IOTA is making a strategic move towards a fully decentralized and programmable Tangle in order to regain its market prominence and unlock new capabilities. The active participation of the community and the formation of a community-backed institutional entity are crucial for the upcoming token minting event.
In a recent article by Collin Brown, it was revealed that IOTA’s highly anticipated Stardust upgrade has captured the attention of the blockchain community and gained strong support from exchanges like Binance and Bitpanda. This significant upgrade is set to revolutionize the IOTA network by introducing tokenization and L2 smart contract chains. Users staking for Assembly tokens will experience this transition through a new version of the Firefly wallet, which will display their anticipated airdrops.
One of the core features of the Stardust upgrade is the introduction of multi-asset support, which allows users to create, tokenize, and trade native assets on the IOTA Tangle. This feature enables the issuance of new types of coins associated with various assets, ranging from commodities and securities to loyalty points. Additionally, the upgrade brings IOTA into the NFT space, allowing for the creation, minting, and trading of non-fungible tokens without gas fees.
By introducing a smart contract tokenization framework, Stardust will bridge the gaps between smart contracts and tokenization by anchoring L2 smart contract chains directly to the Tangle. This framework simplifies the creation and deployment of smart contracts, improves digital asset management, and resolves cross-chain compatibility issues.
The release of ShimmerEVM complements the Stardust upgrade by providing a bridgeless cross-chain model built on Shimmer’s L1. This platform promises secure, streamlined, and cost-free interactions across multiple chains, addressing the challenges associated with crypto bridges and ensuring asset security within the Layer 1 protocol.
The combination of the Stardust upgrade and ShimmerEVM’s innovative approach has the potential to make significant advancements in the blockchain world. However, it is now up to the IOTA and Shimmer teams to turn these conceptual upgrades into practical solutions that deliver real value to the blockchain community. The next few months will be crucial in determining whether these upgrades live up to the expectations and solidify IOTA’s position in the evolving blockchain landscape.