IOTA: Breaking out, but why?
IOTA: The backbone of Internet of Things is here
Scalable, Decentralized, Modular, No Fees
https://iota.org/
What is IOTA and Why Should You Care?
If you don't know about Iota you should do your homework because this coin is very exciting and could be enormous one day.
Iota is a cryptocurrency which does not use blockchain technology, instead it uses a decentralized ledger that is called the "tangle". This "tangle" sets it apart from all other cryptos in a major way, this proprietary tech is both Iota's greatest strength and greatest weakness.
Recently IOTA has been exploding in value, it was as low as 0.34 cents per MIOTA (Million IOTA) on November 5th, just 12 days ago, and at the time of this post it is listed on Coinmarketcap at 0.83 cents USD, per MIOTA.
What is a Tangle?
First what is a blockchain?
A blockchain is a ledger recording of data, that data can be stored value like money in a crypto wallet, or can be posts on Steemit. These data are compiled into blocks and linked together into a chain of information. The chain makes the information secure in that to tamper with anything you need to adjust the entire history of that data, which is VERY difficult. The blockchain, as you likely know, is revolutionizing our economy, banking, and the internet, but it has major drawbacks such as scalability. The size of the blockchain grows with each new link and as that growth complicates and slows the transcribing of that history. There are solutions to blockchain scalability however many of the options have pros and cons as can be seen in the hotly debated Bitcoin updates regarding Segregated witness, and or 2MB block size.
Tangle technology:
The Tangle is unique in that it does not link information one block to another trailing all the way back to the start, instead the tangle links one transaction to a handful of others which are themselves linked to a handful of others, and so on. The tangle can be visualized more easily than described verbally so here:
This new way of linking data within their ledger is innovative and original. This "tangle" enables transactions to happen instantaneously, and without fees! Not only that, they say the transaction speeds are only limited by the laws of physics, which is a fancy way of saying the speed of light restricts the speed of the data transfer, but no matter how you say it that's very cool.
The tangle technology is complicated but understanding the tangle, both its pros and cons, is key for an understanding of Iota's use case and likelihood of success and of realizing investment profits. So if you want to know more about Iota or the tangle, read this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1216479.0
The PROs:
In my laymen's opinion the tangle makes Iota a very exciting investment opportunity. Fast and free transactions of course make for a very interesting sales pitch, not only could IOTA save me time and money, but also IOTA introduces the opportunity to use crypto for micro-transactions. You cannot buy a 5 cent candy with Bitcoin, the transaction would take hours to verify and the fees would cost 200 times the cost of your candy! But with IOTA you could easily and quickly pay someone a fraction of a penny. Make no mistake, this is HUGE!
Imagine a future with driverless cars, what if while you were at work your car could go out and taxi people around to earn revenue? What if the computer in your car could send and receive payments for that transaction, safely, securely and rapidly through IOTA? What if your car needs electricity because its electric powered and is empty from driving all day by itself? Well in this future it could pay the IOTA it's been earning through the day to the computer that oversees the electric fueling station! Maybe it needs 10 minutes energy, you are talking about pennies, not dollars and IOTA is built to handle such a transaction. Cool right?!
The CONs:
Critics say the tangle has its drawbacks though, they main complaint is that the tangle being new makes it susceptible to code error and the store of value could be compromised. This is a valid consideration, new tech is always less proven than older tech, but fear of failure should not necessarily scare us away from tech.
Conclusion:
I do not think I am overstating things when I say the tangle could literally change our world. To better understand this suggestion you may want to read more about the "Internet of Things" that Iota has speculated is coming, and how the Iota could be uniquely positioned to provide a powerful use case in that future.
"The number of connected devices that will permeate our modern landscape in the coming decade is estimated to be 50 billion(!) Each of these are designed to make the world a better and more seamless place for us. Tied to this fantastic promise are of course a ton of obstacles to be overcome, of which one major one is micro-transactions. These connected IoT devices must be able to automatically pay miniscule amounts to one another in a frictionless manner without having to compromise on product design by introducing additional hardware. This is why Iota was conceived."
I am excited about IOTA, I am a holder, I plan to buy more if I can. I think you should at the very least be interested and strive to learn more. This crypto has a lot of potential and it could be a sleeping giant.
Don't take my word for it, do your own research.
As always, up-vote, comment and follow.
Drawback for me on IOTA is more about the core devs though.. although I don't really care for PR, I think big projects require a level of professional communication I feel that they have to improve on!
Understood and agreed.
I remember after MIT found the concerns with the CURL hashing function within IOTA they reported the issue to IOTA's team, and then a month later made the issue public because they felt it was a serious safety issue for the IOTA holders.
I felt that IOTA handled that issue badly, they responded in a way I felt was needlessly aggressive and confrontational. IOTA's team came across as offended and snappy toward what I assume was MIT's sincere efforts to comment and critique the IOTA project. Moreover, it seemed to me that MIT's investigation implied their curiosity and perhaps excitement with the IOTA tech, because why else would they be reviewing IOTA's code in the first place if not out of interest?
But IOTA responded in my view by discounting the validity of the MIT findings, and yet IOTA followed the advice and modified the code, as I understand it, to remove the CURL issue. So apparently IOTA agreed, even if to a minor extent, that this CURL may have posed some concern.
I wish the team was more like TenX, TenX is a project Im excited about but which has that front-man, publicity person, which IOTA really lacks.
Thanks for the up-vote!
I wrote similar IOTA review on my blog yesterday, but made it a bit shorter. Overall I think your post is great, do you plan to write something similar about other coins?
I blog about a range of things that interest me but I am very interested in crypto so I do spend a lot of time writing about crypto. I also like video games, reading, politics, religion and my family, so if you follow me you will see a bit of all that as well.
My hope is to write about crypto coins I interested in, or am currently invested in, and a few of those that I would like to write more about include:
...and others.
Best of luck to you. Thanks for the comment! :)