Last IOTA weekly summary of 2021! We are saying goodbye to the year of «gear preparation and tune-up» for IOTA. So many great things happened, so much code, so many new projects, so many things to learn, so many nodes to put into action and still the best is yet to come.
In this special summary today let’s compile some of the most important milestones of this year for the IOTA multiverse.
Chrysalis
The launch of Chrysalis implied a major improvement in the network, bringing greater security, speed, and even greater energy efficiency than before, and all this without giving up the main feature of the protocol: a network without fees.
In order to upgrade the network, it was also necessary for users to migrate their funds from the legacy network to Chrysalis. As of today, the number of tokens migrated amounts to 85.33%, equivalent to 2.37 Piotas.
Firefly wallet
Along with the launch of Chrysalis it was also necessary to update the IOTA wallet. The new Firefly is a new and improved wallet that came to replace Trinity wallet. Through Firefly, it was possible to perform the migration of tokens to Chrysalis in a secure and simple way. In this new wallet some things are different at first glance, for example the IOTA addresses. With Chrysalis, changes were made in the type of addresses, choosing for this new stage the EdDSA (Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm). This is a digital signature scheme that is designed to be faster than existing digital signature schemes without sacrificing security, which reduced the size of transactions and, consequently, there was a significant increase in TPS.
At this current stage, in which the IOTA Multiverse is expanding, Firefly also plays a very important role, as it will allow for simple and secure staking.
Firefly is currently available for desktop and is also compatible with Leger Nano. The mobile version has been delayed and has not yet been announced.
You can download the Firefly wallet from the official website of the IOTA Foundation: iota.org
IOTA Smart Contracts Beta launch
In mid-October the IOTA Smart Contracts Protocol (ISCP) was announced. The objective of this tool is to provide a solution to some of the drawbacks that we encounter with most of the current protocols: high fees, lack of scalability, interoperability and others. ISCPs are intended to create an ecosystem of new opportunities for those who want to build using the protocol and early adopters to directly capitalize on the explosive growth of the industry.
But that’s not all, IOTA Smart Contracts are also compatible with Ethereum’s Virtual Machine (EVM) and any smart contract written in Solidity, Go (TinyGo) and Rust.
«IOTA Smart Contracts was built primarily to meet the ever-increasing demand of our industry to push forward with new innovations, to lower entry barriers and create an environment to onboard billions of users into our networks. The technical architecture of sharded smart contract chains in combination with a feeless and highly scalable DAG ledger offers a compelling solution to meet market requirements and solve some of the issues facing today’s solutions.»
IOTA Identity – Beta Release
IOTA introduced a solution for Self-Sovereign Identity: IOTA Identity (SSI) this will allow individuals, organizations or machines to create a digital identity and be able to have complete control over them, without having to deal with a third party or intermediary.
This new framework allows control over how personal data is shared and used. Social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn show us every day that online accounts rely heavily on content submitted by users. The information provided on platforms like Facebook and Linkedin is unreliable and can be easily falsified, this can be avoided with IOTA Identity by bringing Verifiable Credentials (VC) to the table.
Stars of the 2021: Shimmer & Assembly
Shimmer Network
Shimmer, will be a staged incentivized network that will have its own native $SMR token. The network token will be obtainable by staking IOTA tokens in the Firelfy wallet. After the successful completion of the upgrade of the main IOTA network, Chrysalis; the Foundation together with a part of the community, focused their efforts to turn IOTA into a fully decentralized and programmable multi-asset ledger. The main goal is to empower the ecosystem with new opportunities that are only possible thanks to IOTA’s technical innovations and unique ledger architecture.
Attention: Pre staking has already started and at the time of this post there is only one day left to get the most rewards.
To achieve this goal and expand the range of possibilities with IOTA, the network is in the process of undergoing major upgrades to the core network:
- Programmable multi-asset ledger, with the introduction of output types and tokenization at the base layer. You can read more about this and the technical RFC here.
- Smart Contracts, with the introduction of IOTA Smart Contracts, with the recently released Beta version.
- Full decentralization, with the IOTA 2.0 protocol.
- Sharding and other optimizations.
You can follow the updates on the official Shimmer web site
Assembly Network
Undoubtedly one of the announcements that has us most excited is the launch of the Assembly Network. This launch opens up endless opportunities for those looking to build using the IOTA protocol as a base. Along with the launch of Assembly, the IOTA Foundation also announced an investment for the ecosystem from large companies of more than USD100 million, which will accelerate growth and adoption prior to the launch of the network. Funds such as LD Capital, HashKey Capital, Huobi Ventures, UOB Venture Management, Signum Capital, HyperChain Capital are early contributors and major industry backers.
Assembly is a permissionless multi-chain network for building, connecting and deploying Smart Contracts. The protocol allows anyone to create their own sharded smart contract chain, with the flexibility to define their parameters, virtual machine (VM) and validation requirements, and even customize fee and incentive structures. Each smart contract chain built on Assembly is a fully sharded network, limited only by its own performance, while benefiting from the shared security and trustless interoperability of the global network.
Assembly will be the open network for building and connecting open worlds. It will be a thriving ecosystem of purpose-built smart contract chains and dApps that can interact seamlessly across a fee-free and highly scalable base layer. Assembly’s unique technical foundation is a launch pad for new innovations in DeFi, NFTs and DAOs that were previously held back by the limitations of blockchain.
If you are interested in discovering more:
- Learn more about the actors in Assembly in the Assembly Wiki
- Participate in the Assembly Discord
- Build your smart contract solution with the VM of your choice using IOTA Smart Contracts
- Visit Assembly website
This is the last blog post in a four-part series introducing the Assembly network: you can find the other parts here:
- Meet Assembly 1: Your Key to Open and Decentralized Worlds
- Meet Assembly 2: Validators and Committees
- Meet Assembly 3: Assembly as a Marketplace
Likewise, the Assembly network will have its own native token, the ASMB token. It will be in charge of securing, governing and growing the network. Assembly is a permissionless network that uses a variation of Proof of Stake; as such, the ASMB token plays an essential role in its security and Sybil protection. The security of the Assembly network requires that the value be locked – and put into play – to ensure that validators do not collude or otherwise behave.
To obtain ASMB tokens you will need to staking IOTA tokens in the Firefly wallet. Please note that the prestaking is already live and the staking will start on December 28th!
IOTA Staking starts
IOTA staking for the Shimmer network ($SMR tokens) and Assembly network ($ASMB tokens) started on December 21, at 15:00 (CET) with a seven-day pre-staking period (today is the last day of prestaking). Token holders could start their staking period from last Tuesday to receive staking rewards from December 28 for 90 days. A new version of Firefly was released, the new version of the wallet will be the one that will allow staking (already available here). Just by pressing a button.
Note: Stakers do not need to split their IOTA tokens for SMR and ASMB staking. IOTA tokens can be staked for both ASMB and SMR simultaneously.
IOTA Hispano meets Assembly Hispano
Our Spanish news channel about IOTA is expanding. On the current page we have made some changes with our team and now you can find menu tabs dedicated to Shimmer and Assembly as well as the implementation of a dark mode for better readability.
We know that with the growth of the IOTA Multiverse it will also be necessary for us to make the effort to expand to bring you everything you need to know about Assembly in Spanish. That’s why we will also soon launch a website dedicated to Assembly for the whole Spanish speaking community: Assembly Hispano.
We hope to count on everyone’s support to make this protocol that has become much more than the backbone for the IoT achieve greater adoption globally.
If you want to support us in our work you can leave a tip in our tip jar, it will be very welcome!
Our Channels in Spanish
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