IOTA and TWIN progress update: Q2 2026

Welcome to our Q2 2026 progress update. This report summarizes key milestones, protocol enhancements, real-world trade developments, and ecosystem growth achieved over the past three months.

In accordance with the strategic direction outlined in $IOTA manifestothe foundation is completely focused on Support and scaling twinan open digital trade infrastructure. Our organizational structure has evolved since last quarter to reflect this commitment. Our engineering, research, design and product teams are now vertically integrated into a single pipeline dedicated to driving global trade adoption. By moving beyond siled general-purpose blockchain lines, we are focusing our talent on building resilient, compliant, production-grade networks for the global economy.

Core protocols and data infrastructure

This quarter marked a historic milestone for our core network infrastructure. The team was able to achieve a highly resilient consensus model while significantly streamlining the Node codebase to meet the organization’s requirements.

Starfish consensus and network hardening

• Mainnet activation: April 23, 2026, Next Generation starfish consensus protocol The live performance has officially started at $IOTA main net. This major upgrade improves network stability and ensures continuous operation under real-world conditions. For a detailed breakdown, please refer to the official Starfish mainnet release announcement and technical details Why starfish are important.

• Proactive architecture enhancements: As part of our commitment to institutional-grade security, our Consensus and Virtual Machine teams completed comprehensive audits and implemented rigorous reference safety checks. These proactive updates harden protocols against potential adversarial edge cases and validate the production readiness of your network. The framework has been further strengthened with the completion of protocol version 29, which incorporates smart contract safety enhancements and protects the network from complex operational edge cases.
• Starfish-Speed ​​Completion: The core development of optimistic commit rules was completed and validated locally to reduce latency in good network conditions while maintaining stable performance for Starfish even in poor network conditions.
• Optimized transaction execution: At the same time, certificateless transaction flows (P-COOL) achieved an important milestone, proving that networks can achieve higher performance with half the resource footprint of traditional networks. The last remaining tasks will be completed before testing and deploying P-COOL to the public network.

Data layer and operational efficiency

Second quarter was a success $IOTA It’s more powerful for those who build it and cheaper for those who run it.

• Account abstraction and programmable identity: Account abstraction is live on mainnet and eliminates dependence on a single fixed verification scheme. $IOTA account. Developers can now create custom sign-in logic to control how users access and secure their assets. This built-in flexibility enables a seamless transition to quantum-resistant signature schemes, essentially preparing your account for the quantum era. Some of them undergo rigorous benchmarking and stress testing to ensure absolute stability under real-world network loads.
• Rebuilding the next generation SDK: The core SDK has been completely rebuilt from the ground up, resulting in faster compilation speeds and a significantly smaller application footprint. Natively integrates with the languages ​​enterprise teams already use, including Python, Kotlin, C#, Go, Swift, and WebAssembly (WASM). WASM packages distributed via npm allow developers to build WASM packages. $IOTA It can be run directly in the browser via JavaScript and TypeScript. The framework is supported by typed tools that transform raw ledger objects into predictable data structures, streamlined gRPC connectivity, and enhanced command-line utilities.
• Live data streaming and consistency: Applications can now subscribe directly to live data streams on any network, allowing them to react to on-chain events in real-time rather than relying on traditional polling models. The rebuilt integrity engine returns an accurate point-in-time ledger view for every query, while a robust fallback system maintains full access to historical data, including a comprehensive address-level audit trail.
• Reduced node operating costs: Through core storage optimization, we were able to reduce the data footprint of active nodes by approximately one-third in our test environment, significantly reducing long-term infrastructure and maintenance costs for operators. To help infrastructure teams execute lean node deployments, we have officially released a formal data retention policy and comprehensive operator handbook.

TWIN ecosystem and global expansion

TWIN is actively building and expanding commercial relationships, ecosystem footprint and pipeline prospects across core trade routes.

strategic collaboration

• TMA Kenya Commercial Framework: The team held productive working sessions with Trademark Africa (TMA) to design a viable self-sustaining commercial model for the deployment of trade infrastructure in Kenya and successfully align on the operational structure and future pricing framework.

earth corridor

• Development of the ADAPT Initiative: Implementation of the Africa Public Infrastructure for Digital Access and Trade (ADAPT) initiative is officially underway. Developed in collaboration with the AfCFTA Secretariat, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change Research and the World Economic Forum, the pilot will link digital identity, data exchange and payments interoperability between the first three core countries. For more information on the strategy, First ADAPT implementation. Building on this momentum, the program was formally submitted to Nigeria’s Central Coordination Committee to plan institutional milestones, while sandbox design discussions progressed with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). At the same time, financing and expansion discussions were initiated with prominent global banking institutions.

• TLIP progress: The platform reached a major validation milestone with the release of TLIP v1.3.9, achieving a 95% pass rate across all active test profiles and confirming a seamless node-to-node document subscription channel between Kenyan authorities. Further development is underway.
• British Maritime Trade: The UK Deployment Division has achieved a significant high-level milestone by securing five core signatories to the International Supply Network (ISN) Memorandum of Understanding. Infrastructure deployment and scoping integration is actively underway in collaboration with regional port authorities, major freight forwarders and trade associations to track and optimize critical import routes.

Legal and governance

This quarter saw significant progress across three core legal and governance workstreams. Governance and data protection work continued to position TLIP for public release in full compliance with applicable data protection obligations in Kenya. Legal preparations for the TWIN pilot in the UK to support pilot integration across the logistics and transport industry. It also includes collaboration with TWIN’s strategic partners on governance strategies, IP ownership and licensing frameworks, and operational models to facilitate adoption, including work on sustainable financing models.

Ecosystem communication and brand strategy

This quarter’s communications efforts successfully transitioned from a protocol-centric awareness to building organizational trust with a focus on compliance, interoperability, and real-world outcomes.

Marketing campaigns and web optimization

Reliable trade campaigns: officially launched TRUSTED TRANSACTION Brand awareness campaign. It shows how digital trust is being directly integrated into global logistics. The impact on campaign performance is as follows:

• 333,000 impressions
• 12,500 engagements, engagement rate 3.7%

This campaign tripled TWIN’s awareness, quadrupled engagement with TWIN, and steadily increased the number of followers by 9%. We will continue to leverage TWIN’s corporate channels to expand this momentum.

Web surface optimization: Key features to support a growing ecosystem $IOTA Interface ( $IOTA The Foundation portal and specialized digital notary capabilities, new digital notary center on Explorer, Rabby wallet integration on EVM Bridge, and more) have been comprehensively redesigned and optimized for global stakeholders.

Key content releases for Q2

The team has published several high-profile articles documenting technology changes and ecosystem success stories.

• Protocol milestones: Starfish Mainnet Consensus Upgrade and their friends technical details.
• Trade infrastructure: Commencement of Pan-African ADAPT implementation.
• Ecosystem outcomes: of MasterZ Hackathon Finale

We are continually refining our visual identity, leveraging clean, abstract animation and technical illustrations to illustrate how invisible digital infrastructure is becoming the new fabric of global commerce.

Academic publications and research

The research team continued to validate the underlying architecture through peer-reviewed academic channels and submitted three major papers during the quarter.

1. Consensus optimization: Bluestreak: Block reference compression in DAG-based consensus (Submitted to Symposium on Operating Systems Principles – SOSP).
2. Congestion control: Optimal transaction sequence and congestion control in certificateless flows (Posted in ACM Distributed Ledger Technologies Journal).
3. Network topology: Evaluating centralized metrics in decentralized consensus architectures (Submitted to Council for the Advancement of Financial Technology – AFT).

We have important announcements planned for next quarter, and we look forward to sharing more details about our team’s behind-the-scenes work in our next quarterly report.

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