IOTA Mainnet undergoes a significant transformation as it shifts from a centralized Coordinator to a decentralized Validator Committee, enhancing the network’s resilience and resistance to censorship. This transition is an interim step towards achieving complete decentralization with the upcoming IOTA 2.0, which will introduce a unique On-Tangle voting system.
The IOTA Mainnet has relied on a Coordinator as a central point of reference to validate transactions by periodically confirming them through milestones. While this approach has been effective, it has had its limitations. If the Coordinator went offline, the processing of value transactions on the entire network would come to a halt. Additionally, the centralized nature of the Coordinator created the potential for transaction blocking through manipulation of milestones.
To address these concerns, IOTA is making the move towards a decentralized, permissioned Validator Committee. This committee consists of multiple trusted validators operating across different host providers and geographical locations. This shift enhances network uptime, stability, and resilience against external censorship.
The Validator Committee works by replacing the solitary Coordinator controlled by the IOTA Foundation with multiple validators. These validators utilize an off-chain Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus mechanism to collaboratively determine the placement of the next milestone by proposing referenced parents.
The transition towards the Validator Committee has been a meticulous process for IOTA. It started with internal testing on test networks to identify and optimize potential issues. Then, the software underwent rigorous testing in various scenarios on the Public Testnet to confirm its robustness. The Shimmer Environment acted as a pre-production stage, ensuring the stability of the software before its deployment on the ultimate production Mainnet.
The formation of the Validator Committee is driven by a consortium of entities, and IOTA has actively engaged with academic institutions and corporations to establish the inaugural decentralized Validator Committee. To ensure smooth network operations, transactions will continue as long as at least two-thirds of all validators (or 7 out of a committee of 10) remain active. Notably, even if the IOTA Foundation’s validator node goes offline, the absence of a leading figure in the committee does not hinder the network’s progress.
However, the Validator Committee is not the final goal for IOTA. It serves as a transitional measure until the introduction of IOTA 2.0. This upcoming version will enable the formation of a permissionless committee based on token stakes, eliminating the need for milestones and introducing an innovative On-Tangle voting mechanism.
With these groundbreaking changes, IOTA reaffirms its commitment to realizing a truly decentralized future.