IOTA is an open-source distributed ledger (cryptocurrency) focused on providing secure communications and payments between machines on the Internet of Things. Using directed acyclic graph (DAG) technology instead of the traditional blockchain, IOTA's transactions are free regardless of the size of the transaction, confirmation times are fast, the number of transactions the system can handle simultaneously is unlimited, and the system can easily scale. IOTA was founded in 2015 by David Sønstebø, Sergey Ivancheglo, Dominik Schiener, and Dr. Serguei Popov.
IOTA is overseen by the IOTA Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to developing the technology and maintaining it license-free for all developers to work with. The Foundation has established a collaboration with Volkswagen and Innogy to develop CarPass, an IOTA based technology that enables secure audit trails, digital identities, and charging networks for cars. With the participation of Deutsche Telekom, Microsoft, and Fujitsu, the Foundation opened up a data marketplace using IOTA technology. The IOTA Foundation is also a founding member of the Trusted IOT Alliance, which includes the companies Bosch, Consensys, and USbank.
As of December 2017, the market capitalization of IOTA is $10 billion, making it the 7th largest cryptocurrency in circulation.
Resources:
What is IOTA? iota.readme.io
IOTA organization home page: iota.org
IOTA white paper: iota.org
IOTA Reddit: reddit.com
Moderator note: I bought 97 MIOTA (million IOTA) yesterday in my first ever cryptocurrency transaction. I consider this completely speculative in nature. The network itself is officially in "beta". |
