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- Q4 saw massive developments in the IOTA ecosystem, with the finalization of the tokenomics whitepaper and the consensus protocol, and the introduction of the implicit account mechanism.
- Firefly IOTA 2.0.0 was released in Q4 as the march towards the Firefly Wallet continued as ShimmerEVM racked up over 1.5 million transactions and over 2,600 smart contracts.
It was a busy fourth quarter of 2023 for the IOTA ecosystem, with individual teams at the IOTA Foundation hitting significant milestones while the broader ecosystem continued to leverage existing and newly introduced tools. In its Q4 report, the Foundation revealed its progress toward IOTA 2.0 and outlined some of the major plans for the first quarter of this year.
The Foundation published its report on Thursday, recognizing major advancements such as the IOTA 2.0 introduction campaign, the launch of the first distributed ledger technology (DLT) foundation under the UAE authorities and the launch of ShimmerEVM.
🚀✨📢 Breaking: #IOTA Foundation's Q4 2023 Progress Report! 📢✨🚀
The last quarter was a whirlwind of achievements:
🚀 IOTA 2.0 launch campaign kicked off!
🏛️ First-ever #DLT foundation established under #UAE regulations!
💱 Multiple exchange listings boost accessibility!
💡… pic.twitter.com/uR4JAOF6Cr— Marcel Knobloch aka Collin Brown (@CollinBrownXRP) January 11, 2024
One of the milestones was the launch of ShimmerEVM, and while it happened in the last week of Q3, its impact was felt in the fourth quarter. As the Foundation revealed, the community has backed ShimmerEVM since its launch and continues to grow in transaction volume and user numbers. ShimmerEVM became one of the top five growing EVM chains by total volume locked in its first month.
It stated:
Now that ShimmerEVM is operational, the community’s enthusiasm has been showcased in this short period by the impressive 7500 active accounts reached, over 1.5 million completed transactions, and over 2600 smart contracts deployed on the chain.
As CNF reported, ShimmerEVM opens the doors to the Ethereum ecosystem for IOTA’s sister network, Shimmer, offering a seamless bridge between the two ecosystems.
On the wallet side, Firefly IOTA 2.0.0 launched in Q4 as the community marched toward the Firefly Wallet. This release supported the Mainnet Stardust upgrade and encompassed NFTs, native tokens and other developer tools.
IOTA Ecosystem Developments and Regulatory Affairs
On core protocol research, the ecosystem made significant strides in Q4. The Incentives Working Group, which develops new incentive mechanisms and researches game theory and tokenomics, finalized the Tokenomics Whitepaper. It also released the Mana Calculator, allowing users to simulate Mana generation, delegation and staking scenarios.
The Congestion Control Working Group fine-tuned the Mana Cost parameters and incorporated a secondary buffer to optimize validation block rules. In Q4, the Parameter Taskforce merged with the Tangle Dynamics Research Working Group, and together, they devised a data metric plugin for iota-core. They are now working on aspects related to consensus, such as validation blocks.
Other significant developments from the other groups included adapting ISC to the IOTA 2.0 upgrade and integrating Move VM and RISC Zero.
On the regulatory side, the IOTA Ecosystem DLT Foundation registered in the UAE with the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), making it the first to attain this registration under the Gulf country’s new regulatory regime. With $160 million in funding, the Foundation is mandated to expand IOTA’s ecosystem in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
IOTA is the first #DLT Foundation regulated with @ADGlobalMarket in #AbuDhabi 🇦🇪! The new #IOTA Foundation will be seeded with over $100 million in $IOTA tokens to support and accelerate the growth of the IOTA ecosystem.https://t.co/7NYe2L5RFs
🧵⬇️ pic.twitter.com/DZUHjcm2sV— IOTA (@iota) November 29, 2023
