Last month’s successful completion of the Chrysalis upgrade signaled the start of a new era for IOTA.
The Foundation and its ecosystem are confident that the current version of IOTA running in production on the mainnet is one of the best base protocols in the industry. This was after more than a year of rigorous research and the successful deployment of the new network.
Nothing has been overlooked. To represent the number of changes brought in this new upgrade, the entire software stack rebuilds from the ground up. This includes both node implementations (written in Go and Rust), all client libraries, and the wallet.
IOTA Ecosystem and Chrysalis Upgrade
Few projects can claim to have completely developed and engineered a protocol architecture from scratch. Implementing and launching a new network requires a complete rework of the software stack. This specifically includes tools, libraries, third-party integrations, and even a new wallet.
Furthermore, the upgrade necessitated the deployment of a secure bridge to transfer assets from the previous (now legacy) IOTA network to the Chrysalis network in a decentralized and trustless manner.
So far, about $2 billion in IOTA tokens transferred between the networks using our decentralized asset bridge, which an intuitive and fully automated process directed within the Firefly wallet.
All of these enhancements, together with the Chrysalis upgrade, have resulted in IOTA becoming a highly performant and simple-to-use DLT protocol. These also have a low energy footprint and no transaction fees.
The upgrade provides their ecosystem with a comprehensive set of tools for developing dApps and IOTA-based business models. Moreover, it lays a solid platform on which they may explore new ecosystems, use cases, and opportunities.
Complete Decentralization of IOTA
One of the most important – and less obvious – reasons for the Chrysalis upgrade is that it allows the IOTA ecosystem to transition more smoothly to our ultimate goal. The goal of the introduction of the completely decentralized IOTA network – IOTA 2.0.
It has always been their ambition to fully decentralize IOTA. They also want to build a distributed ledger technology that can scale to facilitate widespread adoption from the project’s beginnings. They may now focus on the road ahead in order to achieve their goal of full decentralization. This includes the removal of the coordinator now that the Chrysalis upgrade is complete.
The removal of the coordinator is the last major improvement of IOTA after the release of the Chrysalis upgrade. The removal of the coordinator will make IOTA one of the most decentralized, secure, and scalable distributed ledgers available. All while remaining fully free.
IOTA 2.0
IOTA 2.0 is the result of four years of research, close collaborations with top universities and specialists, dozens of peer-reviewed academic publications, and months of development and testing with our community.
The shift from research to engineering is the most exciting, but also the most difficult, part of constructing IOTA 2.0. Implementing a revolutionary new DLT solution in code, stitching together the many components to produce a working and secure consensus network, is a difficult process.
To bridge this gap, their team created the GoShimmer node. It is a research-driven implementation of IOTA 2.0 that allows the community to participate in the development of the protocol.
IOTA 2.0 DevNet
With the launch of the IOTA 2.0 DevNet, they hope to make the move to IOTA 2.0 as seamless as possible. They also want to begin expanding the ecosystem, which will include new dApps, Mana Marketplaces, and Wallet Integrations. Needless to say, they’re looking forward to seeing what their community creates on the new network.
Following the launch of the IOTA 2.0 DevNet, our team will continue to optimize and improve the protocol and its deployment. In addition, they will begin re-implementing GoShimmer components onto production-ready software in Go and Rust. Just as they did for Chrysalis in e.g. Hornet, Bee and Firefly. This is a critical step toward the fully incentivized testnet and the removal of the IOTA mainnet coordinator.
The incentive-based testnet aims to hasten the adoption of IOTA 2.0 as well as the elimination of the coordinator. Participating in the public network while receiving certain incentives will help to speed up bug fixes and battle-testing of the IOTA 2.0 solution.
Their team chose to adopt a different strategy to accelerate the launch of IOTA 2.0. This was after carefully considering the numerous options for creating the incentivized testnet. This plan presently develops, and once complete, they will share it with the community.
The IOTA Foundation is looking forward to the next step on our journey to full decentralization. The IOTA 2.0 DevNet will enable our community to begin constructing the future of dApps right now. While also demonstrating to their critics that IOTA 2.0 is an unstoppable train that has already left the station.
