Kingdom

Brad

IOTA

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Sanctum

The IOTA Foundation has <a href="https://blog.iota.org/update-q2-2026/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">published</a> its report for the second quarter of 2026, reporting significant progress in the expansion of TWIN.&nbsp;
The main focus was on the activation of the Starfish consensus protocol, 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. It was originally built for machine-to-machine transactions and IoT data integrity, with its native token IOTA trading on major crypto exchanges.
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<h2 id="iota-focuses-on-twin">IOTA focuses on TWIN</h2>
According to the foundation, its development, research, design, and product teams have been brought closer together. As recently announced by co-founder Dominik Schiener, the IOTA Foundation intends to focus more strongly on <a href="https://www.twin.org/home" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">TWIN </a>following an organizational restructuring and layoffs, rather than continuing to pursue several separate initiatives. The quarterly report states,
<blockquote>
 “The Foundation is fully focused on supporting and scaling TWIN...By moving past isolated, general-purpose blockchain lines, we’re concentrating our talent on building a resilient, compliant, and production-grade network for the global economy."
</blockquote>
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.
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At the same time, the team completed Protocol Version 29. This version 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:
<blockquote>
 “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."
</blockquote>
<h2 id="twin-expands-in-africa-and-the-united-kingdom">TWIN expands in Africa and the United Kingdom</h2>
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 <a href="https://adaptinitiative.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">ADAPT initiative</a> 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.
<blockquote>
 “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 <a href="https://x.com/iota/status/2056729092540477466/photo/1" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">wrote.</a>&nbsp;
</blockquote>
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.
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<h2 id="npm-downloads-point-to-growing-developer-activity-around-twin">Npm downloads point to growing developer activity around TWIN</h2>
Beyond the official country projects, there are also signs that TWIN is attracting more attention. On the&nbsp;Node Package Manager&nbsp;(npm) package platform, key components of the framework have recently been downloaded significantly more often.
<figure>
 <figcaption>
 https://www.npmjs.com/package/@twin.org/dlt-iota?activeTab=versions
 </figcaption>
</figure>
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.
The statistics show the latest npm download figures for the IOTA package used for TWIN integration.
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.
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IOTA Foundation activates key upgrade to power global trade network

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