Four weeks after the announcement of a devastating security hole in the official Trinity Wallet, IOTA has dared to reactivate the coordinator as announced. As a result, financial transactions are now possible again with IOTA.
From a technological and psychological point of view, what happened at IOTA almost a month ago was a disaster: The IOTA Foundation had to admit that there was a serious security hole in the official Trinity Wallet and was forced to deactivate the central coordinator to prevent worse from happening. With this step, IOTA was basically offline, because without a coordinator there would be no money flows and therefore no functionality for the ecosystem (data transfers were still possible), which wants to become the standard in the Internet of Things (IoT). Now the IOTA Foundation has given the green light for the coordinator to be up and running again, thus bringing the Mainnet back to full live. According to first reactions this has indeed worked technologically without any new problems.
Echoes of the super-hazard at IOTA: What you should know
IOTA had asked the users of the Trinity Wallet to install the latest version, change their password and transfer the coins to a new, secure address using a migration tool. The deadline for this expired on 7 March 2020. According to the IOTA Foundation, those who did not become active during this period should set up a new account on the Trinity Wallet and transfer their IOTA to it. If you notice suspicious actions on your Trinity Wallet or if IOTA is missing, you should contact members of the IOTA Foundation directly. IOTA explicitly warns against fraudsters who create false downloads of the Trinity Wallet or pretend to be representatives of IOTA. First point of contact for official downloads and contacts is therefore the IOTA Status Page.
In the case of disputed transfers that could be related to the hack, IOTA will subject users to a verification process (KYC) and decide on the outcome. The foundation believes that it can safely track where the attackers have hit based on a global snapshot and wants to turn back questionable transfers. In addition, IOTA co-founder David Sønstebø has announced that he intends to make available larger portions of his assets for a compensation fund. Meanwhile, the State Office of Criminal Investigation in Berlin, among others, is investigating the matter, and so far no information has become public about the status of these efforts.
IOTA operable again – How do the markets react?
Since February 12, 2020, IOTA has only been virtually tradable (coins had to be on the exchange to be traded), because transactions could not be confirmed. During this period, the price fell to around 0.19 US dollars, which meant a drop of almost 40 percent. It should not be forgotten that the market as a whole also fell. But the real test is only now and in the next few hours it will become clear whether investors will actually sell their IOTA or continue to believe in the project.
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