The IOTA Foundation published its report for the second quarter of 2026, reporting significant progress in the expansion of TWIN. The main focus was on the activation of the Starfish consensus protocol on April 23, trade projects in Africa and the United Kingdom, and a stronger organizational alignment toward institutional use cases. The IOTA Foundation is a non-profit organization that developed IOTA, a distributed ledger network originally built for machine-to-machine transactions and IoT data integrity. Following an organizational restructuring and layoffs, the foundation intends to focus more strongly on TWIN rather than continuing to pursue several separate initiatives.
IOTA Foundation Activates Starfish Consensus Protocol on April 23
The most important technical milestone was the activation of the Starfish consensus protocol on April 23. The upgrade is designed to improve the stability of the IOTA mainnet under real-world network conditions and ensure continuous operation even with limited connectivity. The team completed Protocol Version 29, which includes additional security mechanisms for smart contracts. The core development of Starfish-Speed was also completed, with the aim of reducing latency. IOTA also reported progress on the P-COOL transaction flow. The approach is intended to deliver higher performance while requiring roughly half the resources previously needed. The report states: "Q2 was a success in making IOTA more capable for the people building on it and cheaper for the people running it...Core storage optimizations have successfully reduced the active node data footprint by approximately one-third in testing environments, significantly lowering long-term infrastructure and maintenance costs for operators."
TWIN Expands Trade Infrastructure in Africa and United Kingdom
At the application level, the Foundation primarily focused on trade infrastructure. Together with TradeMark Africa, the team worked on a business and fee model for deployment in Kenya. Implementation of the ADAPT initiative also began in the second quarter. Developed together with the AfCFTA Secretariat, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and the World Economic Forum, the project aims to enable digital identities, data exchange, and digital payments initially in Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco. "Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco have been selected as the first countries to implement ADAPT - the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade initiative," the company wrote. For the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP), version 1.3.9 achieved a 95% success rate across all active test profiles, according to the report. Document channels between authorities in Kenya were also successfully tested from node to node. In the United Kingdom, TWIN secured five key supporters for a letter of intent regarding the International Supply Network. Further integrations with port authorities, freight forwarders, and trade organizations are currently being prepared. The TWIN Foundation recently announced that more than 30 countries are expected to go live by 2030. In Argentina, IOTA technology has also been implemented in a government project for transplant processes.
Npm Download Data Indicates Growing Developer Adoption
Beyond the official country projects, there are also signs that TWIN is attracting more attention. On the Node Package Manager (npm) package platform, key components of the framework have recently been downloaded significantly more often. The core package currently reaches 18,222 installations within seven days. The IOTA-specific module, which connects the framework to IOTA technology, records 3,711 weekly installations. These figures are not direct proof of active users or companies operating in production. However, they show how often TWIN's technical components are being installed in development, testing, or build environments. For a specialized framework in the field of digital trade infrastructure, the current level is nevertheless notable. It suggests that TWIN is not only being expanded strategically, but is also gaining increasing attention in technical practice.
FAQ
What did the IOTA Foundation activate on April 23?
The IOTA Foundation activated the Starfish consensus protocol on April 23. The upgrade is designed to improve the stability of the IOTA mainnet under real-world network conditions and ensure continuous operation even with limited connectivity.
Which countries were selected for the ADAPT initiative in the second quarter of 2026?
Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco were selected as the first countries to implement ADAPT - the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade initiative. The project aims to enable digital identities, data exchange, and digital payments in these countries.
