IOTA (IOTA)

Professional matters should be handled by professionals. Some people are suited for technology, others for operations; forcing someone who only knows tech to lead a project will only result in chaos. In this regard, the ten‑year‑old public blockchain IOTA has done a great job. Jens Munch Lund‑Nielsen, head of the Global Trade and Supply Chain department at the IOTA Foundation and a core driver of the IOTA TWIN project, previously served as Digital Trade Lead at Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company. No wonder the IOTA TWIN project has taken off; over the past year it has achieved the following major milestones ⬇️ - In May 2025, the TWIN Foundation was officially established, jointly initiated by the IOTA Foundation, TradeMark Africa, the Tony Blair Institute, the World Economic Forum and others, positioned as a neutral global public digital infrastructure for trade. - Significant progress in Africa: operational‑level deployment in scenarios such as Kenyan flower exports, and collaboration with AfCFTA to advance the ADAPT program, promoting digitalization of intra‑African trade. - Breakthrough in the UK border pilot: trade data can be delivered to regulators up to 20 hours earlier, and together with Teesside University and the UK government, the digital trade testing platform at Teesside Port has been launched. - European trade corridor validation: completed pilot verification of over 2,000 batches of poultry trade from Poland to the UK, accumulating real cross‑border data. If major project teams understood the principle of assigning the right people to the right roles—eliminating CX doing CX and letting tech experts focus on technology—it wouldn't be this bleak now.

Web3 loves doing things quickly—whether it's posting a meme, launching a copy‑cat DeFi, or spinning up a flashy AI hype concept, you can harvest a round of wealth in the secondary market within months. But when the hype subsides and the market returns to rationality, people realize that doing slow things, doing the right things, and doing important things can actually take you farther. The 10‑year‑old @iota and its key ecosystem driver TWIN fully demonstrate this. No need for filler—here are the numbers. 1. In the TLIP scenario in Africa, the system has already processed over 184,000 commercial invoices, 328,000 declarations, and issued more than 2,000 export certificates. Of course, I admit these figures may not seem huge, but their significance lies not in sheer scale but in showing that TWIN has entered real‑trade document flow. Once the scenario and processes are connected, rapid data growth will become a reality. 2. A more tangible example comes from the Kenya‑to‑UK export pilot. Previously, trade documents might have taken 8 hours by air or three weeks by sea before they could be used. Now with TWIN, documents can be retrieved within minutes, and border regulators can see trustworthy data three weeks before the goods arrive. In the UK border pilot, data for chilled poultry shipments from Poland to the UK can be delivered to border authorities up to 20 hours in advance. For the Web3 industry, these may not sound as exciting as a ‘hundred‑times token’, but for real international trade they are the best examples of efficiency gains and genuine blockchain use: faster documents, earlier clearance, lower costs, and more transparent regulation. For traditional enterprises, we see that processes that once took weeks or hours can now be compressed into ‘5 minutes’. This efficiency translates into real cost reductions in logistics and warehousing, and provides a ticket for more small and medium exporters to compete internationally. By the way, this data was achieved during a Web3 bear market. Some projects ‘play ostrich’ in a bear market, while others tirelessly ‘lay the foundation’. When I was in school, my father always told me: ‘slow is fast.’ It means do the right thing first, then do it correctly. If it’s the wrong thing, no amount of speed adds value. I’ve been practicing this ever since. Few Web3 projects embody this philosophy; BTC is one, ETH is one, BNB is one, and IOTA is one as well.

Web3 loves doing things quickly—whether it's posting a meme, launching a copy‑cat DeFi, or spinning up a flashy AI hype concept, you can harvest a round of wealth in the secondary market within months. But when the hype subsides and the market returns to rationality, people realize that doing slow things, doing the right things, and doing important things can actually take you farther. The 10‑year‑old @iota and its key ecosystem driver TWIN fully demonstrate this. No need for filler—here are the numbers. 1. In the TLIP scenario in Africa, the system has already processed over 184,000 commercial invoices, 328,000 declarations, and issued more than 2,000 export certificates. Of course, I admit these figures may not seem huge, but their significance lies not in sheer scale but in showing that TWIN has entered real‑trade document flow. Once the scenario and processes are connected, rapid data growth will become a reality. 2. A more tangible example comes from the Kenya‑to‑UK export pilot. Previously, trade documents might have taken 8 hours by air or three weeks by sea before they could be used. Now with TWIN, documents can be retrieved within minutes, and border regulators can see trustworthy data three weeks before the goods arrive. In the UK border pilot, data for chilled poultry shipments from Poland to the UK can be delivered to border authorities up to 20 hours in advance. For the Web3 industry, these may not sound as exciting as a ‘hundred‑times token’, but for real international trade they are the best examples of efficiency gains and genuine blockchain use: faster documents, earlier clearance, lower costs, and more transparent regulation. For traditional enterprises, we see that processes that once took weeks or hours can now be compressed into ‘5 minutes’. This efficiency translates into real cost reductions in logistics and warehousing, and provides a ticket for more small and medium exporters to compete internationally. By the way, this data was achieved during a Web3 bear market. Some projects ‘play ostrich’ in a bear market, while others tirelessly ‘lay the foundation’. When I was in school, my father always told me: ‘slow is fast.’ It means do the right thing first, then do it correctly. If it’s the wrong thing, no amount of speed adds value. I’ve been practicing this ever since. Few Web3 projects embody this philosophy; BTC is one, ETH is one, BNB is one, and IOTA is one as well.

🌐 $IOTA Ecosystem Roundup From global trade and digital identity to DeFi, tokenization, enterprise infrastructure, and institutional adoption, the $IOTA ecosystem has continued to deliver meaningful real-world progress. Here's a look at some of the @iota’s biggest ecosystem developments 🧵👇(1/12)

🌐 $IOTA Ecosystem Roundup From global trade and digital identity to DeFi, tokenization, enterprise infrastructure, and institutional adoption, the $IOTA ecosystem has continued to deliver meaningful real-world progress. Here's a look at some of the @iota’s biggest ecosystem developments 🧵👇(1/12)

UPDATE: Europe had 3,000+ registered crypto firms in 2024. Today, just 244 hold MiCA licenses, meaning the rest must wind down operations by July 1. https://t.co/cCFmwn2uu8

This week, we shared difficult news internally: as part of an organizational restructuring, the IOTA Foundation is reducing the size of its team to lower our burn rate and further extend our runway. These decisions are never easy. Our industry is going through a significant structural shift, and like every serious project we are making hard choices now so that we can emerge from it stronger and more financially independent. We are saying goodbye to talented colleagues who have contributed greatly to IOTA, and we want to thank each of them for everything they have helped build. The purpose of this change is to align our organization more tightly around our highest-priority initiatives and to give us the focus and runway to execute on the opportunities ahead. Most important among them is TWIN - our work to turn our cross-border trade infrastructure into a growing, revenue-generating business that can support IOTA and the Foundation's mission for the long term. Our broader focus remains unchanged: advancing di