The Pyth Core Upgrade

On July 31st, Pyth Core is getting a transformational infrastructure upgrade. Reduced latency, greater symbol coverage, better data quality, and the same backward-compatible API that hundreds of applications have been building on since 2021. The one change for existing users: accessing any Pyth Price Feeds API will require a Pyth data plan, which start at $500 per month and are available through the Pyth Terminal. Custom plans are available for applications with specific asset class coverage.

This upgrade is the last major piece of the network moving onto a commercial model that combines growth with monetization. Pyth Pro and the Pyth Data Marketplace have been generating millions of dollars in revenue from institutions and applications. With this upgrade, Pyth Core joins them. Every category of Pyth user will flow through the same subscription infrastructure, with revenue accruing to the Pyth DAO.

What the upgrade brings

Pyth Core users will now get access to capabilities that previously sat behind Pyth Pro:

• Lower latency and higher update frequencies across all asset classes and feeds

• Additional price feeds beyond what Core offers today

• The same underlying publisher network: Fidelity Investments, Revolut, Tradeweb, Jane Street, Jump, DRW, Cboe, and the 125+ institutions contributing proprietary data

• A 100% backward-compatible API, so existing integrations require no code rewrites

This upgrade also introduces new pricing plans for subscribers:

The Starter plan at $500 per month covers crypto, NAV, crypto redemption rates, and crypto indices with 1-second updates, which works well for the majority of existing Pyth Core users. Applications consuming other asset classes can subscribe to one of the Pyth Pro plans, with bundles available by asset class and combined coverage at a discount:

• All Asset Classes: $10,000 / month

• U.S. Equities: $5,000 / month

• Futures: $5,000 / month

• FX & Metals: $6,500 / month

• FX: $5,000 / month

• FX (G10 Only): $2,500 / month

• Crypto: $2,500 / month

• Metals: $2,500 / month

The vast majority of price feeds available on Pyth Core today are supported by the new infrastructure, along with many that were not previously available. The full live catalog is browsable on Pyth Terminal here. If you want to request support for a particular symbol, please email data@dourolabs.xyz.

Two ways to upgrade

Builders can choose when their application makes the switch (please note: apps on Sui must go through the early upgrade process).

Early upgrade (recommended). Sign up for Pyth Terminal and subscribe to a Pyth data plan (Starter or Pro) to get an API key, replace your Hermes endpoint with https://pyth.dourolabs.app/hermes/ and provide your API key as an Authorization: Bearer <token> header. Testnets are available for testing prior to going live in production. The full upgrade guide is in the docs here.

Automatic upgrade. Applications that do not upgrade early will be switched over on July 31st. The Pyth DAO will upgrade all existing Pyth Core contracts to consume data from the new infrastructure, and the existing Hermes endpoint will redirect to the new one. The transition will incur a few minutes of downtime around the cutover. Applications that need zero downtime can register for both Hermes endpoints during the window and consume whichever is valid at any given moment.

To avoid any downtime, it is recommended to go through the early upgrade process. Either way, an API key is required after July 31st. Sign up at Pyth Terminal.

Chain support

The upgrade supports all major EVM chains, Solana, and Sui by default. Applications running on other ecosystems can still access price data via the Hermes API, but onchain verification on those chains will not be supported by default after the upgrade. Builders on non-default chains should contact the team ahead of July 31st to arrange continued support, or migrate to an alternative.

To view the list of available blockchains, go here. If you want to request support for a particular chain, please send an email to data@dourolabs.xyz.

Why this is happening

Pyth Core launched as the network's first product and proved the model. First-party institutional data, aggregated and distributed across more than 100 blockchains, consumed by hundreds of applications. By the metrics available as of this blog, $3.1T+ in cumulative transaction volume processed, 700+ integrations, the leading position in DeFi derivatives data, the product-market fit is strong.

Phase 1 of the network was about proving institutional data could move onchain at scale. Phase 2 is about combining growth with a scalable business model. The global market data industry is a $50B+ annual market, dominated by legacy vendors selling fragmented coverage of the same asset classes that Pyth's publishers already produce. Pyth’s new subscription model is the product built to compete in that market. The data that has been flowing onchain for free since 2021 now flows through the same commercial system as everything else.

What it means for the network

Subscription revenue flows back to the Pyth DAO and into the PYTH Reserve, which converts that revenue into open-market PYTH purchases on a recurring basis. The Reserve has been operational for several months and has already purchased approximately 12M PYTH from subscription revenue alone.

This upgrade converts the existing Pyth Core integration base into a paying cohort. Applied across the network's footprint, the Starter plan alone represents a meaningful expansion of the revenue feeding the Reserve.

Getting started

Sign up for a Pyth data plan at Pyth Terminal. Read the upgrade documentation. Reach out to data@dourolabs.xyz with integration questions.

The price of everything, everywhere. Now on a single set of rails.