The UK has finally agreed to hand over the Chagos Islands. I think this comes into effect on June 1st. https://news.sky.com/story/uk-signs-deal-to-hand-over-control-of-chagos-islands-13372755
Now we wait to see what the fate of the .io TLD is.
Unless IANA decides to vary its (relatively new) policy on this, .io registrations should stop imminently and the zone will have a maximum of 10 years before being deleted.
@russss cackles and looks forward to the utter panic of tech business owners