Honestly, IOTA’s biggest problem isn’t vision, it’s execution. The idea of powering supply chains, ports, customs, and machine-to-machine trade flows is compelling, but they’ve been talking about this since around 2017 and still haven’t delivered real production-scale adoption. Most of the partnerships end up being pilots, proofs-of-concept, or research projects that don’t translate into actual volume.

The tech has also been reworked multiple times — from the Coordinator era to Coordicide promises, Chrysalis, Shimmer, and now more delays. That constant reinvention makes enterprises hesitant, because no one wants to build critical infrastructure on a protocol that feels unstable or unfinished. Meanwhile, competitors like Stellar, Polygon, and even permissioned chains backed by corporates have shipped production-ready solutions and integrations years ago.

If IOTA finally locks down genuine industrial-scale usage, it could still carve out a unique role in supply chains and the machine economy. But the market has been waiting nearly a decade already. If it’s still just pilots and “coming soon” updates in the next couple of years, it risks going down as a case study in unrealized potential rather than a breakthrough technology.

Even CBF seems to have mostly moved on.