VeChain (VET) has returned to traders’ radar with a strong short-term rally and a key network upgrade on the horizon. On September 8, VET gained roughly 10% to trade around $0.007919, while reported 24-hour volume increased sharply, pointing to renewed speculative interest ahead of the Interstellar upgrade scheduled for September 16.
Part of the renewed interest comes from VeChain’s history: the project dates back to 2015, long before DeFi, NFTs and AI-related crypto projects, and is being described by some traders as an OG coin that survived multiple market cycles.
The upcoming protocol update, formally known as VIP-255, bundles 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals into a single VeChainThor upgrade and brings the network closer to standards introduced across Ethereum’s Cancun, Prague and Osaka releases. Among the changes are transient storage via EIP-1153, MCOPY through EIP-5656 and additional cryptographic precompiles. The broader objective is to make VeChainThor more compatible with Ethereum tooling, reducing friction for developers who already build in the EVM ecosystem.
Interstellar is the third major stage of VeChain’s Renaissance roadmap. It has already passed VeChain’s governance process and is expected to activate at approximately block 25,902,540. Traders are positioning around the catalyst, with several bursts of buying in recent weeks.
By September 9, VET was trading near $0.007880, down about 2.31% on the day after pulling back from an intraday high around $0.008162. The coin broke a descending trendline that had been in place since January’s high near $0.0095, supported by a sharp rally from August’s low near $0.0044 and an August gain of about 41.4%. The 200-day exponential moving average at roughly $0.007027 is now viewed as key support, while the next major target is around $0.0095.
VeChain’s latest narrative also rests on structural changes already implemented. The previous Hayabusa upgrade moved VeChainThor to Delegated Proof of Stake, while the Stargate system lets VET holders stake, receive staking NFTs and delegate to validators to earn VTHO rewards. Under the redesigned tokenomics, 100% of transaction fees are burned, and VTHO generation is concentrated among actively staked VET. VeChain has said the new structure could reduce VTHO inflation by as much as 72.2%.
Additionally, most of VET’s eventual supply is already circulating, with current estimates around 86 billion VET against a maximum supply of roughly 86.7 billion. VET remains about 97% below its 2021 all-time high. Cointelegraph’s validator arm, CTDG, also went live on VeChain, joining its existing setups on Solana, Polkadot and Injective, adding another institutional validation point for the network.
Still, analysts caution that better infrastructure does not automatically produce more applications or users. Whether developers actually build on the upgraded VeChainThor after September 16 will be the more important question.
