A German Foundation

The IOTA Foundation is both the first German and the first non-profit foundation in the cryptoworld.

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

On November 3, 2017, after more than a year of meticulous preparations by the team, the IOTA Foundation was officially registered in Berlin by the State Secretary for Justice. This makes the IOTA Foundation the first entirely regulated non-profit foundation in the cryptoworld, and the first with a seat in Germany. The IOTA Foundation is led by its founders and the foundation council, namely David Sønstebø, Dominik Schiener and Serguei Popov. The IOTA Foundation has various alliances with businesses, start-ups, research centers and other non-profit organizations. The Foundation‘s core is formed by the software developers, researchers, consultants and business developers who develop the IOTA protocol and promote its acceptance.

Diversification

The IOTA protocol is extremely versatile and can be used for a range of purposes – from Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things to Web 3.0 and data exchange of the future. Each of these domains brings different possibilities and challenges, which require different areas of expertise. The IOTA Foundation is constantly enlarging its team of experts from all over the world who are working on numerous projects in interdisciplinary groups and collaborate with businesses and research centers.

A Non-Profit Foundation

In order to establish the IOTA Foundation, the IOTA Community donated 5 percent of all IOTA tokens, which amounts to roughly 140 Ti (1 Ti = 1 teran IOTA = 1 trillion IOTA). With a rate of 0.25€ per Mi (1 Mi = 1 megan IOTA = 1 million IOTA), these are worth approxiamtely 35 million euros. This money is primarily used to finance the team and the further development of the technology. The IOTA Foundation intends to become self-sufficient in the future. There are many possibilities to ensure the continued existence of the foundation in the long run, for example, business consulting, selling educational certificates or participating in public tenders.

Our mission

The IOTA Foundation‘s primary objective is to develop and standardize the IOTA core protocol. This obviously includes providing tools and documentation for the developers. The IOTA Foundation furthermore plays an active role at conferences and hackathons related to topics like the Internet of Things, digitization and Industry 4.0.

The IOTA Foundation publishes new content through several channels on a daily basis, including a podcast with exciting interviews about future-related topics, videos with hands-on application examples, and even live streamings where developers demonstrate how to use the Tangle and the new tools.

Values Check

  • Non-Profit Status
  • Regulation
  • Transparency