A good week lies the large IOTA Upgrade Stardust back. Since then, the price curve turned almost 9 percent into the minus. Again, the IOTA Foundation is silent on financial issues that arise from artificial token propagation.
Accompanied by great optimism, IOTA rolled out the Stardust upgrade nine days ago and, at least from a technological perspective, everything has gone smoothly so far. However, the internal mood of optimism was not echoed on the crypto markets, on the contrary: Since the launch, the price curve of IOTA is down 9 percent and is now trading at $0.14, the level of a persistent all-time low. Observers attribute this downward trend in part to the 65 percent increase in total holdings of all tokens associated with IOTA Stardust, which predictably will create price pressure over the coming years.
A look at details shows that the IOTA Foundation under chief Domink Schiener is not fulfilling its promise of great transparency on the newly allocated tokens. Here are documented the movements of the good 300 million IOTA, which were newly created by Stardust to the Berlin IOTA Foundation. Schiener had announced that these would be transferred to a cold wallet. But instead, the IOTA in question, worth the equivalent of just over $4 million, are being split into smaller tranches and shifted back and forth, and we suspect that the foundation has started to monetize tokens without a time lock (“unlocked”).
Prominent departure at IOTA Foundation.
Meanwhile, the IOTA Foundation has to cope with the departure of Mariana De La Roche Wills. She had joined IOTA in December 2018 and was responsible for regulatory affairs and institutional collaborations. On X (formerly Twitter), the lawyer explained her departure at the end of the year after five years with IOTA, citing “challenges over alignment within the team” and “shifts in market acceptance” of IOTA. Who will take over Mariana De La Roche’s role in the future has so far remained open. Her responsibilities included, for example, representing IOTA at the blockchain association INATBA (International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications) and in EU expert groups.
Charlie Varley had already resigned from the IOTA Foundation in August. The former technical director focused on IOTA wallets is now working on a new wallet solution called Bloom, which is already promoted via blogpost. However, the wallet is not yet finished and lacks web presence except at X, where a cherry blossom emoji is the only word of Varley and his Bloom team’s own so far.
Conclusion: IOTA reboot failed – glimmer of hope Shimmer (SMR)?
Upgrade Stardust failed to ignite at IOTA, the “rocket launch” invoked by Schiener turned into an engine failure in terms of price. The situation is no better for the IOTA side project Shimmer (SMR). Here, the price curve is stuck at US$0.04, also at an all-time low. The hoped-for positive impulse from the successful integration of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) at Shimmer at the end of September did not materialize. The IOTA Foundation and Schiener will have to deal with how to make up for the botched relaunch.
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