IOTA 2.0 DevNet goes live to achieve full decentralization

BERLIN (June 2, 2021) -- IOTA Foundation, a non-profit building the DLT infrastructure for a new digital economy, announces the release of the IOTA 2.0 Development Network (DevNet) “Nectar” today, a research prototype for the first fully decentralized, feeless, permissionless, and secure Tangle protocol. 

The developmental milestone is the result of the IOTA Foundation’s years of research on efficient, sustainable, and secure crypto solutions that scale and require no transaction fees. Following the path charted by the latest Chrysalis upgrade, Nectar will play a pivotal role in preparing for IOTA 2.0, the ultimate and decentralized iteration of IOTA.

IOTA 2.0 DevNet’s introduction of full decentralization greatly expands the capabilities of the IOTA protocol, making it ready for a multitude of use cases in the new digital economy. In combination with IOTA’s continued commitment to feeless transactions, the DevNet represents an unprecedented development in the DLT space. For the first time, new messages that enter the Tangle, IOTA’s internal data structure, will not be safeguarded by an additional, central authority – which used to be the so-called Coordinator. Instead, the IOTA Foundation has developed an elaborate yet elegant system of node cooperation and non-monetary rewards that incentivizes individual nodes to evaluate transactions truthfully. 

As opposed to Proof-of-Stake or Proof-of-Work solutions that require considerable monetary and computational resources, the IOTA 2.0 DevNet relies on network consensus validation and rewards honest nodes with “Mana,” an alternate token that nodes can temporarily acquire through good and honest behavior. Nodes evaluate new entries on the Tangle, and are rewarded with Mana for processing transactions that bring them good reputation, greater access to the network transaction throughput, and additional decision weight in future evaluations. Thanks to this virtuous cycle of consensus validation and node reputation, the DevNet provides top-tier network security and Sybil protection.

Another one of the IOTA 2.0 DevNet’s defining features is its modular architecture. It means that future updates and bug fixes can be implemented on specific modules. The Nectar DevNet is the next public iteration of the Pollen Testnet already familiar to the IOTA community. It follows Chrysalis, the major upgrade from April 2021 that set IOTA on the path to full decentralization, and provides the foundation for the Coordicide event – the full decentralization of IOTA’s Mainnet. 

Highlights from the Nectar upgrade include:

• Unprecedented feeless decentralization - Nectar is the first iteration of the IOTA protocol without the Coordinator, proving that a feeless, secure and fully decentralized cryptocurrency is indeed possible

• Advanced security - An elaborate and safe leaderless consensus protocol ensures that only valid entries are kept on the ledger

• Fast execution - Transactions reach finality quickly thanks to the removal of additional, centralized approval requirements

• Permissionless, feeless transactions - Nectar continues the IOTA tradition of permissionless and feeless DLT primed for the new digital economy and efficient Machine-to-Machine communication

• Digital Assets - Tokenized assets can now be created for the first time. This includes NFT’s, Utility Tokens and Tokenized Assets.

“IOTA 2.0 DevNet ‘Nectar’ marks a major milestone on IOTA’s trajectory towards full decentralization,” said Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder and Chairman of the IOTA Foundation. “I cannot understate the importance of this release: Nectar is the living proof that you can have feeless, scalable, secure, resource-efficient, and fully decentralized DLT. It’s a game changer. Now that we are releasing it to the public, we are excited to see how it performs. The feedback on the DevNet’s capabilities and use cases will be essential as we continue preparing for the final Coordicide update.”

“Everything IOTA does rests on bold ideas backed by rigorous research. IOTA 2.0 DevNet’s consensus protocol is one particular development that fills us with pride,” added Serguei Popov, PhD, Co-Founder and member of the Board of Directors of the IOTA Foundation. “We have developed a mathematically elegant, resource-efficient, and secure DLT solution that will eventually render the Coordinator obsolete and make the IOTA Mainnet fully decentralized while keeping it feeless – an industry first.” 

The launch of the IOTA 2.0 DevNet “Nectar” will take place June 2, 2021. It is the first in a series of seamless updates to the IOTA protocol. This ongoing commitment to seamless optimization is a crucial part of IOTA’s continual enterprise-readiness. Next, the DevNet will undergo rigorous incentivized testing by the entire IOTA community to confirm the consensus algorithm’s effectiveness in real-world settings. Once verified, the full decentralization solution is scheduled to migrate to a release candidate for the Mainnet later this year where it will support a wider variety of use cases and attract even more businesses to the IOTA ecosystem. 

Visit the IOTA 2.0 DevNet site here: https://v2.iota.org/