According to CoinDesk, IOTA developers are planning to release a new ecosystem fund and a new blockchain that will support decentralized applications. These changes aim to boost the value of MIOTA tokens and improve network security. IOTA was one of the most popular blockchains in the 2017 bull run, and developers are working to regain its former prominence.
IOTA co-founder Dominik Schiener revealed that the network plans to release an IOTA 2.0 network and increase the utility of its MIOTA tokens in the coming months. Key improvements include an upgraded network with smart contracts, a focus on layer 2 blockchains and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, a new ecosystem fund, and increased utility of IOTA tokens.
The new IOTA ecosystem fund will be backed by the vested release of new MIOTA tokens. The Stardust hard fork is scheduled for October 4th, laying the groundwork for IOTA 2.0, which is set to go live in Q4 of this year. IOTA smart contracts will be introduced through a general-purpose virtual machine (VM), which will execute smart contracts. Applications built on IOTA using smart contracts will generate more demand for Mana, a reputation system for nodes within the IOTA network, subsequently increasing demand for MIOTA.
Schiener also mentioned that an ecosystem fund will be established to incentivize developers and teams building on the network. Following the hard fork, there will be a temporary bi-weekly token release lasting for four years, resulting in an average yearly inflation of 12%. After this period, the circulating supply of MIOTA will be 4.6 billion tokens. Additionally, the Tangle Ecosystem Association based in Zug, Switzerland, and the IOTA DLT Foundation based in Abu Dhabi, UAE, have been established to support the IOTA ecosystem.
