On February 20, Sergei Lonshakov, the creator of the Robonomics platform, burned 7 million XRT tokens valued at $50 million.
Today, the Robonomics developers burned 7,000,000 $XRT ? This is an unusual page in the history of our team’s adventures, and possibly the entire crypto world! Below, I will try to tell it from the very beginning… pic.twitter.com/gdzPcmMg1S
— Sergei Lonshakov (@EnsRationis) February 20, 2024
These assets were locked in 2019 following the release of the first version of Robonomics 1.0 smart contracts. To facilitate DAO structuring, the largest token holder—70% of the total issuance—became a Dutch auction contract, intended to help revalue the project after its launch on the Ethereum network. However, the onset of the crypto winter disrupted the developers’ plans.
Until the DeFi boom of 2021–2022, the Dutch auction contract remained without a useful function.
During this time, developers implemented a cloud for IoT based on Polkadot.
In 2022, Robonomics, having already launched a token on Ethereum, was among the first parachain developers globally, which renewed interest in the project. Since the task of revaluation was no longer necessary, the team decided to burn the frozen tokens during 2023.
“We spent over a year trying to find the right moment to have enough ethers to ‘buy back’ our project tokens from the auction smart contract algorithm. Today, I personally burned 70% of the initial issuance from my Genesis account,” Lonshakov told ForkLog.
The Robonomics developers plan to continue developing and experimenting with their own line of smart home devices, as well as reviving the project on the Ethereum network.
“We are becoming one of the Web3 applications that have historically settled in two networks and want to develop there. Cross-chain bridges are needed for our internal economy, not just for intra-crypto trading,” added Lonshakov.
Recently, the project team announced the first projects for integrating smart homes with a Web3 cloud in Cyprus.
The trajectory of Robonomics development in 2024
I’ve gathered the initiatives I know about for the development of Robonomics in 2024.
IoT Cloud Infrastructure:
(1) Freemium on Kusama. Robonomics will allow you to connect your smart home to the cloud on Kusama for free.
(2)… pic.twitter.com/NSlUMvN5r7— Sergei Lonshakov (@EnsRationis) February 19, 2024
At the time of writing, the XRT token is trading at $9.48, according to CoinGecko.
Previously, Robonomics Network developers mentioned that fully automated companies managed by artificial intelligence could emerge in the near future.