What is IOTA?
This is one of the more unique cryptocurrencies on the market right now. IOTA intends to become the standard way of transactions between internet-connected devices in the future. One of the most unique features is that it doesn’t even have a blockchain. IOTA is a distributed ledger that uses the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) technology or also called Tangle. The maximum supply is 2,779,530,283,277,761 IOTA (2.779 Quintillion!) or 2,779,530,283 MIOTA, where 1MIOTA = 1million IOTA. The subunits are: Kiloiota (Ki, Kiota) = 1000 IOTA, Megaiota (Mi, MIOTA) = 1 million IOTA, Gigaiota (Gi, GIOTA) = 1 billion IOTA, Teraiota (Ti, TIOTA) = 1 trillion IOTA, Petaiota (Pi, PIOTA) = 1 quintillion IOTA.
Advantages
One of the main advantages of the IOTA cryptocurrency is the lack of transaction fees. There is even a lack of miners. The way that the Tangle system works is by removing the need for a Proof of Work consensus protocol. If you would like to add a transaction to the Tangle network, you will need to confirm 2 other transactions in order for yours to be the next one in the line. Sounds slow, but it actually happens very fast. Here are some of the other benefits to expect from the coin:
- Near-endless scalability – The more users in the network, the faster Tangle becomes creating a possibility for an endless scaling factor
- Lightweight – Since there is no blockchain, there are no large amounts of data necessary so that you can use the network. What you would need is just a partial download of the history that includes neighboring transactions
- IOTA Marketplace – it allows users to trade data with their peers
Disadvantages
While being very innovative and forward thinking, the biggest drawback of IOTA is the lack of smart contracts and dApp support. While it doesn’t sound that bad when taking into consideration what Tangle brings to the table, a lot of users might not even have interest in IOTA coins because of it. Here are some of the other disadvantages:
- While there have been no security issues as of now, the community is skeptical towards the Tangle tech as hypothetically, it would require less computing power and control over the nodes to be able to attack the network
- The multiple types of units and subunits in the network can be confusing for a beginner
History and Evolution
IOTA was founded in 2015 by a group of like-minded individuals with the same goal – revolutionize the transaction of financial and information assets. David Sonstebo, Sergey Ivancheglo, Dominik Schiener, and Dr. Serguei Popov launched the IOTA Foundation and established stable partnerships. Currently, the coin is very popular in the business world hence many companies are accepting this cryptocurrency as payment. In 2017 the Foundation was announced as a registered not-for-profit organization under German law. A Singapore based Fintech hub, being the biggest of its kind, LATTICE80 came to an agreement with the developers to open an innovation lab for the Internet of Things.
IOTA Blockchain
As mentioned earlier, IOTA does not have a blockchain. It is the first open source distributed ledger made to power the future with feeless microtransactions and high data security.
IOTA Nodes
Nodes are what drives any network forward. The more nodes, the better. IOTA is no different. Depending on the function of the node and its requirements, they can be two kinds:
- Light node – Also known as Light Wallet Node. In order to run this node, you would need only a part of the full transaction and data history in the IOTA network
- Full node – A.K.A. the Headless Node, to operate it would require a full download of the transactional and data history of the network. These nodes are the most important for the network as they directly affect the strength and security of the system
Additional Noteworthy Features
The IOTA network gives its users the ability to trade data in a marketplace between themselves. This is an amazing concept that could benefit research and development of different products or technologies that need quality data to operate. One the them being advanced machine learning and AI cannot be successful without large quantities of accurate data.
How to Get IOTA
Since IOTA does not operate with a blockchain, mining for this currency is out of the picture. The ways you can obtain this crypto coin is either by buying from exchanges or trading an item, service or data for it.
Where to Buy IOTA
IOTA coins are quite popular these days and many exchanges around the world are starting to support trading them for fiat currency. Here is a small list of exchanges offering it:
| Exchange | Cryptocurrencies | Fiat Money | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Bitfinex
|
IOTA, Bitcoin, Stellar + 50 more | USD, EUR, GBP | Trade now |
|
Upbit
|
IOTA, EOS, Cardano, PIVX + 60 more | KRW | Trade now |
|
Exrates
|
IOTA, Monero, DASH + 45 more | USD, EUR | Trade now |
Wallets for IOTA
Operating in any kind for cryptocurrency network would require you to create a wallet. Wallets hold a set of keys that are used to access your funds – private and public key. The official wallet for IOTA is the GUI IOTA Light wallet (Which is pretty much the same as the official Web Wallet). You can find a full guide and video on how to install and use the IOTA GUI to run either a Light Node or Full node (both also play the part of wallets) here. It supports Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Android.
Alternative Wallets
If you are a user that is looking for something different in the wallet they want to use like increased security, better user interface, multi-coin support etc., there are always options. Most cryptocurrencies have a wide plethora of alternative wallets. Because IOTA is so revolutionary, the choice for other wallets is more limited compared to the rest of the coins. Here is a small list of what alternatives I deem adequate:
Desktop Вallets
Mobile Wallets
Online Wallets
Network Security
Technology advances at lightning speeds and technologies considered science fiction before are a reality today. That being said, Quantum computers are being developed constantly and it is just a matter of time until they can be widely available to the public. One of the main issues with that is that blockchain based cryptocurrencies will have to change, as a Quantum computer can be million or maybe even a billion times more effective at hashing functions compared to a miner machine today. IOTA developers have thought of that and the way Tangle is structured is amazing. While standard computers use binary computations (zeroes and ones), Tangle uses trinary computations creating a natural resistance against Quantum computing.
Future of the IOTA Cryptocurrency
As per the official roadmap, the first native implementation into the IOTA Network is IRI or Iota Reference Implementation, which is the software allowing the creation and running of nodes on the network. It is currently developed in Java and it is in the process of stress testing. In the future, the developers are planning to switch its development to C++, Rust, and Golang.
News and Useful Links
I hope this short IOTA review was beneficial for your needs. Having in mind that everyone who invested in IOTA coins wants to keep in touch with current or future events, I’ve compiled a list of trustworthy information sources below: