What is Beldex (BDX)? Why are over 2 billion unlisted?

Beldex (BDX) is a privacy coin operating on a unique chain forked from Monero's codebase. Transactions are confidential by default. Staked masternodes protect the network and provide an encrypted messenger, mixnet, and an on-chain naming system. BDX is used for transaction fees and as collateral locked by nodes.

The Beldex chain indicates that there are 9,939,527,993 BDX in existence. In contrast, the quantity published by aggregators providing price information is 7,870,587,552 BDX. We investigated the chain, block explorer, a 41-page white paper, and a 37-page document to verify the whereabouts of the discrepancy of 2,068,940,441 BDX. While the design intent is mentioned in each document, none specify the quantity. As of the closing price on September 8, 2026, this discrepancy amounts to approximately $158.6 million.

|--------------------|------------------------------------------------| | Metric | Details | | Token Name | Beldex | | Ticker | BDX | | Blockchain | Beldex's unique CryptoNote chain (forked from Monero) | | Consensus | Proof of Stake, 1 block every 30 seconds | | Decimal Places | 9 (not the 12 used in the Monero codebase) | | Total Supply | 9,951,366,263.900 BDX (as of block 5,735,724) | | Burned | 11,838,270.716 BDX (as of the same block) | | Supply on Chain | 9,939,527,993.184 BDX | | Aggregator Supply | 7,870,587,552 BDX | | Discrepancy | 2,068,940,441 BDX (20.79% of total supply) | | Masternode Collateral | 10,000 BDX, time-locked | | Network Status | daemon 7.0.2, hard fork 21, 5,911,309 transactions, 6,593 registered names | | Core Description | Confidential payments and stake-based service layer | | Main Risks | Two differing definitions of supply, low trading volume, delayed documentation on chain | | Availability on Phemex | No BDX spot pairs or BDX perpetual contracts |

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What is Beldex?

Beldex is a chain forked from code that maintains Monero's privacy features. Ring signatures hide the inputs used, stealth addresses conceal the recipient, and the amount is also kept secret. There is no setting to disable these features, so all transactions appear the same from an external perspective.

What Beldex has added is a paid service layer. Operators lock 10,000 BDX to operate masternodes. Nodes are responsible not only for block generation but also for communication routing via mixnet, encrypted messaging, and linking readable names with addresses. At the confirmed block time, 6,593 names were registered.

The chain adopts Proof of Stake and generates a block every 30 seconds. According to the white paper, 10% of each reward goes to the block generator, and 90% goes to the next masternode in line. Operators who receive rewards go to the back of the queue, making it more like a duty roster than a lottery.

Why are there two types of circulating supply for Beldex?

The numbers on the chain are not estimates. The explorer's supply API returns three items, one of which, circulating_supply, is the total supply minus the burned amount. As of block 5,735,724, the issued amount is 9,951,366,263.900, and the burned amount is 11,838,270.716, resulting in a net of 9,939,527,993.184 up to the ninth decimal place. This is not a model but a simple subtraction.

This point is crucial because the label "circulating supply" could be interpreted as an estimate, similar to how companies report the number of shares outstanding after a buyback. In reality, it is the total number of coins that the chain has paid and not destroyed.

Aggregators report 7,870,587,552 BDX. The discrepancy is 2,068,940,441 BDX, or 20.79% of the total supply.

|-----------------------------|-------------------|------------------------| | Definition of Supply | Token Count | Market Value at $0.076653503 | | Chain (issued - burned, block 5,735,724) | 9,939,527,993.18 | $761,899,643 | | Reported Circulating Supply | 7,870,587,552 | $603,308,110 | | Discrepancy | 2,068,940,441 | $158,591,533 |

The agreement on the excluded quantity is higher than the agreement on the price. One aggregator's total supply item indicates the chain's figure of 9,939,527,316. For another aggregator, dividing the reported market cap by the reported price gives 7,870,527,472, with a difference of about 60,000 BDX from the former. The two sources, which are 0.5% apart in price, are within 0.0008% in the excluded supply.

This means that someone decided on the excluded items, and both feeds adopted the same judgment. However, the entity and reason for this could not be confirmed.

Scope of Investigation

The term "circulating supply" is used only once in the 41-page white paper, explaining that locking coins increases the cost of Sybil attacks. There is no mention of quantity. The word "supply" appears five times throughout the 37-page document, one of which refers to a stable power supply for servers. The overview page states that Beldex intends to "actively suppress the circulating supply" and refers to its issuance curve page for details. However, that page does not explain the issuance curve.

The public interface of the explorer does not have an endpoint for the number of masternodes. I tried four different notations, but all returned Not Found.

I cannot definitively state what the 2.07 billion BDX refers to, as I could not verify it. At this time, there is no indication that other materials or stakeholders have clearly explained it. The lack of explanation itself is the finding of this investigation.

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The Actual Role of Beldex's Masternodes

The first explanation that comes to mind for large excluded balances is Staking. The operator registers by time-locking 10,000 BDX, and the network retains that collateral for at least 30 days. Even if a return is requested, it remains locked for an additional 15 days. If a node is offline for an extended period, it will be deregistered, and as a penalty, the collateral will be held for 30 days.

Dividing the difference by the collateral amount suggests that approximately 206,894 master nodes are needed to explain this. This is why we stopped considering Staking as the sole answer. Since we could not obtain the number of nodes from the public explorer, the range of what can be stated with certainty is limited. To explain the stated collateral amount, a number of nodes on an undisclosed scale is required.

There is another inconsistency on the same page. In one paragraph, it is explained that collateral is verified based on decreasing collateral requirements, implying that the required amount decreases over time. In the next paragraph, it is stated that the amount is constant.

Regarding the functions of nodes, there is one role that the documentation describes in detail. In this design of the privacy chain, light wallets need to download blocks and scan them locally. This places a burden on the operators of public nodes and may expose their IP addresses. In Beldex, all master nodes take on this role. This is a practical challenge, but it is more limited than the general explanations expected about the Staking layer.

How Liquid is BDX Trading?

Two feeds reported the closing prices on September 8, 2026, as $0.076653503 and $0.076277, with a difference of 0.494%. While this is a non-negligible difference, it is not significant. This article uses the higher figure and shows both.

What distinguishes BDX from tokens in the same category is trading volume. The trading volume for the session leading up to the closing price was 1.45% of the publicly reported market cap, and 1.15% based on the on-chain supply. At the same time, dogwifhat had a trading volume of 14.05%. BDX is a larger asset in value terms, but it is traded about ten times less frequently.

Imagine there are two stores with the same inventory, but one sells products at ten times the speed of the other. The slower store is not necessarily cheaper or safer. In large orders, the price can move easily before finding a counterparty, and a position that can be opened without difficulty may not be closed under the same conditions.

Phemex does not have BDX spot pairs or perpetual contracts. Exposure to privacy assets through listed derivatives will occur via other assets.

Factors That Could Move BDX Prices

Demand for Privacy-Related Assets

Zcash ended the session on September 8, above its 200-day moving average by 41.97%. This was the most divergent figure among the 57 spot pairs on our board that have a complete history of 200 sessions. This result pertains to those 57 pairs and does not represent the entire market. Our analysis on Zcash's decline and risk-adjusted scores addresses the impact of such divergence on holders. Additionally, changes within the Zcash development team explain one of the factors for demand for that token.

Supply Figures Adopted by Feeds

If aggregators switch to chain figures, the publicly reported market cap of BDX will increase by $158.6 million even without actual transactions. Screeners, index rules, and portfolio filters refer to this figure, so a change in definition could alter the asset's display position even without purchases.

Inflows and Outflows of Collateral

With each registration, 10,000 BDX is locked for at least 30 days, and there is an additional 15-day lock period upon return. In such thinly traded markets, the movement of funds related to nodes is a variable affecting supply rather than a note.

Scheduled Macroeconomic Events

The Producer Price Index will be announced on September 10 at 12:30 UTC, and the Consumer Price Index will be released on September 11 at the same time. The Federal Reserve Board (FRB) is scheduled to hold a meeting on September 15-16 to publish economic forecasts. In thin markets, prices may move significantly during these announcements.

Risks

Displayed Supply May Differ from Actual Supply

The ratio using circulating supply can vary by about one-fifth depending on which definition the data source adopts. It is not necessarily the case that one is wrong. Both answer different questions, and there are cases where the source does not specify which one it is using.

Wrapped Contracts are Not the Chain Itself

On the BNB Chain, there exists a token named BELDEX with the ticker BDX and nine decimal places at address 0x9d10a1ec41fe7878429bb457e31f9b050d38c633. The total supply is 4,335,728.69 tokens, which is only 0.04% of the chain supply and 0.21% of the difference, so it does not explain the difference. Additionally, it was confirmed on two independent BNB Chain nodes that it was an upgradable proxy. Therefore, even if the Beldex chain itself does not change, the displayed content may be replaced.

Documentation is Behind the Chain

The white paper states that the block reward is a constant 6.5 BDX. However, the confirmed block rewards were 6.25 BDX, and the total issuance increased accurately by 6.25 each time over 11 consecutive blocks. The authoritative source is the chain, and the documentation is outdated. This is a point to consider when evaluating other descriptions of the published tokenomics.

Unable to Confirm the Number of Nodes

The public explorer allows checking of issuance, network status, and individual blocks, but the number of nodes is not publicly available. Even when evaluating the Staking layer, primary data alone cannot determine its scale.

Thin Trading Liquidity

When daily trading volume is around 1.45%, the constraint is more on liquidity at exit than at entry. Privacy assets carry delisting risks not found in other categories, and if a thinly traded token is delisted, the impact could be magnified.

Similar Tickers

There is another asset traded under the ticker BDXN, which is not Beldex. Before using figures, please verify the chain and official name, just as you would check the privacy layer and 13-block chain reorganization explanation for Litecoin. Not all privacy features operate the same way as essential functions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many BDX are there? The chain reports 9,939,527,993.184 BDX at block 5,735,724 after 11,838,270.716 BDX were burned. Aggregators report a circulating supply of 7,870,587,552.

Why do different sites show different market caps for Beldex? This is because they multiply the same price by different supply figures. On September 8, 2026, the difference between the two definitions was $158.6 million.

Is Beldex a fork of Monero? Yes. It maintains the CryptoNote design, including ring signatures and stealth addresses, while adopting Proof of Stake, collateral-based master node layers, and nine decimal places instead of Monero's twelve.

What is BelNet? It is the mixnet served by Beldex's master nodes. It routes communication through multiple hops, making it difficult for a single node to simultaneously grasp both ends of the connection.

Conclusion

Beldex is an operational privacy chain, and its service layer also exists. However, its role is more limited than marketing explanations suggest. The key point is that there are two answers with a difference of 2,068,940,441 BDX regarding the most basic information about the token, specifically how much quantity is counted as supply, and that primary sources have not adjusted for these.

I have examined the chain, explorer, white paper, and documentation. The intention to lock the supply is mentioned in three places, but there are no documents stating the quantity. If you hold BDX, you cannot leave this point solely to the screener. This is because the screener may have already chosen one or the other without indicating which definition was used. ++View Phemex's cryptocurrency futures feature++

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Trading cryptocurrencies involves significant risks. Please conduct your own research before making any investment decisions.

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