
No. The project says it had no premine and funds development through a protocol-set share of block rewards, now 5%.
Does XELIS have smart contracts?
Yes. They have been enabled since the V3 upgrade in December 2025 and are written in a language called Silex.
What is the supply cap?
18.4 million XEL, released through gradually shrinking mining rewards.
Sources
- XELIS FAQ (opens in a new tab) — XELIS Docs
- Network upgrades (opens in a new tab) — XELIS Docs
- xelis-blockchain repository (opens in a new tab) — XELIS Project (GitHub)
- XELIS mainnet launch (opens in a new tab) — XELIS Project (Medium)
- How to buy XELIS (XEL) (opens in a new tab) — MEXC
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 (Anti-Money Laundering Regulation) (opens in a new tab) — EUR-Lex, Official Journal of the EU
- XELIS network issue and v1.22.1 update (June 7, 2026) (opens in a new tab) — XELIS Project (X)
Last reviewed October 20, 2026. Written by Dave McNaught. Utility Lens ratings are editorial judgments, not investment advice. Market data from CoinGecko. Spot an error? Request a correction.
Dave McNaught
Dave McNaught has worked in IT since 1999 and founded All Business Technologies (ABT) in 2003, a Boston-area firm providing Managed IT, Cybersecurity, Managed AI, Web Design and App Development. He publishes The Crypto Guide.