At IOTA, an important referendum on self-administration is in danger of failing due to a lack of voter participation. Meanwhile, the integration of the Ethereum Virtual Machine at IOTA is being launched from the management level.
Influencers in the IOTA community are urgently promoting participation in votes on the continuation and design of a joint financial program for external projects. As IOTA Poet puts it on X (formerly Twitter): The referendum seems to fall short of the necessary 5 percent turnout threshold and if this happens, reserves would be put on hold instead of being distributed by the Tangle Community Treasury. He, like others, is disappointed that the IOTA Foundation has so far not participated in the voting to ensure that the necessary participation rate is reached.
Trial runs for the four linked IOTA referendums had taken place in early March and had a very low response. Blockchain data shows that the campaign for participation is bearing some fruit and the quorum remains in sight. Meanwhile, JD Sutton from the Deep Sea project, who is also standing for election himself, is suggesting via X that the hurdle for future referendums should be reduced from 5 to 2.5 percent. In general, it is surprising that the IOTA Foundation, chaired by Dominik Schiener, is not using its reach to remind people of the referendums and call for participation.
They are busy straightening out the issue of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) at IOTA. Schiener had initially promised the integration of the EVM for March, then for April at the latest. He has now sent Susanne Krone from the team to announce the start of a “soft launch period for the IOTA EVM”. Lazlo, who considers himself an IOTA enthusiast, has documented this on X. Krone now offers the prospect of weekly progress reports. To be able to use the IOTA EVM right now, however, you have to apply and support a specific project.
The EVM was already activated for the IOTA side project Shimmer in September last year, without a soft launch or other restrictions. However, hopes that the IOTA ecosystem would secure market share in sectors such as decentralized finance (DeFi) with the EVM as a standard module in the crypto industry were dashed. Krone now writes that the IOTA Foundation wants to achieve “optimal timing” for the EVM on the mainnet and is therefore still waiting.
Conclusion: Foundation and community at odds over IOTA
From the outside, IOTA’s balance is skewed. The community sees its already very limited influence in self-administration being jeopardized by a lack of support from the foundation, but does not shine with any particular traction itself. The foundation, on the other hand, realizes that Schiener had gone very far with his big announcements about EVM and is trying to capture them elegantly. In purely technological terms, unlocking the EVM on IOTA should not be a problem, as it was achieved on Shimmer, where the underlying network corresponds to that of IOTA. But if the failure of the Shimmer airdrop were to be reflected in the EVM for IOTA, it would be a disaster. This is why the foundation may want to buy time. Meanwhile, the price curve of IOTA has dipped back below USD 0.30, more than 90 percent away from previous all-time highs. IOTA is crunching in every nook and cranny and it remains a critical question where the spirit of optimism is supposed to come from.
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