IOTA Foundation Set To Launch Staging Network In Early 2022 As Token Holders Prep To Earn Rewards

November 16, 2021

By Mayowa Adebajo

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As part of its efforts towards achieving complete decentralization, IOTA Foundation may have just announced the upcoming launch of a staging network, called ‘Shimmer’. This will see to it that all IOTA upgrades are first approved by the community before being rolled out — an essential component of a decentralized governance system.

IOTA Foundation Announces Upcoming Staging Network

The layer-1 network will be a testing ground for innovations as builders and developers in the community continue looking to assess decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) applications. The model will ensure that the compatibility of applications and even their efficiencies have been confirmed and established before launching on the IOTA mainnet as a way of ensuring a hitch-free deployment.

The IOTA Foundation develops an open-source protocol that supports data and value transfer between devices and humans.

Since its inception back in 2018, the IOTA Foundation has supported various initiatives within the IOTA ecosystem ranging from research, education, and development in the distributed ledger technology (DLT) industry.

Token Rewards Up For Grabs

Meanwhile, IOTA token holders will also be earning staking rewards in $SMR through the Firefly wallet of the platform. And according to IOTA, seeing as token distribution will be taking place over the next few months, the Shimmer network is scheduled to launch sometime around early next year.

Dominik Schiener, who is the Chairman and also a co-founder at IOTA Foundation, has expressed full optimism about the project. He recalls the recent success recorded by Polkadot’s canary network, Kusama, and believes his company will surely enjoy the same kind of market receptiveness with their announcement as well. Schiener did not fail to admit the potential risks of the network though. He was able to mention how the team has taken necessary steps to mitigate against such risks arising.

It was only in mid-October, that the IOTA Foundation released its smart contract beta platform with the sole aim of accelerating the growth of DeFi and NFT applications because of proposed incentives of higher scalability and lower fees.