In 2015, in Germany, the Internet of Things developers decided to create a platform for the exchange of information between objects, with a high level of security, uniqueness, and efficiency. The IOTA cryptocurrency became the payment instrument of this platform. This idea was quickly supported and 1,500 bitcoins were allocated for its development.
Today, IOTA is a large-scale digital currency with huge daily trading volumes. Despite the relatively low unit cost of 1.0726 USD, traders are increasingly working with it. Large corporations such as Microsoft, Fujitsu, Samsung, and others, announce the cooperation with IOTA. This article will give you a better understanding of what is IOTA.
What Is IOTA Coin?
It is an open-source cryptocurrency, with a distributed ledger-based on DAG (directed acyclic graph). This technology, which is known within the IOTA ecosystem under the name of Tangle, makes it possible to make transactions without commissions. Additionally, in order to make a transaction with IOTA currency, you do not need to wait for confirmation from the miners. Instead, you just need to log in to the system and start the chain of operations. After the operations of other users are confirmed, the transaction will be completed. This principle simplifies and speeds up the server.
It is impossible to get this currency through mining. All tokens are issued by developers - now there are more than 3 quadrillions of them in the network. The cryptocurrency is independent of mining. The new blocks are not mined but issued by the creators.
The platform and currency are controlled by the nonprofit IOTA Foundation. In November 2017, the fund opened a data market by using the IOTA technology. The market was attended by many large corporations and research groups.
You can trade the IOTA token at many cryptocurrency exchanges, including Monfex.com.
History
The currency was created in 2015. The founders set the maximum possible number of cryptocurrencies equal to 2,779,530,283,277,777 iota (the smallest calculation unit). Since the system does not provide for mining (emission), the creation of new tokens is impossible. A few months later, open beta testing started and continued throughout 2016. Over the course of 11 months, OTC operations between users were carried out.
In 2017, Robert Bosch Venture Capital made its first cryptocurrency investment by purchasing a significant number of IOTA tokens. The Foundation received an invitation from the Tokyo Metropolitan Administration to participate in the Blockchain Business Camp Tokyo accelerated development program. Besides, companies such as Sony, Honda, and Toyota took part in the program. A pilot system was set up in Haarlem, the Netherlands, so that the residents could verify the authenticity of government documents without having to visit the relevant institutions. This IOTA-based open-source system is available at no cost to any municipality.
Official versions of the wallet are available on GitHub. The user of the new wallet must independently create a secret phrase (seed) up to 81 characters long, using capital Latin letters and the number 9. This secret phrase is used to generate private keys and provides access to the wallet from any device.
Due to the complexity of creating the 81-character secret phrase for the IOTA wallet, some users resorted to the services of third party online generators, the most popular being iotaseed.io. On January 21, 2018, information appeared that funds were disappearing from the wallets of users who used online generators. The total amount of stolen funds was estimated to at least $4 million.
During the same period, a DDOS attack on full nodes of the IOTA network was launched in order to prevent users from trying to recover stolen funds. The representatives said that the problem was not with IOTA technology, but with user carelessness and malicious online services.
IOTA Technology
Strictly speaking, IOTA is not an example of a typical blockchain because there is no chain of blocks familiar to everyone on the network. The network is built based on the Tangle architecture, which provides for the absence of a complete chain with a transaction history. This is dictated by the requirements put forward by the IoT devices. As a rule, these gadgets do not have powerful processors and large amounts of memory, so the use of blockchain technologies is unacceptable here.
The transaction confirmation mechanism in IOTA does not require inclusion in the blockchain. Each member of the network conducting a transaction is also responsible for organizing transfers. They do this by confirming the transactions of other participants in the network. To conduct one transaction, you need to verify two other transactions. Transactions are considered verified if a sufficient number of network participants confirm them.
Thanks to such a structure, even weak computing devices equipped with 16 KB of RAM can work with IOTA. Besides, the absence of a cumbersome data chain, along with the confirmation method used, allows you to scale the IOTA network to any extent. This is a significant advantage over Bitcoin, where the limited confirmation rate (caused by mining restrictions) becomes a significant problem. In IOTA, the opposite is true: the more transactions, the faster the confirmation.
Despite the fact that transactions on the IOTA network are carried out with the help of all its participants, a device that uses coins for settlements does not need an ongoing Internet connection. Synchronization with a shared network is required only periodically.
To protect data, the IOTA network uses the Winternitz cryptographic hashing algorithm. It works faster than algorithms on other networks, consuming a minimum of resources. Another advantage of this algorithm is the resistance to quantum computing. Hacking IOTA with a quantum computer in the future will be much more difficult than Bitcoin.
IOTA Cost
During the entire existence of IOTA, its price tag has always been in the turbulent zone, to say the least. The first tangible rise occurred in August 2017, after which the coin began to slowly fall by early November. Most likely, the price tag growth was caused by increased interest from new IOTA partners, such as Refunite, UC Berkeley, and Norwegian healthcare organizations.
Then, after the price tag went down between September and November, the price of IOTA jumped up sharply. In December 2017, it reached a historical maximum of $5.23 (~0.00031 BTC), but then quickly dropped along with other coins in early 2018. After a slight recovery in April 2018, the price continued to fall and reached the level of $0.47 (~ 0.00007 BTC).
Doubts about the viability of the platform made the price fluctuations even more noticeable than in the case of other cryptocurrencies. Further demonstration of the security and stability of the IOTA network will help win the favor of new investors. In addition, the ongoing growth of the IOTA ecosystem through new members and partner companies will also have a positive effect on the price tag.
As of today (September 2019), the token costs $0.252453, and its market cap is $701,700,149, which puts it at the 16th place in the CoinMarketCap rating.
IOTA Perspectives
The Internet of Things is rapidly developing, and smart home technology is becoming more accessible every day. To use the full potential of these technologies, you need a payment system that will be suitable for settlements between IoT devices. This system should be very reliable, fast, but at the same time undemanding to the hardware resources of the equipment organizing its work. IOTA has all of these characteristics.
IOTA can be used to pay for various data received by IoT devices from outside. Given the development of technology, the ease of implementation of IOTA support, and the existing data marketplace, we can expect the growing popularity of this cryptocurrency.
Buy IOTA Coin in UK
There is a wide range of opportunities to buy IOTA coin in UK. We recommend Monfex cryptocurrency exchange. Our platform offers its users a range of advantages, such as up to 50X leverage, perpetual contracts, ability to divide the traded coins in fractions, and industry-leading security measures. All you have to do is register with the platform; deposit Bitcoin, Ethereum or Tether; select IOTA as the coin that you need to buy, and enter the trade with a fraction of the coin’s price.
The Bottom Line
With the successful implementation of the project, Tangle can become a serious competitor to blockchain technology, and the IoT microtransaction market will grow even stronger. However, as IOTA is at the forefront, its technology is still untested. In the end, if you decide to invest in the coin, we recommend that you study the technology itself and the portfolio of its developers. Tangle may be the next big step in the world of cryptography, but investing in untested technology can be quite risky.
Now you know what is IOTA coin and how to buy IOTA coin in UK. You can find more useful articles on cryptocurrencies and financial terms in the financial dictionary at Monfex.com. We’d also be happy to welcome you as a member of our platform. Join us today and benefit from our services.
