The Currency ofVELS COIN

VELS Coin — ticker VEL — is a utility cryptocurrency on the BNB Smart Chain, developed by World Research Union (WRU) as our flagship fintech innovation project. It was created by WRU's founder, whose background is in financial technology, to explore whether a purpose-built academic currency could one day offer researchers a faster, borderless way to pay conference and research-related fees.

VELS is currently an early-stage, experimental payment option — not an established or independently listed cryptocurrency. It is not traded on any major exchange, and WRU currently holds the large majority of the token supply as the project's founding organization. We are building this openly and gradually rather than claiming a maturity the project doesn't yet have.

We offer a discount to participants who choose to pay in VEL at WRU conferences. This is a deliberate incentive to encourage early adoption of the project — it is not intended, and should not be understood, as a way to avoid taxation, currency controls, or standard financial reporting. Fiat payment via Stripe remains fully available, fully supported, and priced fairly for anyone who prefers it or is unfamiliar with cryptocurrency.

We believe purpose-built payment systems like this could become genuinely useful infrastructure for the global research community over time. Today, VELS Coin is a pilot of that vision — participation is optional, and we encourage anyone new to crypto to use standard payment methods instead.