The IOTA Foundation is organizing the vote on a good 50 Ti “unclaimed tokens” promised a good year ago, which are currently worth just under 17 million US dollars. Starting Friday, the vote will be on “build or burn.”
IOTA is facing the community’s first decision on a strategic question for the future. The starting signal falls on Friday noon (May 27) at 14:00 German time, as can be seen from the announcement. The vote will be on what should happen to the more than 50 Ti of so-called “unclaimed tokens”. 50 Tera-Iota are the equivalent of almost 17 million US dollars at the current exchange rate. There are two options: Either the unclaimed tokens are to be destroyed (“burned”). Or they will be used to fill a new fund under the motto “Build” and the community could determine the use of the capital in the future. As far as is known, the leadership at IOTA prefers the “Build” option to raise funds for external projects.
When the IOTA Foundation surprisingly announced such a referendum on the “unclaimed tokens” parallel to the launch of IOTA 1.5 aka Chrysalis at the end of April 2021, co-founder David Sønstebø had still announced legal opposition. However, he has since deleted his protest on Twitter and has recently reconciled with IOTA. The background of a part of the “unclaimed tokens” remains piquant. They originate from the founding phase of IOTA and were brought under the control of the founders through questionable maneuvers. Co-founder Sergey Ivancheglo (CFB) also wanted to claim his share of the “unclaimed tokens”, but was silent on the issue at last. Whether and how the current IOTA CEO and former co-founder Dominik Schiener managed to forge a compromise behind the scenes, we do not know.
What remains striking is that when it comes to the topic of “unclaimed tokens”, there was actually always talk of 62.5 Ti and now a somewhat vague decision is being made about “more than 50 Ti” IOTA. According to this officially supported representation on the vote, tokens that have still not been emigrated to IOTA 1.5 after Chrysalis also flow into the pot. A more detailed breakdown of the total amount and its sources is not yet available.
IOTA vote – this is how you participate
The virtual ballot box is placed in the official IOTA wallet Firefly. A corresponding update of Firefly is to be released by Friday noon and will then include a “Governance” menu item. The principle is that one IOTA equals one ballot. The actual “voting period” is to last seven days and end on Friday, June 3. This will be followed by a ten-day stage to count the votes and then verify them. An official result will then be announced on June 13 at the earliest, but according to the announcement, interim results can already be called up beforehand via the Firefly Wallet.
The process has one catch: The IOTA, which are brought into the vote, are virtually frozen until they are counted. This is the only way to exercise the right to vote. The IOTA can be withdrawn from the vote at any time and then also freely used and traded – but then they are not counted for the vote. The IOTA Foundation recommends exercising the right to vote during the period until June 3 and then waiting until the counted IOTA reappear in freely usable in the Firefly Wallet. This could also be interpreted as a soft constraint for a HODL of up to 17 days.
Conclusion: IOTA wants to finally close the chapter “unclaimed tokens”.
If everything goes as planned in the first IOTA vote, the rather unpleasant topic of “unclaimed tokens” will finally be over. It remains possible that co-founders or early investors will once again ignite a fire of disturbance. A majority for “Burned” could theoretically have a positive impact on the price of IOTA, since the total number of circulating tokens would be artificially reduced. On the other hand, the aforementioned 50 Ti still only represents a good 5 percent of IOTA’s current market capitalization, which is around $930 million. In the discussions of the IOTA community, the opinion seems to prevail so far that a “build” with the “unclaimed tokens” shows more prospects and that the position of large IOTA balances is pre-decisive anyway. In any case, with a vote conducted without technological problems, IOTA would prove that it is capable of organizing such referendums on other issues cleanly and transparently in the future.
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