IOTA (IOTA)

I sat down with @WSquires and @macrocrux from @MacrocosmosAI on Tuesday to discuss the future of decentralized AI training, the evolution of @IOTA_SN9, @Apex_SN1, @Data_SN13, and why they believe Bittensor can power the next generation of AI infrastructure. 00:00–10:00 — Will and Steffan's journey into Bittensor, founding Macrocosmos, and the vision behind IOTA (SN9), Apex (SN1), and Data Universe (SN13). 10:00–15:00 — Deep dive into Apex (SN1), AI agent swarms, commercial adoption, and how decentralized intelligence can solve complex problems. 15:00–31:00 — Why IOTA (SN9) is focused on decentralized AI training, Project Orion, and making large‑scale model training dramatically more cost efficient. 31:00–39:00 — Enterprise demand for specialized AI models, IOTA's roadmap, upcoming Orion milestones, and commercializing decentralized training infrastructure. 39:00–44:00 — Train at Home, onboarding thousands of new miners, scaling from consumer devices to enterprise GPUs, and growing the IOTA compute network. 44:00–49:00 — The long‑term vision for Macrocosmos, improving signal‑to‑noise across Bittensor, and why real products (not just decentralization) will define the winning subnets. 49:00–End — Open vs closed AI, democratizing AI training, the future of decentralized intelligence, and why the team believes the biggest breakthroughs are still ahead for IOTA (SN9) and the wider Bittensor ecosystem.

🧵 Why did @iota highlight the African Development Bank’s ministerial forum on critical minerals? Because it reveals how Africa’s industrial ambitions and digital trade infrastructure are beginning to converge. Here’s why this matters. 👇 The African Development Bank (AfDB) has made its vision clear: Africa wants to move beyond exporting raw materials and instead create value through local processing, manufacturing and industrialisation. Critical minerals are expected to become a key driver of that transformation. But industrialisation requires more than natural resources. Global markets increasingly demand trusted proof of origin, ESG compliance and transparent supply chains. Regulations such as the EU Battery Regulation and broader due diligence requirements are accelerating this shift. Without trusted digital records, accessing premium international markets becomes significantly more difficult. This is where ADAPT becomes interesting. Launched by the AfCFTA Secretariat, together with the IOTA Foundation, the World Economic Forum and the Tony Blair Institute, ADAPT aims to build digital public infrastructure for African trade. Its objective is to make cross-border commerce more efficient, trusted and interoperable. One important building block is TWIN. @TWINGlobalOrg enables trusted exchange of trade documents, provenance data and other business information across borders. The result is greater transparency, less friction and more efficient trade throughout the continent. This also explains why IOTA referenced @salusplatform. Salus goes beyond supply chain traceability. By combining trusted trade data with tokenization and digital infrastructure built on @iota and @TWINGlobalOrg, it aims to unlock new forms of trade finance for critical mineral supply chains. Because transparency alone doesn’t industrialise economies. Access to capital does. This creates value for both sides. Global buyers gain access to trusted provenance and ESG data that increasingly supports regulatory compliance. At the same time, African producers can benefit from more efficient financing and digital trade infrastructure that supports local value creation. Seen together, these initiatives complement one another. • The AfDB defines the economic vision. • ADAPT builds digital public infrastructure for trade. • TWIN enables trusted cross-border data exchange. • Salus explores how trusted trade data can support modern trade finance. Different initiatives. One shared direction. That doesn’t mean these organisations are all part of one single programme. But they are clearly addressing different pieces of the same challenge: Building transparent, trusted and investable supply chains for Africa’s next phase of industrial growth. That’s why I think IOTA’s post deserves a closer look. 🌍

"Africa is ready to make critical minerals a lever for industrial transformation." @AfDB_Group Ministerial Forum, Abidjan. We agree that transformation depends on trusted, transparent, traceable supply chains - exactly the principle behind what @salusplatform is building with IOTA and @TWINGlobalOrg. https://t.co/m14PTjk9gQ

Today’s AMA in one sentence: IOTA is built, decentralized and operational — the network is now leaving home. From this point forward, the Foundation is concentrating almost all its efforts on one objective: turning TWIN into a global, profitable business capable of bringing real adoption to IOTA. 🔹 1. Strategic shift: IOTA will remain a general-purpose network, open to an almost unlimited range of applications. It is the IOTA Foundation that is abandoning a generalist approach and concentrating its resources on one specific vertical: TWIN. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: other players will eventually occupy the general-purpose space the Foundation is leaving behind. The IF may not fully realize it yet, but its original mission has already succeeded: it has delivered a fully developed, decentralized IOTA network capable of standing on its own. Its final task is to help IOTA secure its first major customer: TWIN. 🔹 2. TWIN will become a commercial company: it will move beyond being primarily public infrastructure and become a SaaS product with paying customers, contracts, subscriptions and transaction-based fees. TWIN Cloud could begin onboarding its first clients within two or three months. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: the IOTA Foundation is entering a new historical phase. Having completed the development of a decentralized and operational network, its center of gravity will gradually shift from building infrastructure to operating a specific business: TWIN. This is a logical and legitimate evolution — moving from funding technology through a foundation to capturing value through products, customers and recurring revenue. The foundation structures may remain legally in place, but the group will increasingly operate with a commercial, for‑profit mindset. TWIN is the vehicle chosen for that transition. 🔹 3. Build the business first; the token follows: companies will pay in fiat, while TWIN will use IOTA behind the scenes. There is still no quantified mechanism for buybacks, revenue sharing or substantial direct token demand. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: price cannot be managed; the conditions for price appreciation must be built. In the short and medium term, the price of a cryptoasset is an emergent, unpredictable and largely uncontrollable variable. It depends more on liquidity cycles, speculative flows, leverage, exchange listings, market structure and the macro environment than on technological quality. The only rational strategy is to work on what can actually be controlled: utility, adoption and products built on IOTA. The token’s real success can only be built over the long term. 🔹 4. Major restructuring: the organization has officially been reduced by around 25%, leaving approximately 85–90 people. The Foundation says it has more than two years of runway. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: the real reduction may already be somewhat greater than 25%. This is a deep but necessary restructuring that will also affect R&D and Engineering. The process is being implemented in stages rather than through a single round, largely because of the complexity of employment procedures in Germany, elsewhere in Europe and Japan. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: the two years of runway mentioned by Dominik would depend on IOTA remaining at, or recovering towards, approximately $0.05. A substantially lower token price would reduce the value of the treasury and therefore shorten that operational runway. 🔹 5. Kenya is the most advanced project: the technology appears to be complete, but certifications and commercial agreements with the Government are still pending. Kenya and Nigeria are now the priorities, while Morocco appears to have slowed down. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: internally, Africa is regarded as an almost certain strategic success. The opportunity is there and it will probably generate the greatest returns for IOTA. The problem is not the destination, but the timing: dealing with different governments, agreements and country‑specific demands is proving exasperatingly slow for Dominik and extremely difficult to navigate — and that is putting it very mildly. The battle for Africa has already been won; only the political timelines are preventing it from materializing. 🔹 6. Trade finance is now the main opportunity: coffee, avocados, critical minerals, stablecoins and the financing of commercial transactions. Stalus has reportedly completed around 30–40 shipments and deployed several million in funding. 🔹 7. TradeDollar will begin on Ethereum: not because it is abandoning IOTA, but because Ethereum already has the liquidity, USDT/USDC and the most battle‑tested contracts. Tokenization will remain on IOTA, although some of the capital will initially flow through other networks. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: TradeDollar cannot wait for USDT0 to become available on IOTA. It will therefore launch on Ethereum, while the USDT0 integration is postponed until the treasury is strong enough to fund it. The integration could be reactivated after TWIN’s first funding round or if the IOTA token recovers above $0.30. 🔹 8. USDT0 still has no launch date: it remains the preferred option, but there is no concrete integration timeline. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: the payment required to complete the integration would be too high — a seven‑figure amount — so the expenditure is being postponed while treasury preservation is prioritized. 🔹 9. There will be no new public roadmap: Dom believes that a formal roadmap would limit the team’s ability to change priorities and adapt to the market. The community will have to place greater trust in execution and less reliance on publicly verifiable deadlines and commitments. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: the internal corporate roadmap would be to complete and commercialize TWIN/TWIN Cloud throughout 2026–2027, allowing the company to enter a future financing round from a position of greater operational maturity. The strategy would be to delay external capital until product risk has been reduced, initial clients have been onboarded and revenue generation has been demonstrated — maximizing the company’s pre‑money valuation and minimizing dilution. From a current valuation believed to be above €40 million, the goal would be to raise that benchmark substantially and move closer to €100 million before formally opening the round. 🔹 10. Shimmer: they acknowledge that the token failed because of insufficient liquidity, investors and exchange listings. No compensation for holders is being considered. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: internally, Shimmer would currently be viewed as a “game over” scenario. Even so, holders should not delete or discard their tokens: last‑minute decisions may emerge, or unidentified third parties could still find a use for the asset. The feeless Tangle remains an untapped technological gem. 🔹 11. TWIN could raise capital as a for‑profit company: this is an option “on the table” to reduce dependence on token sales and finance expansion through its own corporate structure. 🔎 OSINT-HUMINT — Information external to the AMA: Q3/Q4 2027 would be the non‑negotiable window for TWIN’s first institutional funding round, once its pre‑money valuation has been optimized. IOTA can now stand on its own. The network is built, decentralized and operational. The Foundation is turning its full attention to TWIN — converting ten years of technology into business, revenue and global adoption. #IOTA #TWIN #AMA #RWA #ADAPT

join the AMA #IOTA

Happening in an hour - see you then!

⏰️Set your alarm for @iota community AMA tomorrow and drop your questions to @DomSchiener below . 👇 My questions are: 1. Any development updates and roadmap for @iotanames? 2.Any progress on TLIP and ADAPT? 2 Anything planned for DeFi in H2?

What started as a pilot for flower exporters in East Africa is now live across government systems on multiple continents. Trust compounds. Infrastructure scales. One corridor at a time. https://t.co/O7FSeJVOEX