Ankr is a blockchain infrastructure company. It runs nodes for many networks and sells developers access to them through RPC endpoints, so apps can read chain data and send transactions without running their own nodes. It also offers liquid staking. Ankr says it serves more than 80 chains and handles more than one trillion RPC requests a month. The newest development came on 15 October 2026: Ankr launched x402 payments, which lets AI agents pay for each RPC request in USDC on Monad with no account or API key. In July 2026 the team also rebuilt the role of the ANKR token around a rewards programme called Forge.
Most of the figures below are Ankr's own.
What Ankr sells today
Ankr's documentation lists five product lines:
- Public RPC: free endpoints for supported networks.
- Premium endpoints: paid, higher-capacity RPC access.
- Advanced API: indexed data queries on top of raw node access.
- AppChains: infrastructure for launching application-specific chains.
- Staking: staking services, including liquid staking tokens.
Ankr's own scale figures, from its open letter of 15 July 2026, are "80+ chains" and "1T+ RPC requests per month".
Recent network additions
- 3 August 2026, XRP Ledger. Ankr launched free public JSON-RPC endpoints for XRP Ledger mainnet and testnet. Ankr's XRP Ledger documentation describes the supported methods.
- 15 October 2026, x402 on Monad. This was Ankr's first x402 integration. An agent calls an Ankr endpoint and receives a "payment required" response with payment terms. It then signs a USDC payment on Monad and resends the request. Monad's facilitator verifies and settles the payment, and Ankr returns the data.
- Two endpoints are offered: MCP agent tools at mcp.ankr.com/rpc and plain JSON-RPC at x402.rpc.ankr.com/monad_mainnet. - The announcement gives no per-request prices. - Monad is the only chain named so far.
What the ANKR token is for
Supply facts
From Ankr's tokenomics documentation and open letter:
| Item | What Ankr states |
|---|---|
| Total supply | 10 billion ANKR ("so that our token holders would not have to do fractional math") |
| Inflation | "There is no inflation built into the ANKR token" |
| Burns | About 2% of tokens burned; further burns described as unlikely |
| Unlocks | 100% of supply unlocked, with no vesting cliffs (open letter, July 2026) |
| Peak valuation | "Market cap high near $1.2B in 2021" (open letter) |
The July 2026 reset: Ankr Forge
In its 15 July 2026 open letter, the team said its earlier token strategy had been "too passive". It announced two changes:
- Token buys from partner spend. Part of the RPC spend from ecosystem partners will go towards buying ANKR and providing liquidity. Ankr says this ties token demand to infrastructure usage.
- Forge, a rewards platform. According to Ankr's Forge documentation:
- Holding ANKR above a threshold at snapshot time makes a wallet eligible. Ankr does not state the minimum amount. - Completing missions earns Forge Points. Missions include onchain transactions, bridging and app interactions in partner ecosystems. - Activity runs in "Heats" of about three months, each with its own leaderboard. Every Heat contains several Drops, which are reward distributions allocated by each wallet's share of points. - Rewards come from partner reward drops, TGE allocations and RPC infrastructure deals. Ankr says they do not come from new emissions. - Drops start in ANKR and may later include partner tokens. - Two features are announced but not live: Forge Vault (lock ANKR for point multipliers) and ValidatorFi (stake with supported validators).
Forge progress so far
- 24 August 2026: Ankr said the first Drop had been distributed in ANKR. Its post lists only the five largest allocations, each about 99,000 to 107,000 ANKR, without the total size of the Drop or the number of recipients.
- 20 October 2026: Ankr announced a partnership with Kite to bring "Agent Passport" missions to Forge. Heat 2 is live with the Kite campaign.
The team itself warned that Forge starts at limited scale and may not move the price much at first.
What Ankr's recent changes mean for you
Pick the description that fits you and answer one more question to see which part of the article applies.
How are you involved with Ankr?
- I'm a developer who needs RPC access → next question
- I'm building an AI agent that pays for each request → x402 on Monad is the relevant launch
- I hold ANKR or am looking at Forge → Read the current Forge terms first
- I use or hold an Ankr liquid staking token → next question
Do you need chain data older than about two weeks, for example on the XRP Ledger endpoints?
- No, recent data is enough → The free public RPC may be enough
- Yes, I need older history → You need an archive service
Is the staking contract you plan to use paused, or are you unsure?
- It is paused, or I'm not sure → Check the contract's status before interacting
- It is running normally → Know the staking record
Ankr offers free public endpoints, including XRP Ledger mainnet and testnet since 3 August 2026. These are full nodes that keep about two weeks of history, which suits testing.
The XRP Ledger public endpoints are full nodes, not archive nodes, so they keep only about two weeks of history. Queries further back need an archive service.
Since 15 October 2026 an agent can pay for each RPC request in USDC on Monad with no account or API key, through mcp.ankr.com/rpc or x402.rpc.ankr.com/monad_mainnet. Monad is the only chain named so far and the announcement gives no per-request prices.
Forge eligibility depends on holding ANKR above a threshold at snapshot time, which Ankr has not stated, and the total size of Drops has not been published. Heat 2 is live with the Kite campaign; Forge Vault and ValidatorFi are announced but not live.
ankrFLOW staking stays paused after the 31 August 2026 exploit until Ankr deploys a fixed contract. Confirm the current status on Ankr's own pages before you interact with any paused contract.
Both exploits, aBNBc in December 2022 and ankrFLOW in August 2026, hit Ankr staking tokens rather than its RPC business. Flow says no depositors lost funds in the 2026 incident.
This sorts readers by role using only what the article reports; it cannot show current contract status, Forge thresholds or prices, and it is not a recommendation to buy, hold or stake anything.
Security record
Ankr's staking contracts have been exploited twice.
December 2022: aBNBc
- What happened: On 1 December 2022, an attacker minted a huge amount of aBNBc, Ankr's staked-BNB reward token, and sold it into decentralised liquidity pools.
- Losses: The Block reported losses of more than $5 million on Ankr. Connected attacks on Ankr and Helio Protocol cost about $20 million in total.
- Cause: Ankr's after-action report of 20 December 2022 blames a former team member. That person used a social-engineering and supply-chain attack to compromise a developer key, which Ankr called a "single point of failure".
- Response: Ankr issued a new ankrBNB token to affected holders and airdropped BNB to affected liquidity providers. It also added multi-sig and timelocks for contract updates.
August 2026: ankrFLOW
- What happened: At about 06:18 UTC on 31 August 2026, a vulnerability in Ankr's ankrFLOW liquid staking contract let an attacker mint about 8.6 million ankrFLOW with no backing. The attacker used it as collateral on the MORE Markets lending protocol and took about 15.5 million WFLOW.
- Losses: Flow's statement of 1 September values the WFLOW at about $410,000, or about $246,000 realised after slippage. Flow called the widely reported $9.3 million figure incorrect. That number came from the security firm Blockaid's initial estimate.
- Who was affected: Flow says no depositors lost funds.
- Response:
- Ankr and MORE Markets paused the affected contracts within hours. - The Flow Foundation, working with Ankr, said it would replace the drained WFLOW. - ankrFLOW staking stays paused until Ankr deploys a fixed contract.
Who is behind Ankr
Token Terminal lists Ankr as founded in 2017 by Chandler Song, Ryan Fang and Stanley Wu.
Practical points for readers
- Developers: the free public RPC is a low-cost way to test on chains such as the XRP Ledger. The XRP Ledger endpoints are full nodes, not archive nodes, so they keep only about two weeks of history. Older queries need an archive service.
- Token holders: Forge rewards depend on a threshold and Drop sizes that Ankr has not published, so read the current terms on Ankr's Forge pages before relying on them.
- Liquid staking users: both exploits hit Ankr staking tokens rather than its RPC business. Check the status of any paused contract before interacting with it.
Limitations: usage figures, Forge mechanics and the 2022 cause rest on Ankr's own statements, and the 2026 loss figures and incident account rest on Flow's statement.
