Learning: Iota's Video, The Tangle Vs. Blockchain Explained

Hey there fellow students.

In my never ending quest to wrap my head around the concepts associated with Distributed Ledger tech I read and watch many articles and videos. All this is so new it's a constant struggle to keep up and at the same time, it's insanely stimulating. We've got a front row seat on these evolving tech and business models. Pretty heady stuff!

Who's going to win? Beta or VHS? Direct or indirect current? Edison or Tesla? Polaroid or Kodak? (oops! Really dated myself with that one, didn't I...) And what new thing will emerge in the next year or two of five?

So, after months of reading about Blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum and the many variants on each, I encounter a new variant. DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) Technology. This is not blockchain technology and requires no miners to reach consensus.

My first exposure of this was with a company called Hashgraph, from Swirlds. Check them out! They have a great series of explainer videos.

Now Iota has caught my attention as they lay claim to powering the world of IoT and thus enable Smart City infrastructure. If this is old news to you then you are further along the learning curve than I.

The video below does a good job (to my non-expert mind) of explaining how this tech differs from blockchain. I'll have to leave it to experts with more math and cryptography background to assess if the claims of security are sound. I hope this is useful to some of you.

Enjoy!

Marcos