IOTA major mainnet upgrade imminent, unlocks new growth and token utility

BERLIN. April 22, 2025 — IOTA, one of the leading Layer 1 networks, is officially being upgraded to the IOTA Rebased protocol on Monday, May 5, 2025.

Since its inception in 2015, the IOTA network has undergone several huge changes as the protocol and ecosystem matured, and IOTA Rebased will be its largest, most complex, and most important upgrade to date. Following the governance decision of IOTA token holders and a thorough technical testing, review, and audit process, the IOTA L1 network will now officially be upgraded to a fully decentralized delegated Proof-of-Stake network (DPoS).

IOTA's official migration to the new IOTA Rebased protocol marks a pivotal advancement in IOTA’s history as it readies itself to bring significant new adoption and applications to the ecosystem. As one of the leaders in real-world adoption, the new upgrade will accelerate IOTA’s efforts to onboard institutional investors and even countries to its tokenization, trade digitization, trade finance, and digital identity platforms. Additionally, IOTA will support the growth of its Web3 ecosystem to introduce advanced applications such as decentralized finance (DeFi), on-chain orderbook exchanges, supply chain systems, stablecoins, and more.

Key protocol features available at launch include:​

• Highly scalable and fast transactions: IOTA Rebased implements the Mysticeti consensus protocol, achieving throughput exceeding 50,000 transactions per second and transaction finality in under 500 ms.

• Layer 1 smart contracts with MoveVM: By integrating Move-based smart contracts directly onto the Layer 1 network, IOTA enables developers to build sophisticated decentralized applications (dApps) that are more resilient, secure, and scalable. IOTA will be the third network offering the MoveVM after Sui and Aptos.

• Full decentralization: The upgrade introduces a DPoS system starting with 50 permissionless validator slots, and will slowly increase to over 150 validator slots. This makes IOTA one of the most decentralized networks in the space.

• $IOTA staking rewards: The upgrade will introduce $IOTA staking rewards for the first time in IOTA’s history. Rewards will offer an annual percentage yield (APY) of up to 10%–15%, incentivizing active participation and enhancing network security.

• Low and adaptive transaction fees: The Rebased upgrade introduces minimal transaction fees with an adaptive fee-burning mechanism, balancing inflationary and deflationary pressures to maintain economic stability. Also, the new IOTA Gas Station enables developers and businesses to cover their users' fees, allowing them to execute transactions without buying, holding, or managing IOTA tokens. 

Initial IOTA Rebased Genesis Validators include: IOTA Foundation, IOTA Ecosystem DLT Foundation, Tangle Ecosystem Association, DLT Green, P2P, Luganodes, Twinstake, KILN, Stakin, Nansen, Blockscope, DAIC/Coinage, and Staketab.

After the Genesis ceremony is completed, several validations will be performed to ensure the correct operation of all participating validators. The IOTA EVM will resume operations the same day as the IOTA Rebased upgrade, and decentralization will continue to grow from ~50 validators within days, eventually reaching 150 permissionless validator slots.

“Creating real value has always been our main focus. We’ve been hard at work over the last few years building a Layer 1 network that is hyper-focused on bringing real-world applications on-chain,” says Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder and Chair of the IOTA Foundation. “We’re really excited to share the breakthroughs we’ve made with our community and accelerate the possibilities in the ecosystem to create positive change in the world.

For more information on how to prepare for the launch and what to expect, check out IOTA’s blog post here.