IOTA 1.5: How not to lose your MIOTA tokens during the next upgrade

The IOTA Foundation has announced token migration guidance for the transition to the second phase of Chrysalis. The section marks the final episode before Coordicide.

Hardly any protocol upgrade is awaited with as much excitement in the crypto space as the end of the coordinator in the IOTA network. The central authority is still holding the threads together in the Tangle. By the end of 2021, however, the coordinator should have done its Golden Profit job and IOTA will finally fulfil the promise of a completely decentralised network environment. In an intermediate step, however, IOTA will first pass Chrysalis Phase 2 and thus usher in IOTA 1.5, the last stage before the 2.0 version. To ensure that MIOTA tokens are not lost during the transition, the IOTA Foundation is providing users with a migration guide.

On the way to coordicide

With the transition to IOTA 1.5, users will need to migrate their tokens to the new network. They can do this before or after the launch. However, although there is „no practical difference between these two options“ according to the blog post, the Foundation advises transferring before the launch of the second Chrysalis phase.

The migration process is said to be a few steps and as simple as possible. Users simply need to enter their IOTA seed into the Firefly wallet. Firefly then creates a new seed and generates an EdDSA address for the new network environment. The credit is then sent to a migration address on the old network. The tokens are then available in the EdDSA address in the new network. If users migrate their tokens before the Chrysalis launch, they are available immediately after the launch.

This process does not change for Ledger Nano users. After they have connected their hardware wallet, Firefly guides them through the migration process. However, Firefly is initially only available on Mac, Linux and Windows. Currently, the IOTA Foundation is also working with the „major exchanges“ to enable a smooth transfer of funds to the Chrysalis network, he said. The migration process is expected to begin seven days before the Chrysalis Phase 2 transfer. However, a date has not yet been set.

Where does IOTA stand?

Although the IOTA Foundation has brought order to network sections with a new nomenclature, it is not always easy to keep track of the status quo of redevelopment work. With the transfer of Crysalis Phase 1 to the mainnet in August 2020, the Tangle network is still one step away from its 1.5 version, which will be heralded by the implementation of Chrysalis Phase 2, marking the final stage before the Coo-free environment of IOTA 2.0.

In parallel, the 2.0 version is being put through its paces in a testnet environment. Pollen represents the first testnet and has been online in a revised version since January. Phase Nectar is planned for the second half of 2021. At the end of the three-stage release phase is Honey, which contains all the modules of the new, Coo-free Tangle architecture. Given the sprawling to-do list, it is questionable whether the Foundation will be able to keep to its schedule this year. Nevertheless, the interim results are beginning to give a foretaste of the eagerly awaited 2.0 version.

The interim status reports and paired expectations have also been pricing themselves into the MIOTA share price for a few days now. On 11 February, MIOTA rose above one US dollar for the first time since July 2018. At the time of going to press, MIOTA is trading at 1.32 US dollars, up 75 per cent for the week.