An Abu Dhabi Pump?

IOTA's Moment? Blockchain developer Iota is launching the first Abu Dhabi-regulated foundation with hopes of accelerating the growth of their technology in the Middle East! IOTA is up nearly 50% on the day, but is this pump one you should ape? Probably not👇

Under recently introduced Abu Dhabi regulations meant to attract digital ledger technology (DLT) companies to the UAE, foundations – like Iota’s – can establish decentralized autonomous organizations there to operate legally and issue tokens to members.

The newly established “Iota Ecosystem DLT Foundation” is being seeded with $100M IOTA tokens vesting over the next four years. The funds will be used to develop and accelerate the growth of the Iota network, and the foundation’s primary goals are to tokenize real-world assets and onboard institutional players.

Despite the Iota blockchain being built as the backbone for the futuristic-sounding “Internet of Everything,” their UAE foundation is niching down and making the pivot to real-world assets. Given Iota’s inability to make past ambitions come to life and little proof that funding the foundation will do little to affect actual chain adoption or usage, there is substantial execution risk involved with their latest venture.

While markets are reacting positively to the Iota announcement, ignore the hype. IOTA fell into obscurity in early 2017; it may be best to relegate the chain there perpetually.