IOTA token should be more closely linked to real use in 2026: Dom Schiener
- Dom Schiener says in the last AMA of the year: IOTA is ready for production after “Rebased”, trading adoption counts in 2026.
- Kenya to go on-chain in Q1 2026; the token should be more closely linked to real use.
IOTA founder Dom Schiener said at the end of the yearOR The goals for the next year were announced on December 18th. After the technical reset was achieved with “Rebased” in 2025, the focus should be on real adoption in 2026 so that IOTA comes out of the pure “market beta” drawer.
“I am very satisfied with the new IOTA Layer 1 because I really believe that IOTA is one of the oldest Layer 1 projects today – but without any technical legacy,” said Schiener.
“This is a big advantage because I can honestly say today: IOTA is ready for production. If we sit down at the table with a country today, I can say very confidently: We will get your millions of transactions per year or per month on the IOTA mainnet – without interruptions, without security problems and without these constant teething problems.”
Schiener made it clear that the rebase decision did not come from “tech vanity,” but because the market had changed. “We realized: You no longer compete on technology in this market. You can no longer come up with nice-sounding words and say: ‘I am now zk-Layer 2′ or Omptimistic Rollup’ – no one cares about that anymore,” he said.
“Today it’s about competing at the application level: about adoption and how much of it actually happens in a tangible way on the mainnet. And that’s exactly why we had to fundamentally change Layer 1,” said the IOTA founder.
With Rebased, three things have come together: programmable Layer 1 smart contracts, full decentralization and token utility through staking. “With Rebased we finally have smart contracts directly on Layer 1,” said Schiener.
“These smart contracts use IOTA tokens to pay fees and computing power. And we introduced the Move VM – so Move smart contracts run on IOTA Layer 1. In my opinion, Move is the most exciting language next to Solidity because it is more secure, more robust and at the same time not difficult for developers to learn.”
On decentralization, he pointed to the final farewell to the coordinator and a growing set of validators: “Now the network is completely decentralized. We are at around 80 to 100 validators,” Schiener said. “And the really exciting thing is: you can now set up a validator yourself, secure the network – you basically just need infrastructure and a bit of IOTA stake.”
Performance and scaling should underpin the “production” claim. “The network is incredibly fast – transactions are confirmed in less than a second, 400 milliseconds to be precise,” he said. “And it’s extremely scalable: we’re at more than 50,000 transactions per second that we can do.”
He announced the “Starfish” upgrade for the beginning of 2026, which will be “even more performant, more resilient and faster”.
IOTA In 2026
Schiener openly said that IOTA deliberately does not follow the usual crypto playbook of memecoins, NFT hype or broad DeFi expansion. “About a year and a half ago we said, ‘We’re going all in on trading,’” he said. “We’ve scaled back almost everything else – including a lot of classic ecosystem development – and are focusing on trade because that’s where we saw the first real validation. That’s the area where we found product-market fit.”
He describes TWIN as a product suite for trade digitization, tokenization, trade finance and stablecoin payments. “TWIN is essentially a product suite: Firstly, we digitize trade – we get rid of paper documents and put them in a digital form,” said Schiener. “We tokenize this data as assets so that it can be shared across borders. And that’s exactly where a blockchain like IOTA makes sense as a ‘single source of truth’: data is authentic, the origin is traceable, and it is tamper-proof.”
The market is large enough to structurally support IOTA: “Cross-border trade accounts for a third of global value creation – around $30 trillion per year,” said Schiener. “This is exactly the kind of market where IOTA can be used and where millions of transactions per day can arise – through shipments, digital product passports, identities and payments. I want to be a supply chain guy – I don’t want to be a crypto guy.”
Africa in focus
Schiener cited the partnership with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as the strongest adoption signal. “In my view, this was the largest adoption case in the history of IOTA, and I am incredibly proud to be part of it,” he said. “After months of conversations and presentations, we were able to convince them that IOTA should be one of their partners on the mission to digitize commerce. This is exactly the vision we had ten years ago – and now it’s actually happening.”
Operationally, it became concrete for Q1 2026: “Kenya will go live on the IOTA mainnet in the first quarter of 2026,” said Schiener. “Over the last year, we have digitized the flower trade in particular in a pilot phase. And now all commodities in Kenya will be switched on in the first quarter – then you can really say: Kenya is on-chain on IOTA.” Ghana is planned as the next step; Overall, he envisaged “three to five countries” as a realistic range for connections by 2026.
Finally, Schiener addressed the token issue. Countries would operate their own validators and stake IOTA to ensure security and neutrality – and IOTA is working on linking the token more closely to the trade ecosystem. “One of the most important pieces of work we’re doing right now is: How does the IOTA token really participate in the growth of this entire trading ecosystem?” he said. “And if we reach even one percent of global trade, I want it to be obvious to everyone: That creates X amount of value for the IOTA token itself.”
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