IOTA launches Shimmer pre-production environment for developers

Shimmer – a staging level sandbox – has been launched by the IOTA Foundation in an effort to drive innovation on the blockchain.

The staging network will operate as a sandbox environment that will enable developers on the blockchain to fully test out dApps before they launch on the IOTA mainnet.

It is hoped that Shimmer will quickly see use for the testing and deployment of NFT platforms and DeFi protocols, alongside road-mapped network updates focused on multi-asset ledgers, sharding mechanisms, and smart contracts (which recently launched feelessly on IOTA).

The Shimmer Network launch will also offer IOTA token holders a staking reward opportunity in SMR through the Firefly wallet in anticipation of the upcoming token distribution in 2022.

IOTA’s Shimmer inspired by Kusama success?

It appears the update has been strongly inspired by the success of Polkadot’s pre-production environment Kusama – something the IOTA Foundation chairman Dominik Schiener made no secret of.

“As we’ve seen with the success of Kusama and Polkadot, the Shimmer network will become an incentivised staging network offering crucial testing and public validation to our ambitious development roadmap,” he explained.

“Introducing tokenisation, complex output types, smart contracts and new consensus offers exciting new opportunities.

“These opportunities aren’t without significant risks, however, and Shimmer will ensure the safety of each upgrade. With Shimmer, we are supercharging the innovation playground around IOTA.”

And the Kusama inspiration hasn’t been missed on the community front.

There will also be community input into future IOTA updates through Shimmer, acting as a litmus test of community support and sentiment towards projects in a similar way to Kusama.

Read more: IOTA outlines new tokenisation framework.