- IOTA 2.0 launched this week, marking the most significant update in the ecosystem and a resurgence in the innovation that made IOTA a crypto darling nearly a decade ago.
- The new upgrade gives the network greater ability to impact tokenization, global trade, digital identity and much more as IOTA readies to compete with Ethereum, Solana and other leading networks.
It’s been a big week for IOTA. As Crypto News Flash reported, on Wednesday, the network launched the public testnet for IOTA 2.0, its most significant upgrade.
IOTA 2.0 ushers in a new era of decentralization, security, transaction speed, on-chain democracy and more. It goes beyond the technical features, offering better rewards for staking and delegating tokens, setting the network up for long-term success.
As one IOTA ecosystem member pointed out recently, IOTA 2.0 will take the network back to where it was eight years ago. After launching in 2015, IOTA quickly became one of the mainstream crypto successes, taking over with its unique Tangle DAG, which sets it apart from other blockchains. By 2017, IOTA was one of the top five largest cryptocurrencies, ranking only behind Ethereum, Bitcoin and XRP.
However, after the 2017 bull market, IOTA began to lose its footing on the charts. Other newer and shinier crypto projects sprang up and ate into its market cap and target market. Before long, it was bumped out of the top ten, then slipped out of the top 20, and not too long after, it couldn’t crack the top 50.
Today, at a market cap of $695 million, IOTA is 108th on the charts, ranking behind much newer projects like ORDI, which launched this year.
As the post notes, IOTA 2.0 could change all this and restore IOTA to its former glory. It states:
IOTA 2.0 claims to overcome the blockchain trilemma (you can’t achieve scalability, security, and decentralization simultaneously) by using the battle-tested Tangle (IOTA’s Directed Acyclic Graph) in combination with On-Tangle Voting OTV(a leaderless consensus algorithm). Keyword: Coordicide. This alone would have me in tears, but IOTA is so much more.
IOTA 2.0—A Resurgence in Innovation
The public testnet launch for IOTA 2.0 is a landmark step for the network. It allows any developer or enthusiast to engage with the new upgrade and enables the developer team to work on any bugs or make improvements as requested by the community. What’s more, innovators can build applications on the new network and even take advantage of the IOTA Grants Program, which has issued over $900 to eight recipients so far.
The testnet is a crucial stage “for exploring new concepts of decentralization and efficiency, and the community’s input during this phase will be instrumental in refining and advancing the network,” says the IOTA Foundation.
Meanwhile, IOTA trades at $0.2141, shedding 2.55% in the past day.