Dominik Schiener, co-founder of IOTA confirmed that the network will finally have an EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), which will be launched at the end of March this year.
Schiener has announced that the IOTA and Shimmer networks will finally have an EVM, with which it will be possible to deploy smart contracts written in Solidity on both blockchain ecosystems.
This is a great advance, both for the IOTA network and for Shimmer, which will allow them to expand their operational capabilities significantly.
Along with the EVM announcement, Schiener also urged interested parties to participate in staking their IOTA tokens in the future IOTA EVM, before the end of the first quarter or beginning of the second quarter of 2024.
The crypto community is very expectant about the progress made by its developers and the progress that this blockchain could add to its development in the coming months.
The launch of an Ethereum virtual machine will make IOTA a more accessible blockchain platform, and will also help it establish itself as a fully functional layer 1 protocol. All these improvements in IOTA will also facilitate the integration of innovative projects such as Soonaverse, along with other solutions compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, including the Ethereum network itself and the Polygon Network, thus favoring greater liquidity on the network.
IOTA EVM, a great milestone for the crypto space
Schiener participated in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session where he announced the development team's preparations for the launch of their own Ethereum virtual machine in March. With this, IOTA will provide access to the entire ecosystem of EVM-compatible smart contract chains.
The future IOTA EVM network will act as a scalable and secure bridge to connect the blockchain ecosystem.
In addition to confirming the launch of IOTA EVM at the end of the current quarter, Schiener also revealed that the developers have released a new update to the Alpha version of the network.
In 2021, the developers released the Alpha version of the Intelligent Contracts Protocol (ISCP) of IOTA, which allows the network, which is focused on the Internet of Things (IoT), to test the implementation of smart contracts on the chain, as well as innovative decentralized applications to enrich and strengthen its ecosystem.
New update available in Alpha 2
Now, with the new update that was recently released, as reported by Schiener, IOTA is including several important improvements that will further optimize usability.
Improvements include a new testing framework for docker and the addition of explanatory comments in docker tests, which allow comments to be incorporated into said tests in order to facilitate their understanding and clarity. On the other hand, it removed confirmation validators; this with the aim of speeding up the confirmation process on the network and, finally, a new Continuous Integration (CI) workflow for testing in Docker, which facilitates saving time and bandwidth.
Schiener highlighted that the improvements integrated in this preliminary version of the protocol are an example of IOTA's commitment to innovation and continuous improvement in its platform. Users and developers will be able to explore new capabilities as IOTA continues to improve its performance and user experience, she noted.
IOTA 2.0 launched
In addition to all of the above, the IOTA co-founder also stated that the launch of the IOTA 2.0 testnet will take place in the second quarter of 2024. According to Schiener, this will be an important milestone for IOTA's transition to a fully decentralized protocol. and without coordinator.
Schiener explained that the IOTA 2.0 testnet will allow developers and users to test the network's new features and functionalities, such as transaction validation, identity management, smart contracts and decentralized applications and finally the arrival of the Coordicide and the total decentralization of IOTA.
He also stated that the IOTA 2.0 testnet will be compatible with the current mainnet, making it easier to migrate existing projects to the new version.
In this sense, Schiener expressed his confidence that IOTA 2.0 will be one of the most advanced and scalable networks in the crypto space, capable of supporting a wide variety of use cases and applications from different industrial sectors. Schiener highlighted IOTA's potential to drive innovation in areas such as mobility, energy, health and industry 4.0. In addition to this, he also pointed out that IOTA has a competitive advantage over other blockchain-based networks, thanks to the fact that it does not charge transaction fees and offers greater energy efficiency.
IOTA price reacts to the good news of its ecosystem
At the time of writing this article, the price of IOTA, the native cryptocurrency of the IOTA network, has reacted positively to the good news announced by its co-founder at the AMA.
The price of IOTA rose more than 11% in the last few hours, following the announcements made by Schiener in the session. According to data from the CoinMarketCap platform, the price of IOTA is currently $0,23.
Source: CoinMarketCap
However, a broader look at the performance of the cryptocurrency reveals that the technical challenges that the network still faces are not favoring its growth in the market. In the last month, the price of IOTA has corrected 18%, while its growth in the last year has been only 5%, according to the platform's data.
Continue reading: IOTA Ecosystem DLT Foundation in Abu Dhabi drives the adoption and revaluation of IOTA
Note: This article has been updated to add the launch of the IOTA 2.0 testnet
