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Why The IOTA Foundation Donated £1M To The Imperial College

The IOTA Foundation announced a major contribution to the Imperial College. The non-profit organization based in Europe donated £1 million to the world-renown academic institution to research potential improvements to the circular economy supported by decentralized ledger technology (DLT).

Related Reading | Why IOTA Was Chosen By The European Union To Develop Blockchain Solutions

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the circular economy contemplates a transformation of the world’s economic model to reduce or eliminate the production of waste. Thus, economic agents would adopt a “system solution framework” to prevent negative impacts on the environment.

The ultimate goal would be for humans to reduce waste and pollution from the production and supply chain and aid “nature to regenerate” itself. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation explains it as follows:

A circular economy decouples economic activity from the consumption of finite resources. It is a resilient system that is good for business, people and the environment.

In that sense, the IOTA Foundation and the Imperial College will collaborate to create an entity that will conduct research to promote the circular economy. Called the I3-LAB or Imperial-IOTA-Infrastructures Lab, the research facility will be located within the Dyson School of Design Engineering in London.

The lab will be comprised of prestigious academic faculty from this engineering school, including Professor of Cyber-Physical Systems and Deputy Director of the Dyson Robert Shorten. With a specialization in smart mobility, smart cities, sharing economy, and DLT, Shorten seems the right person to lead the initiative.

Via his Twitter account, IOTA founder Dominik Schiener stated the following while celebrating the crypto industry’s influence to improve issues that affect people while creating real-world use cases:

Many of us have joined crypto because we truly believe in the positive impact that we can have. We are here to decentralize, to empower and to create opportunities for everyone. Let’s use the money, knowledge and communities we have to accelerate that impact.

IOTA Makes Push To Support Sustainable Economy

As Schiener clarified, the developments that will come out of this Circular Economy Lab will be open source and everyone will have access. In that sense, he invited the IOTA community to take part in the initiative and added:

This will be the first of many philanthropic activities from the IOTA Foundation. Let’s accelerate our impact, together.

The Foundation also revealed that its contribution to the Imperial College will support doctoral studentships, and postdoctoral fellowships for those researchers interested in topics related to sustainable business models, tokenization, and more.

The non-profit organization also claimed that selected projects will require cooperation between researchers, local entrepreneurs, and authorities. Thus, DLT will be leveraged to resolve a wide variety of environmental challenges. Peter Cheung, Head of the Dyson School of Design Engineering said:

We are incredibly grateful to the IOTA Foundation for their support. Innovation in sustainable growth is one of the key research themes for the Dyson School and this grant will bring new impetus to research on the technological drivers of the circular economy.

Related Reading | IOTA to Release Smart Contract Network ‘Assembly’ And Distribute ASMB Token

As of press time, MIOTA trades at $0.87 with sideways movement in the past 24 hours. The cryptocurrency has been following the general trend in the crypto market as it revisits support after BTC’s price was rejected at critical resistance.

MIOTA moving sideways in the 4-hour chart. Source: MIOTAUSDT Tradingview

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Why IOTA Was Chosen By The European Union To Develop Blockchain Solutions

IOTA was selected as one of the projects that will take part in the European Union Blockchain Pre-Commercial Procurement. The platform will be competing with four projects in a second round for this EU program for a chance at improving the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI).

Related Reading | IOTA Smart Contracts Enter Beta Phase To Circumvent Network Flaws

Announced by the IOTA Foundation (IF), the network has reached stage two out of three after it was selected from around 35 applicants. This second phase will last around six months, per the announcement, and will have a special focus on research, development, and lab testing.

The IOTA Foundation will receive support from the European Commission in order to investigate and develop “blockchain innovations in the context of testing how future evolutions of EBSI could evolve towards a more scalable, energy-efficient, secure and interoperable architecture”.

In that sense, the IOTA Foundation revealed that it will partner with Software AG to implement the developed solution. After, the EU Commission will launch an evaluation phase to test the results of its program’s second phase and the progress each participant has accomplished. The IF added the following:

(…) based on this evaluation, a minimum of three projects will be selected to move on to Phase 2B, final solutions development and field testing, which is expected to last another year.

Therefore, the non-profit organization will start testing blockchain solutions based on IOTA, specifically they will test a use case for digital product passports for digital waste recycling and a cross-border management of IP rights, the announcement said. Besides Software AG, the IF will rely on other partners and will attempt to growth its partner network.

In the past, the organization has worked with major companies from around the world to help them develop multiple use cases. This includes software giant IBM, Dell Technologies, Jaguar Land Rover, and others.

IOTA To Power EU Supported Blockchain Solutions?

In its final stage, the EU program will require projects to field test the capabilities of their proposals. The IF claimed to be “excited” about its role on this European driven initiative and added:

We very much support the strategic focus placed by the European Commission on blockchain and distributed ledger technology as a driver for innovation and growth. We are privileged to be part of this pre-commercial procurement procedure to develop a Europe-wide infrastructure based on blockchain and DLT for use in public services (…).

IOTA will dedicate resources to develop solutions and use cases on Scalability, and the implementation of sharding on the EBSI infrastructure. The objective is to improve the protocol’s scale capabilities to onboard and support the users that will leverage the EBSI network.

The IF will attempt to develop its sharding solution with a “root network” approach. In other words, a main network will be connected to a series of leaf or branch smaller networks. In addition, the organization will work on its consensus and governance mechanism, its interoperability, and potential to implement identity solutions.

Related Reading | IOTA to Release Smart Contract Network ‘Assembly’ And Distribute ASMB Token

At the time of writing, IOTA trades at $1,11 with a 1.9% loss in 24 hours.

MIOTA with small gains on the 4-hour chart. Source: MIOTAUSDT Tradingview

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How This IOTA DEX Seeks to Offer a “Unique” DeFi Experience

IOTA has undergone one of its most important milestones since its inception, on April 29th the Chrysalis Network went live. Improvements in efficiency, security, and scalability were deployed. While developers work on its next major event, the Coordicide, the IOTA-based ecosystem keeps growing.

As part of Chrysalis, new dApps have made their way into the network. Amongst them is TangleSwap, a decentralized exchange (DEX), that seeks to bring DeFi into IOTA and combine it with the network’s most unique features.

The team behind this protocol has been involved with IOTA since 2017. For years, they have been planning to build on top of this network and contribute to its expansion. Via TangleSwap’s official Twitter handle, they said:

(…) we knew that once the time was right, we would like to develop and provide the best tools so that the ecosystem and the community grew in a fast, secure and strong manner.

In the coming months, this team has promised IOTA users, hodlers, buidlers, the possibility to trade and swap tokens at low costs. In addition, this DEX will operate with fees close to “free as possible”, a feature not available in competitors such as Uniswap, SushiSwap, and others.

Ethereum’s network still hosts some of the biggest DeFi protocols with billions in Total Value Locked (TVL). However, high fees and congestion made room for competitors on other blockchains to thrive.

TangleSwap, as its name suggest, will leverage IOTA’s Tangle technology. This will allow users to benefit from automated trades and more control over their operations without the limitations set by high transactions cost.

This means you will be able to trade as many times as you want, with virtually no restrictions. A feature that seems especially attractive to those seeking to automatize their operations but are being held back by insurmountable gas fees.

IOTA DEX To Enable Free NFTs Mints With Colored Coins

In addition to DeFi, the crypto space has seen a surge in interest in other sectors, such as blockchain-based games and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). TangleSwap plans to use IOTA’s Colored Coins to facilitate the minting and transfer process of these assets.

The Colored Coins were a series of methods to managed real-world assets first proposed as Bitcoin update. In the future, TangleSwap will use these methods with tokens that will represent other cryptocurrencies, company shares, and other assets. Thus, increasing the applications for NFTs.

The developers of this DEX have mid to long-term plans that contain the aforementioned use cases. Their ultimate goal is to create an “entire financial ecosystem on one platform”, IOTA. Thus, they will add a native stablecoin, implement a lending platform, liquidity provision, and more.

All of this turbo-powered by the advantages brought by the Tangle over traditional blockchain technology. (…) We will witness a transformation in the way DeFi, trading and holding work, fueled by all the possibilities enabled by the IOTA ecosystem.

At the time of writing, IOTA trades at $0,78 and has followed the general sentiment in the market with a 5.3% loss in the daily chart.

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IOTA follows the trend to the downside in the 24-hour chart. Source: IOTAUSDT Tradingview
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How IOTA Could Reach $1B In Tokens Locked Before Chrysalis 2.0

On April 21st, IOTA Co-founder Dominik Schiener said the platform was about to enter a new era. Chrysalis 2.0 is set to be deployed next week with a complete overhaul of this network. Firefly, the token’s new native wallet, is a key component and will operate as a bridge from IOTA 1.0 to the 1.5 update.

IOTA (MIOTA, Mi) holders can begin their tokens migration to prepare for Chrysalis. The process is the first stage to make reach the token’s potential as a peer-to-peer digital cash, as the Technical Lead at the IOTA Foundation (IF) Charlie Varley said.

Via Twitter, Schiener celebrated a milestone in this process. Only 12 hours after it was enabled, $220 million in IOTA Tokens were locked and ready to be migrated into the new network. Schiener said the following in celebration:

This is simply amazing. After 12 hours, more than $220m #IOTA tokens are already #locked and ready for the #Chrysalis launch. Let’s reach $1 Billion tokens locked before the launch next week on the 28th!

In a special episode of IOTA Talks, Schiener clarified that the migration process is optional. Users can proceed with it at any time before and after Chrysalis’ launch. The next phase big event for the network will be Coordicide and should mark the beginning of this platform’s full decentralization. On the update, the IF said:

This relaunch will bring IOTA up to the level of an enterprise-ready product that is fully equipped for use in outside organizations and businesses that wish to leverage the power of the Tangle. Chrysalis improves the efficiency, security, scalability, and stability of the IOTA protocol (…).

IOTA Goes Higher On Bitcoin Pair

At the time of writing, MIOTA is trading at $1,72 with a 4.8% loss in the daily chart. In the weekly and monthly chart, the token has a 32.1% loss and a 20.6% gain respectively. According to analyst Lukas Tassanyi, MIOTA has held support in its BTC pair for the 30-day chart and has been making higher high after bearish price action.

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MIOTA with moderate losses in the daily chart. Source: IOTAUSDT Tradingview

Tassanyi believes the tokens formed a symmetrical triangle on the 21st when the IF launched Firefly. Possibly responding to the current developments, MIOTA was set to break or rise. Since that moment, the price has been trending downwards.

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Source: Lukas Tassanyi

As Tassanyi showed in the chart above, $1.63 could be critical support for MIOTA, if it continues south from its current levels. In the short term, the analyst expects a period of consolidation. When it reverses the trend, MIOTA could target a new all-time high at $2.57.

In the long term, the analyst expects MIOTA and its platform to benefit from “two separate arenas”: its potential as a cryptocurrency with low, fast transaction and high scalability, and the Internet of Things (IoT) market. Tassanyi added:

If IOTA manages to succeed in only one of them, that should make it a $1 Trillion project already. IOTA is both the leading blockchain alternative and the leading IoT ledger. With no close competitors.

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All Hands on Deck for IOTA’s Chrysalis 2.0, This Is What You Need to Know

IOTA is ready for a major milestone with the launch of the Chrysalis phase 2 also know as the final stage for IOTA 1.5. The bridge network between IOTA and the Coordicide event which will lead it to full decentralization, Chrysalis will roll out on April 28th, 2021.

After this date, IOTA’s current mainnet will become the “legacy mainnet”. According to an IOTA Foundation official post, the infrastructure that will replace the current mainnet is already in place. The organization said:

With Chrysalis just around the corner, the team is heads down in the final bits and pieces to make everything as smooth as possible both on April 21 and April 28. Tests are being run on multiple instances of infrastructure to test all the migration scenarios.

Classifying Chrysalis phase 2 as a “new beginning for the IOTA protocol”, the Foundation said they are testing the migration on Firefly with the help of internal and external testers. Since August 2020, the organization and IOTA developers have been developing the new components for phase 2.

In that regard, the team of developers has released several versions for the Pollen testnet. This component will introduce mana, a reputation system that will help boost IOTA security.

Software node Bee has been released in an alpha phase. Developers can access it and run a Bee node with an updated dashboard with full Chrysalis migration support.

Two of Chrysalis 2.0 most important components, Smart Contracts, and Stronghold have also been released in the first versions. For the first component, the developers are “refactoring the integration to reflect” some changes in Polled.

For Stronghold, the developers have placed the component under external audit and its benchmarks are “using microseconds for measurements”, as revealed by the IOTA Foundation. The organization said:

We are working together with the IF cryptography team to identify methods for performing multisig using Stronghold’s internal libp2p-noise based communication crate. Indeed, our primary focus now is on verifying and validating this crate and its processes.

IOTA’s token migration an important step for users

On Wednesday, April 21, 2021, IOTA holders, exchanges, and custodian can begin migrating their tokens. The process will be open until Coordicide deployment.

To begin the migration using Firefly, the holders will need to enter their seeds in the wallet. Later, they will receive a new mnemonic with an EdDSA address on the Chrysalis network. This address will have the user’s token. The IOTA Foundation said:

The heavy lifting is fully automated through the Firefly wallet and token holders are guided by a simple interface.

IOTA (MIOTA) is trading at $2,16 with 12.3% losses in the daily chart following the market’s general sentiment. On the weekly and monthly chart, MIOTA has 3.8% and 62.4%, respectively.

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IOTA with moderate losses in the daily chart. Source: IOTAUSDT Tradingview