For IOTA, 2023 was all about grinding to lay the foundation while 2024 is getting everything into action. Right now, the cryptocurrency community is anticipating major changes in the network’s ecosystem as it gears up to launch IOTA 2.0. What’s getting them more excited is its planned alignment with the Ethereum blockchain, which hosts the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
IOTA Co-Founder Hypes Updates
IOTA’s initial run was marred by controversies as it was subjected to a coordinated cyberattack in its early years. Learning from its past mistakes, its network had undergone an overhaul from the ground up to address its vulnerabilities and offer a truly decentralized experience for its users.
Following the release of its Q4 Progress Report, IOTA co-founder Dominik Schiener held an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session for the platform’s legion of followers. The discussion revolved around their developers’ accomplishments and roadmap for this year. The main topics that brought the community to its feet, however, were the network’s upcoming Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM launch) and the alpha version of IOTA 2.0.
Schiener revealed that IOTA holders can stake their tokens to the IOTA EVM by the second quarter of the year. This was seen by the consensus as a tip from the exec, and thus, was one of the catalysts that have been gradually pulling up the prices of IOTA in the past few days. On the technical side, this presents better scalability and interoperability for the network, which could provide an avenue for its users to build multi-chain decentralized applications (dApps).
The IOTA co-founder also confirmed the release of the IOTA-core’s (Coordicide) alpha version, which was earlier announced by the foundation’s developer, Hans Moog. The update introduces upgrades in protocol parameters to boost network performance and usability.
Moog’s tweet was met with criticism though, as some of the people who reacted to the announcement were more interested in the price movement of the IOTA token than the technology behind it. Nevertheless, he replied, “Nobody cares about an alpha for a testnet but the community can maybe derive some knowledge about our progress from this release.”
Moog likewise highlighted how the IOTA Foundation is finding real-world utility for its technology in shaping up cross-border information exchange of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) trade documents in the East African Community (EAC). Previously, the organization partnered with various ministries in the EAC region to forge the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP).
The platform allows real-time information exchange to ensure regulatory compliance in the export market of agricultural products. This is further bolstered by IOTA’s decentralized identifier (DID) mechanism to ensure the integrity, security, and efficiency of the system.
IOTA Now
As of this writing at 10:30 AM (UTC), IOTA is down by over 2% as it trades around $0.25. The trading volume of the token has also gone down by 33% as only $30.05 million worth of the digital asset moved between crypto exchanges and wallets within the timeframe. During this period, the price moved between $0.23 and $0.26.
While there’s not much to say about the token’s action within the day, its bullish track can actually be seen by zooming out on its performance for the past seven days. After the AMA and development updates, IOTA recovered 24% of its value from the $0.19 dip it had over the week.
To date, there are 3.11 billion IOTA tokens in circulation, which is valued at $792.60 million. The figures also indicate a volume/market ratio of 6.3%, indicating the crypto’s liquidity.