- The IOTA Foundation activated the Starfish upgrade, improving network stability, security, and efficiency while strengthening its focus on TWIN.
- TWIN is also expanding across Africa and the United Kingdom, with developer adoption continuing to grow.
The IOTA Foundation has taken another step toward expanding its digital trade infrastructure after activating the Starfish consensus protocol and reporting major progress across the TWIN ecosystem during the second quarter of 2026.
The latest quarterly report highlights improvements to the network’s technology, growing adoption in Africa and the United Kingdom, and a stronger focus on building enterprise-ready trade solutions. The update also comes after the foundation restructured its operations to prioritize the development of TWIN.
IOTA Shifts Focus to TWIN
The IOTA Foundation said it has aligned its development, research, design, and product teams to accelerate work on TWIN. The move follows an organizational restructuring announced earlier by co-founder Dominik Schiener.
Instead of pursuing multiple independent initiatives, the foundation is now concentrating on creating a production-ready platform for global trade.
According to the report, this strategy will help build a more resilient and compliant digital infrastructure that can support institutional and commercial use cases.
Starfish Upgrade Strengthens the Network
One of the biggest milestones during the quarter was the activation of the Starfish consensus protocol on April 23.
The upgrade improves the stability of the IOTA mainnet under real-world conditions. It also allows the network to continue operating even when connectivity is limited.
Alongside Starfish, the development team completed Protocol Version 29, which introduces additional smart contract security features. The foundation also finished core development work on Starfish-Speed, an improvement designed to reduce network latency.
Another important development was progress on the P-COOL transaction flow. According to the foundation, the new approach delivers higher performance while using roughly half the computing resources required before.
Testing also showed that storage optimizations reduced the active node data footprint by about one-third. This could lower infrastructure and maintenance costs for node operators over the long term.
TWIN Expands Across Africa
IOTA continued to strengthen its presence in Africa through several digital trade initiatives. Working with TradeMark Africa, the foundation developed a business model and fee structure for TWIN deployment in Kenya.
The foundation also launched the implementation of the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade (ADAPT) initiative. The project is being developed alongside the AfCFTA Secretariat, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and the World Economic Forum.
The first phase will focus on Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco. The initiative aims to support digital identities, secure data exchange, and digital payment systems that improve cross-border trade.
Meanwhile, the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP) reached another milestone. Version 1.3.9 achieved a 95% success rate across active testing profiles, while document exchanges between Kenyan authorities were successfully tested from node to node.
United Kingdom and Global Expansion Continue
Outside Africa, TWIN also advanced in the United Kingdom.
The foundation secured five major supporters for a letter of intent tied to the International Supply Network. It is also preparing additional integrations with ports, freight forwarders, and trade organizations.
Looking further ahead, the TWIN Foundation expects more than 30 countries to adopt the platform by 2030. IOTA technology is already being used in Argentina, where it supports a government project for transplant processes.
Developer Interest Continues to Rise
The latest report also points to increasing developer activity around TWIN.
Weekly downloads of the framework’s packages on npm have continued to climb. The main TWIN Framework package recently recorded more than 18,000 installations in seven days, while the IOTA integration package logged more than 3,700 weekly downloads.
Although download figures do not confirm active production deployments, they indicate that developers are increasingly testing and integrating the framework into their projects.
The steady growth suggests that TWIN is attracting broader technical interest as the foundation continues expanding its digital trade ecosystem.
What the Latest Update Means for IOTA
The second-quarter report shows that IOTA is placing greater emphasis on real-world trade infrastructure rather than broad blockchain experimentation.
With the Starfish upgrade now live, improvements to network performance, and expanding partnerships across Africa and the United Kingdom, the foundation is positioning TWIN as a platform for digital trade and supply chain infrastructure.
Growing developer activity and plans to expand into more than 30 countries over the coming years also indicate that the project is steadily moving from development toward wider implementation.
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