When Ankr joined the IOTA ecosystem as a validator node operator, we made an operational commitment to the network that we’ve been proud to uphold. Today, we can report on what that looks like in practice.

But first, let's talk about why IOTA is worth showing up for.

IOTA: The Infrastructure Layer the Real World Actually Needs

Ten years in, IOTA is one of the most battle-tested infrastructure projects in the space. Its Tangle architecture processes transactions in parallel rather than sequentially, enabling feeless, high-throughput operations built for real enterprise and IoT workloads. The 2024 Rebased upgrade added full smart contract programmability via the Move VM, bringing static verification and formal proof support to a network that was already production-hardened.

The real-world traction speaks for itself. IOTA's TWIN consortium, built alongside the World Economic Forum, the Tony Blair Institute, and Trademark Africa, is deploying digital trade infrastructure for 1.3 billion people across Africa. Its decentralized identity framework was selected for the European Blockchain Sandbox and has been through regulatory scrutiny on AML and GDPR. Integration with LayerZero and Stargate now connects IOTA to 150+ chains, including Ethereum, Solana, and Base.

This is infrastructure with a decade of development behind it, active institutional partnerships, and a clear mandate beyond crypto-native use cases. The validator layer securing it needs to match.

Learn more about IOTA

What Ankr Has Delivered as an IOTA Validator

We've been running validator nodes for IOTA with the same operational discipline we bring to every network in our portfolio. Here's what the record shows:

• 99.99% reliability. Validator downtime is a network security event, Ankr maintains the highest standard of reliability to keep networks always-on.
• 0 slashing incidents. Keeping the network strong since day one on IOTA, without a single protocol violation.
• 99%+ attestation participation. Our nodes participate in consensus at the rate the network needs to stay healthy at the top tier of validator performance.

IOTA's own assessment:

"Reliable validator infrastructure is critical to the health and decentralization of the IOTA network. Ankr's proven track record of operating high-performance validator nodes and maintaining enterprise-grade reliability makes them a strong addition to our ecosystem. Their expertise helps ensure the network remains secure, resilient, and accessible for developers building on IOTA."

That quote tells you what IOTA prioritizes in their infrastructure: health, decentralization, and accessibility for developers. Those aren't abstract values. They're what's at stake every time a validator goes down, misses attestations, or gets slashed.

What Ankr Brings to the Table for Validator Operations

Ankr's validator operations are built on a security and reliability stack that holds up under independent scrutiny:

• SOC 2 Type II certified with Zero Trust access architecture. Every access request is verified, no implicit trust, no broad network permissions.
• CrowdStrike Falcon + 24/7 SOC. Real-time threat detection backed by a security operations center that monitors around the clock.
• 99.99% uptime SLA. As a contractual guarantee, not a target.
• Globally distributed infrastructure. Ankr operates validator nodes across multiple regions on our private fiber network, reducing latency, eliminating single points of failure, and ensuring IOTA's consensus is never dependent on any one geography.

Why This Relationship Matters

IOTA's validator set is the foundation everything else is built on. Smart contracts settle against it. Asset tokenization depends on it. IoT integrations rely on it. Enterprise partnerships are built on the assumption that it works.

Ankr's role in that foundation isn't passive, as our high attestation rates strengthen finality confidence, zero slashing events keep the validator set stable, and consistent uptime means developers building on IOTA never have to account for Ankr-related downtime in their applications.

We're proud to be part of an ecosystem that's serious about what blockchain infrastructure should actually accomplish. And we're committed to continuing to earn that place.

Building on IOTA? Evaluating validator partners for your network?

Reach out to sales@asphere.xyz

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