IOTA – Machine – to- Machine micropayment system.

https://iota.org/

#White paper.

People in crypto world are watching the significant growth of IOTA as a crypto currency. The currency has gained more than 100% in just 1 week!. Currently trading at $4.14 and up. Interestingly, its not easy for US Citizens and residents to buy IOTA. IOTA is exclusively traded on bitfinex.

The significant rise is attributed to the on ground partnerships with heavy weights like Microsoft, Samsung and others in IOT space getting on board with the interesting value proposition of IOTA.

IOTA is an extremely interesting and futuristic model for communication between IOT devices.

Currently, blockchain based technologies have a transaction fees. This is considered a limitation and drawback. The problem with current system is that it has become expensive to perform micro-payments due to transaction fees.The importance of micropayments will increase in the rapidly developing IoT industry, and paying a fee that is larger than the amount of value being transferred is not logical.

Also, IOTA is not a blockchain based technology. There is no mining process as such, where miners receive tokens rewards for performing a task. Its more of a community based approach, instead of dividing the community between transaction performers and transaction approvers which is similar to blockchain based approaches like Bitcoin etc. IOTA wants everyone to be a miner/transaction approver, which helps to waive off transaction fees.

Its a tangle-based cryptocurrency.Instead of the global blockchain, there is a Directed Acyclic Graph that is called the tangle.The main idea of the tangle is the following: to issue a transaction, users must work to approve other transactions.

The design of this system creates unavoidable discrimination of some patricipants, which in turn creates conflicts that make all elements spend resources on conflict resolution.

IOTA still incorporates distributed ledger mechanism.

The main idea of the tangle is the following: to issue a transaction, users must work to approve other transactions.It is assumed that the nodes check if the approved transactions are not conflicting. If a node finds that a transaction is in conflict with the tangle history, the node will not approve the conflicting transaction in either a direct or indirect manner.

Important aspect of IOTA is that, it provides not only crypto-currency transactions between IOT devices, but also a free data exchange functionality which can be a significant disruption.

The API documentation here.

The good:

• IOTA is a revolutionary idea, where micro-transactions between diverse devices can be performed without a 3rd party or central body. And hence, no transaction fees. This bridges communication gap between different IOT devices and brings IOT industry closer together.
• No blockchains , so slow and lengthy blockchain DAG sync.
• Great for micro-transactions.
• Next generation of shared system.
• IOTA provides security model for communication between devices.
• IOTA is resistant to Quantum computing.
• IOTA brings up Tangle, which is a unique sharing of resources model, in exchange of helping each other out. This works especially well in IOT world.
• IOTA will have faster transactions as the network grows, which is contrary to Blockchain based technologies.

The bad:

• There is no product out in market yet. Market adaptability is still uncertain.
• Very few use cases and devices where crypto payment will be required.
• What kind of communications we see in real world is yet to be seen.
• Its interesting how device firmwares will talk to IOTA, since it will involve communication with internet. Or will everything work with BLE?
• If a device or node is “too lazy”, it is dropped out of the network. But, what are the possible paths of bringing that device to home network is still under discussion.
• Not clear how IOTA tokens and its supply monitored.