IOTA (technology)
| IOTA | |
|---|---|
 Prevailing IOTA logo | |
| ISO 4217 | |
| Code | IOT[lower-alpha 1] |
| Denominations | |
| Superunit | |
| 103 | KiloIota (Ki) |
| 106 | MegaIota (Mi) |
| 109 | GigaIota (Gi) |
| 1012 | TeraIota (Ti) |
| 1015 | PetaIota (Pi) |
| Symbol | IOT, MIOTA[1] |
| Demographics | |
| Date of introduction | 11 June 2016 |
| Source | Initial Coin Offering |
| User(s) | Worldwide |
| Valuation | |
| Supply growth | Total fixed supply of 2 779 530 283 277 761 units with zero inflation. |
| |
IOTA is an open-source, permission-less distributed ledger. Its protocol is a directed acyclic graph (DAG) called the tangle instead of the traditional blockchain. Where a blockchain is a linked list where every block points to a unique descendant, in the tangle, a block links to two previous blocks. This linking is intended to convey a confirmation of the previous blocks. IOTA began open beta testing on July 11, 2016.
The system is peer-to-peer, with transactions taking place directly between users and with an Coordinator intermediary. Transactions are considered confirmed when the Coordinator has included the transaction in its set of released milestones. In order to send a transaction, a user must validate two other transactions on the network. A sent transaction must accumulate a sufficient level of verification (i.e. must be validated a sufficient number of times by other users) in order to be accepted as “confirmed” by its recipient. The system works with a central or single administrator called the Coordinator, without which the network is not sufficiently secured in its early stages. The Coordinator is meant to be removed later when network is sufficiently large. Iota addresses the scalability and transaction cost concerns inherent in other distributed ledger technologies which are based on a block-chain. [2]
Origins
Being involved with the blockchain space since 2010, the team was already experienced with distributed ledgers. In 2013, Sergey Ivancheglo pioneered the first implementation of full proof-of-stake consensus on a blockchain, called Nxt.
Building on these experiences, and acting on their realization of the need for a backbone for the IoT, the team began developing IOTA in early 2015. To ensure equitable token distribution, a crowdsale was held from November to December 2015 during which 100% of the token supply was issued. Zero tokens were held for the developers/founders. The equivalent of 1,337 Bitcoins were raised from the crowdsale (in the form of BTC, NXT, and Jinn tokens). Since none of the token supply was allocated to developers/founders, the community decided to support the project’s vision by donating a significant amount of resources in order to establish the non-profit “IOTA Foundation” registered in Germany. The community subsequently funded large corporate collaborations,community projects, and developer acquisition initiatives.[3]
IOTA began open beta testing on July 11, 2016. Trading took place over-the-counter between users for 11 months leading up to the first exchange listing at Bitfinex on June 12, 2017.[4]
Instead of using a blockchain, IOTA uses a directed acyclic graph (DAG) as its protocol. IOTA’s DAG protocol is colloquially referred to as the Tangle, and is a generalization of the block chain protocol (a blockchain is a special case of a DAG[5]).
Cryptography
IOTA uses Winternitz hash-based cryptography signatures instead of elliptic curve cryptography (ECC).[6][7] Not only are hash-based signatures much faster than ECC,[8] they also greatly simplify the signing and verification process and reduce overall complexity of the Tangle protocol.
Grover's algorithm dictates that a quantum computer would be very efficient at conducting brute force attacks. The process of finding a cryptographic nonce in order to generate a Bitcoin block is particularly vulnerable to such brute-force attacks. As of today, an average of around 268 nonces must be checked to find a suitable hash, and this trends up over time.[9]
History
After all IOTA was distributed in the crowdsale (November to December 2015), the
project entered beta testing in July 2016. In June 2017, Outlier Ventures, a
venture capital firm, invested 7 figures directly into IOTA tokens, their first
direct investment into a distributed ledger technology.
The IOTA Foundation was established as a "gemeinnützige Stiftung" (i.e. non-profit Foundation) registered in Germany. It houses the core members of the IOTA development team, and its stated sole purpose is to advance the standardization of distributed ledger technology in all applicable domains.
Academic Collaborations:
- Imperial College London[10]
- University of California, Berkeley
- University College London's Centre for blockchain Technologies
Corporate Collaborations:
- Decentralized Identity Foundation (Microsoft, Accenture, BigchainDB, etc.)[11]
- Trusted IoT Alliance (Cisco, Foxconn, Bosch, etc.) [12]
- DLT Research & Innovation Network (Oslo Medtech, Oslo Cancer Cluster, NTNU Center for Cyber and Information Security (CCIS))[13]
Use Cases
- Internet-of-things
- machine-to-machine economy
- crypto currency
References
- ↑ "Coin Market Cap - IOTA (MIOTA)". 2017.
- ↑ Aitken, Roger (2017). "IOTA's Bitfinex Listing Surges To $1.5B Record-Breaking 'Crypto' Capitalization On Market Debut".
- ↑ O’Higgins, Conor (2017). "IoT Operator IOTA Launch New $2 Million Ecosystem Fund".
- ↑ Bitfinex Blog (2017). "IOTA Launch".
- ↑ "Blockchain-free cryptocurrencies - CryptoWiki". cryptowiki.net. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
- ↑ Buchmann, Johannes; Dahmen, Erik; Ereth, Sarah; et. al. "On the Security of the Winternitz One-Time Signature Scheme" (PDF).
- ↑ Hopwood, David-Sarah (2010). "Merkle-Winternitz-HORS signature scheme for Tahoe-LAFS".
- ↑ Rohde, Sebastian; Eisenbarth, Thomas; Dahmen, Erik; et. al. "Efficient Hash-Based Signatures on Embedded Devices" (PDF).
- ↑ wiki, bitcoin. "Bitcoin Difficulty".
- ↑ Allison, Ian (17 July 2017). "IOTA Foundation partners with Imperial College London to drive Tangle DLT". International Business Times. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ↑ Wong, Joon Ian. "Microsoft thinks blockchain tech could solve one of the internet’s toughest problems: digital identities".
- ↑ Allison, Ian. "IOTA's Tangle meets Internet of Things requirements better than any blockchain".
- ↑ Anthony, Mandelli (1 June 2017). "IOTA Partners Healthcare Providers for Blockchain Research in Norway". Cryptocoins News. Retrieved 2 August 2017.