IOTA Cofounder: Our Mission Is Simple—Top L1 + Real-World Adoption Starting May 5

• IOTA’s mainnet upgrade introduces the MoveVM framework for smart contracts and will support over 50,000 transactions per second with rapid finality.
• In preparation for the upgrade, Binance.US will suspend IOTA deposits and withdrawals starting May 2, 2025, at 11 p.m. EDT, and deactivate all current deposit addresses.

On May 5, 2025, IOTA Foundation will launch a major mainnet upgrade, which is set to change the very definition of the project. This upgrade represents a huge step in IOTA’s intentions in providing a Layer 1 blockchain as a first-rate infrastructure for real-world applications. Moreover, in a recent post on X, IOTA co-founder Dominik Schiener bragged about the upcoming upgrade.

IOTA Co-Founder Makes Bold Declaration

Schiener laid out the project’s core mission on X. “IOTA thesis is very simple,” he wrote. Schiener added, “1. Build one of the most performant L1s in the market. 2. Bring the real world onchain (starting with trade finance and RWA tokenization). All of that is happening on 5.5.2025.”

The upgrade is meant to achieve full decentralisation, featuring a validator set of 150 participants. They also expect enhanced performance benchmarks as the network will handle over 50,000 transactions per second and finality in the blink of an eye. The underlying power for this move will come from MoveVM, a smart contract execution environment that allows for the deployment of complex applications at the Layer 1 level, as highlighted in the previous story. 

Binance Makes Adjustments To Support Upgrade

This move has spawned adjustments across the ecosystem and particularly on major exchanges. Binance.US confirmed that it too will support the network transition. Before the upgrade, it will deactivate all current IOTA deposit addresses at midnight EDT, May 2, 2025. Starting May 2, 2025, at 11 p.m. EDT, IOTA’s deposits & withdrawals will be suspended, the exchange said. Moreover, all funds deposited thereafter will not be balanced and may be permanently lost.

They recommend that users remove any saved or whitelisted IOTA deposit addresses, since there may be problems with it. The addresses issued after the upgrade will be new, and they can be found on Binance.US’s deposit page or SAPI for API users within a week.

In its own announcement of the transition, the IOTA Foundation stressed the importance of the transition. They wrote, “5.5.2025 → A new IOTA begins. Built on nearly a decade of research. Inspired by the best of Web3. Committed to open-source values.” Moreover, the network will introduce staking rewards estimated between 10% and 15% APY, further incentivizing participation from its community.

This includes a “13-Validator Genesis Ceremony” whereby the upgraded decentralized network will be activated formally. Further, it’s important to note that during the transition, IOTA trading will continue unaffected on exchanges. However, deposits and withdrawals will remain paused till the upgrade is over and stable.

Ahead of the upgrade, the IOTA price is currently suffering from volatility as it has lost over 2% today. As of writing, the IOTA token price stood at $0.2104, down by 2.04% on Wednesday, April 30. Furthermore, the trading volume plunged 41.53% to $21.25 million in the last 24 hours, signalling reduced interest among traders. Nonetheless, the situation is expected to stabilize once the mainnet goes live, as the deposits and withdrawals would resume by then.