IOTA Enters 2026 Focused on Countries, Trade, and Enterprise-Grade Infrastructure

• **Three African governments to deploy IOTA in 2026 following successful pilot programs this year.
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• IOTA also integrated with BitGo, Uphold, Stargate, and LayerZero to expand institutional and multichain access.

IOTA’s focus on enterprise-grade infrastructure and real-world adoption has shaped a strong 2025, says the IOTA Foundation. The network made progress in regulated markets, expanded its DeFi offerings, and began real-world deployments in global trade and identity systems. In the U.S., IOTA gained its first institutional custody access through BitGo. This move brought regulated, insured custody services to institutional investors. U.S-based retail access improved as well, with Uphold enabling native buying, selling, deposits, and withdrawals of IOTA tokens. The integration was supported by a 1 million IOTA trading competition, aimed at increasing visibility among U.S. users. To strengthen infrastructure, IOTA connected to over 150 blockchains via LayerZero and Stargate, enabling cross-chain asset transfers and multichain app development, as we reported. Additionally, the network integrated with Turnkey, offering enterprise-level wallet infrastructure for developers building secure, user-friendly apps. DeFi and National Deployments Blow Up for IOTA The DeFi stack on IOTA now includes liquid staking through Swirl, stablecoin liquidity from Virtue, spot trading on Pools DEX, and perpetuals via CyberPerp. Users also earn points through Liquidlink. Together, these features have made the network’s on-chain economy more usable for the retail crowd. At the government level, IOTA confirmed that three countries will deploy on the IOTA Mainnet in 2026, with five more running pilots under the ADAPT initiative. These programs follow recent efforts to integrate IOTA into global trade systems. As CNF reported, IOTA’s role in the EU-funded MISSION project brought its technology into live port operations. These pilots target maritime trade coordination, customs, and logistics, using DLT systems anchored by IOTA’s TWIN and TLIP protocols. IOTA continues to focus on identity after launching verifiable digital identity solutions along with automated payment through smart contracts in collaboration with GLEIF. This is to eliminate friction in trade finance and similar processes to overcome obstacles to a $2.5 trillion global funding gap. In the meantime, the open-source IOTA Trust Framework offered digital ID, notarization, tokenization, and gasless transactions. On the developer side, IOTA organized multiple community events in 2025. The MOVEATHON series made the Move VM available to developers, first in Malaysia and then in Europe. The European version attracted 395 participants, and 28 projects were created within nine weeks. At the same time, SafePal also implemented support for IOTA EVM and provided access to hardware and software wallets to a larger number of users. According to an earlier CNF report, the Rebased upgrade was a significant achievement in 2025. It presented Move-based smart contracts, full decentralization, native staking, and a production-quality base of institutional and government-grade applications. Subsequently, IOTA Names and Validator Scores will enhance usability and network security. In his end-of-year speech, founder Dominik Schiener reiterated IOTA’s long-term strategy. He affirmed that the project did not rely on hype-infused stories such as memecoins or short-term incentives and opted to work on creating real-life solutions that align with regulatory and enterprise requirements. He further affirmed that significant announcements will be made early this year, which would further shape the direction of IOTA as it enters the second decade. As of press time, the IOTA price was trading at $0.08074, a **3.74% **decline from the intra-day high of $0.08397.