Amidst controversy surrounding the nature of the partnership between Microsoft and IOTA, the IOTA Foundation has clarified that it does not have a strategic partnership with Microsoft.
In an interview with TNW, IOTA co-founder Dominik Schiener stated:
“We have never mentioned that any of the companies which are participating in the marketplace are our ‘partners. We call them participants. We are in touch with multiple divisions at Microsoft (Chicago, Paris, Munich). We are hosting two meetups today in Chicago and on Thursday in Paris which are hosted at the Microsoft offices.”
IOTA Price Surges Explodes After Microsoft Participation
Last week, CCN reported that the price of IOTA surged by more than 600 percent over the past month and was trading at a global average of over $4.
At the time, Microsoft blockchain specialist Omkar Naik released a statement in regards to the company’s participation on IOTA’s Data Marketplace which read:
“This next generation technology will accelerate the connected, intelligent world and go beyond blockchain that will foster innovation real world solutions, applications and pilots for our customers.”
Schiener further noted that the IOTA development team plans to meet up with Naik’s team to assist the company in establishing sensors which will allow Microsoft to sell their data directly on the IOTA marketplace.
CCN reported that large-scale conglomerates including Samsung, Cisco, and Volkswagen also partnered with IOTA, to utilize its Tangle-based solution for data monetization.
However, the price of IOTA has dropped by more than 13 percent over the past few hours, falling behind Ripple and Litecoin. The recent price drop of IOTA is notable because following the statement of Naik and the participation of Microsoft, the market valuation of IOTA increased from $2.95 billion to $13 billion.
No Partnership
The original press release dating back a few weeks ago obtained by TNW read:
“Participants from all sectors and industries are represented, companies such as Deutsche Telekom, EWE, Microsoft, Bosch, TINE, PwC, Accenture, Fujitsu, Schneider Electric, Orange, DNV GL, and many more have deployed sensors that directly sell the data on the marketplace.”
Hence, Schiener was accurate in that IOTA has not entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft and other major conglomerates several weeks ago.
Still, whether the IOTA Foundation and its representatives should have requested media outlets to clarify the nature of the relationship between IOTA and Microsoft remains questionable, given that the original press release had not specifically stated that the two companies did not sign paperwork to form a partnership.
In the upcoming weeks, despite the lack of a legal partnership, companies participating in IOTA’s testing of Tangle are expected to continue the testing of IOTA’s technology in the long-term.
“The launch of the data marketplace was just the beginning. This project will continue for several weeks and is multi-staged,” said Schiener.
Regardless of the recent price drop, the market valuation of IOTA remains above $11 billion, which is still significantly higher than its market cap in November.