By
Godfrey Benjamin
December 27th, 2023
The IOTA 2.0 DevNet Nectar went live on Wednesday, a step initiated towards complete decentralization of the IOTA Protocol. The new DevNet brings a modular architecture along with giving individual nodes the autonomy to evaluate new messages in a decentralized manner.
On Wednesday, June 2, the IOTA Foundation took a further step towards attaining complete decentralization. The Foundation announced the release of its much-awaited IOTA 2.0 Development Network (DevNet) “Nectar”.
This is basically the research prototype for the first-ever fully “decentralized, feeless, permissionless, and secure Tangle protocol”. Post the news, the price of native cryptocurrency IOTA shot northwards. At press time, IOTA is trading around 15% up at $1.33 with a market cap of $3.92 billion.
The announcement also notes that the launch of Nectar is a step of moving toward scalable, efficient, sustainable, and secure crypto solutions. Nectar will play a crucial role in preparing for the fully decentralized IOTA 2.0. Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder and Chairman of the IOTA Foundation said:
“IOTA 2.0 DevNet ‘Nectar’ marks a major milestone on IOTA’s trajectory towards full decentralization. I cannot understate the importance of this release: Nectar is the living proof that you can have feeless, scalable, secure, resource-efficient, and fully decentralized DLT. It’s a game changer. Now that we are releasing it to the public, we are excited to see how it performs. The feedback on the DevNet’s capabilities and use cases will be essential as we continue preparing for the final Coordicide update.”
IOTA 2.0 DevNet: Moving Towards Full-Decentralization
The introduction of full decentralization by the IOTA 2.0 DevNet expands the capabilities of the IOTA protocol. The announcement notes new messages entering IOTA’s internal data structure Tange shall not be safeguard by central authorities like the Coordinator.
Rather, the IOTA Foundation brings along a new elegant system of node cooperation and non-monetary rewards. This system incentivizes individual nodes for evaluating transactions truthfully.
Also, the PoS and PoW solutions usually require considerable monetary and computational resources. However, the IOTA 2.0 DevNet will rely on network consensus validation. Thus, it rewards honest nodes with an alternate token “Mana” and nodes can continue to acquire them with honest behavior. These nodes evaluate new message entries on the Tangle. In return, they receive rewards in “Mana” tokens for processing transactions that bring a good reputation. In turn, this creates a virtuous cycle of consensus validation and node reputation.
The IOTA 2.0 DevNet also supports a modular architecture. Meaning developers will be able to implement future updates and bug fixes on specific modules. Serguei Popov, PhD, Co-Founder and member of the Board of Directors of the IOTA Foundation said:
“Everything IOTA does rests on bold ideas backed by rigorous research. IOTA 2.0 DevNet’s consensus protocol is one particular development that fills us with pride. We have developed a mathematically elegant, resource-efficient, and secure DLT solution that will eventually render the Coordinator obsolete and make the IOTA Mainnet fully decentralized while keeping it feeless – an industry first.”
The IOTA 2.0 DevNet will soon undergo rigorous incentivized testing by the IOTA community members. This is to confirm the consensus algorithm’s effectiveness in real-world settings.