However, this rise did not last long; The price fell to $0.1760 on Tuesday, November 20, technically approaching a bear market. This decline reduced IOTA’s market value to $627 million. This figure is far from the $14 billion market value the project reached at its peak.

Developers have announced a new upgrade plan called “Rebased” that aims to radically transform the network. Within the scope of this plan, it is aimed to bring the following features to the IOTA network:

The upgrade will transform IOTA into a fully decentralized platform, providing users with a more secure environment. It aims to be an attractive option for developers by being compatible with smart contracts used on the Ethereum network.

The IOTA network aims to surpass its competitors such as Ethereum (50 TPS) and Solana (2,500 TPS) by reaching the capacity to process over 50,000 transactions per second. Users will have the opportunity to earn passive income by staking their assets.

The Rebased upgrade will enable IOTA to move away from its current limited programmable and semi-centralized structure into a fully decentralized and more functional platform.

Despite this big step by IOTA, the project faces intense competition in the layer-1 and layer-2 sectors. While layer-1 networks such as Ethereum, Solana and BNB Smart Chain maintain their leadership in the industry; Layer-2 solutions such as Base, Arbitrum, Optimism and Polygon continue to grow rapidly.

It is also noteworthy that IOTA is having difficulty growing its developer ecosystem. Currently, the IOTA Ethereum Virtual Machine (IOTA EVM) is used by a limited number of developers. The total value locked on the network stands at just $32.3 million, and there are only seven DeFi applications available.

From a technical analysis perspective, IOTA price exhibited a falling wedge formation before the recent rally. This pattern was broken with the overall market rally and increase in investor sentiment. The price managed to climb above the 50-day and 200-day exponential moving averages and retested the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level.

It is considered that if the resistance at $0.2150 seen on November 18 is overcome, the price may rise to the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level, that is, $0.2988. This represents an increase of approximately 70% from the current level.

Despite this, IOTA reaching the $1 level remains a difficult goal. In order for the price to reach this level, it must experience an increase of 466%, which is considered a very low probability under current market conditions.

The Rebased upgrade could be a major technical and operational milestone for IOTA. However, the challenges facing the project, especially in terms of competing networks and the developer ecosystem, may make it difficult for IOTA to achieve these goals. Still, this new step offers an important opportunity to strengthen IOTA’s position within the industry.