IOTA news

IOTA has activated the Starfish consensus engine on its mainnet, replacing the previous Mysticeti engine. The upgrade, deployed via protocol version 24 in release v1.21.1 around April 23, 2026, aims to provide a more reliable infrastructure for global trade systems. Starfish decouples network progress from node synchronization, allowing the chain to continue even if validators lag. It uses a directed acyclic graph-based Byzantine fault-tolerant model with mechanisms like cordial dissemination, Reed-Solomon encoding, and Data Availability Certificates to ensure data availability and resilience. Initial metrics show a 10-fold reduction in outbound recovery requests and improved latency and variance. The upgrade is designed to support the TWIN (Trade Worldwide Information Network) initiative, which tokenizes trade documents such as certificates of origin and bills of lading. The IOTA Foundation highlighted the upgrade's focus on real-world resilience for logistics, where connectivity can be inconsistent.

The African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat and the IOTA Foundation have launched ADAPT, a digital trade platform that uses stablecoin‑based settlement to modernize cross‑border payments, trade documents, and identities across Africa. The open‑source infrastructure will enable instant transactions and tokenised assets, with USDT chosen as the main payment currency. Early pilots in Kenya and Rwanda already cut costs and paperwork, saving exporters $400 a month and reducing border clearance to 30 minutes. ADAPT will start in Kenya, Ghana and a North African country before expanding to all 55 AfCFTA members by 2035, with the goal of unlocking $70 billion in trade value and $23.6 billion in annual gains.