• IOTA’s ShimmerEVM, a Layer-1 staging network, has seen significant growth. The Iotabee DEX increases the TVL on the Shimmer blockchain by 4x or $600,000.
• IOTA is progressing in its ecosystem with the introduction of IOTA 2.0, a protocol designed for digital autonomy and decentralization.

IOTA unveiled its Layer-1 staging network Shimmer last year in 2022 and has served as a testing network for new innovations and DeFi systems coming to the IOTA ecosystem.

Iotabee DEX, the decentralized trading exchange on the ShimmerEVM, recently announced that it has managed to increase the total value locked (TVL) on the Shimmer blockchain by a staggering 4x or $600,000.

Amid the launch of the ShimmerEVM recently, a number of other players have entered into a collaboration with the platform. The ShimmerEVM offers a bridge between the IOTA Network and the Ethereum applications.

The introduction of the ShimmerEVM signifies the incorporation of EVM-compatible smart contract execution into the Shimmer ecosystem. This development sets the stage for smart contract developers to effortlessly generate and deploy applications.

Just last week, the ShimmerEVM also announced its collaboration with Blockscout. Blockscout functions as a robust open-source utility crafted to streamline the exploration, validation, and scrutiny of transactions within any blockchain that operates on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

The Iotabee bridge facilitates smooth asset transfers among the ShimmerEVM, IOTA Mainnet, Ethereum, and various other blockchain platforms. As explained by Iotabee, users can also begin utilizing the Iotabee bridge through straightforward steps.

To employ the bridge, users first need to “wrap” their assets on one blockchain by locking them within a smart contract and generating a corresponding wrapped token. Users can use this wrapped token to effortlessly move to another blockchain. Once the wrapped token arrives on the destination blockchain, it can also be “unwrapped” simply by burning the token, thereby releasing the underlying asset from the smart contract.

Focusing on IOTA 2.0 Architecture

In the wake of IOTA’s recent ShimmerEVM update, the developers are now introducing IOTA 2.0. Following an extensive period of research and prototyping, the IOTA Foundation proudly presents IOTA 2.0, a protocol that embodies their vision of digital autonomy accessible to all.

IOTA’s entire architecture has undergone a meticulous reconstruction from the ground up, resulting in a resilient and robust system. The public unveiling of this new protocol signifies the commencement of a highly anticipated process—the removal of the coordinator, marking the arrival of genuine decentralization.

IOTA 2.0 design architecture is public, decentralized, parallelized, democratic, and sustainable, differentiating it from other Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs). Leveraging the full potential of their Tangle, a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) architecture, the IOTA Foundation is further poised to release a series of resources regularly. This initial update represents the first installment in a series that elucidates the IOTA 2.0 protocol, laying the groundwork for its future introduction as a network.