Uniting Forces: Iotabee, Tanglepay, and GroupFi’s Collective Announcement to the IOTA Community

Dear IOTA Community,

It has been an incredible ride since embarking on our journey as builders within the IOTA ecosystem. We’ve never felt alone, thanks to the continuous support from our community and the IOTA Foundation. To each of you reading this announcement, we extend our heartfelt and infinite gratitude.

Over time, Tanglepay and Iotabee have learned, grown, and sometimes struggled, but neither has faltered. It is our shared confidence and faith in IOTA that has brought both teams together, enabling us to collaborate closely and deliver essential services for the ecosystem. Now, with the IOTA EVM on the horizon, we believe the time has come to elevate this collaborative effort to the next level, enhancing our ability to serve the ecosystem both internally and externally.

In alignment with the shared vision of both teams, we’ve made the following decisions, which we’re eager to share with our beloved community:

The Merger of Tanglepay and Iotabee Teams: While Tanglepay and Iotabee’s development resources have operated independently in the past, the teams have been collaborating closely in recent months on the GroupFi alpha test, sharing development resources and expertise. With the increasing strategic importance of GroupFi protocol, we have decided to further merge our resources to enhance operational efficiency. Consequently, the three projects will operate jointly, with the GroupFi protocol as the primary focus and Tanglepay and Iotabee functioning as subsidiary modules. This merger will not impact the fundamental product features of either Tanglepay or Iotabee.

The Strategic Focus On GroupFi: For those who have not yet had the opportunity to experience the GroupFi trollbox, we warmly invite you to use your Shimmer Layer 1 wallet to test it as an early adopter on groupfi.ai, tanglepay.com, or iotabee.com. In a nutshell, GroupFi leverages Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to pioneer the first free on-chain messaging protocol. With the upcoming Beta Version’s EVM compatibility, GroupFi can seamlessly integrate into mainstream EVM ecosystems. Given the recognition of Web3 Social as one of the most promising utilities in the crypto space, we believe GroupFi to be a killer app for real adoption. Both Tanglepay and Iotabee teams’ resources will hence be largely directed to the development and improvement of the GroupFi protocol while keeping Tanglepay and Iotabee adapted to its market expansion needs.

Tanglepay’s Commitments: Tanglepay will continue as one of the native IOTA and Shimmer wallets, prioritizing all IOTA-related activities. Upon the availability of the IOTA EVM, Tanglepay commits to promptly supporting it, and enhancing wallet integration to provide a smoother experience for community projects. We also acknowledge that the TanglePay Iceberg Legends NFT holders have patiently awaited promised advantages such as trading fee discounts. Regrettably, due to the lack of official solution of transferring IOTA layer 1 assets to EVM, (such as in Firefly wallet), this promise was not fulfilled on time. The entire Tanglepay team extends sincere apologies for this delay and would like to express our gratitude to community members for their patience, understanding, and support, which we never take for granted. To compensate, we assure the following:

• Implementing the trading fee discount on the Iotabee Aggregator will be our top priority once the external technical obstacles are overcome with the assistance from the IOTA Foundation. Furthermore, this advantage will extend to all future chains that the Iotabee aggregator operates, particularly additional EVM chains that are envisioned.
• NFT holders will have the opportunity to claim reserved GroupFi NFT names (shorter names under 10 characters) free of charge.

Iotabee’s Transition: Iotabee will refocus its efforts on becoming a DEX aggregator, supporting GroupFi’s expansion into other ecosystems while promoting IOTA technology. Consequently:

• On IOTA EVM, Iotabee DEX will not operate its own pools but will serve solely as a DEX aggregator at an early stage.
• On ShimmerEVM, Iotabee DEX will continue its current pools and farming plan, distributing fees and rewards to liquidity providers;
• On IOTA mainnet, the Iotabee crosschain-swap will be gradually shut down as it has fulfilled its historical mission. Before Shimmer EVM, Iotabee’s cross-chain swap served as the only platform in the ecosystem offering the possibility of trading SMR/IOTA and IOTA/USDT with its innovative semi-centralized approach, maintaining over 1 million TVL at its peak. Now with IOTA EVM, cross-chain trading can be achieved using the official bridge, hence maintaining a cross-chain swap is no longer considered necessary. We sincerely thank all the initial cross-chain swap users who have placed their unconditional trust and support in a novel product that is far from perfect. This once again demonstrates how IOTA is a unique ecosystem where solidarity is one of the most treasured values, and we hope that the service we provided has not failed this trust.

With our collaborative decisions, we are committed to enhancing our collaborative efforts and strengthening our capacity to serve the ecosystem. Once again, we would like to sincerely thank each member of our community and the IOTA Foundation for your support. Together, we have learned, grown, and persevered, and we look forward to continuing this journey and illuminating the future of IOTA.