IOTA, one of the fastest growing cryptocurencies with an enthusiastic community of followers. However, it is also one of the most criticized cryptocurrencies and not without reason, but let’s see more details.
In the sight of not a few experts, makes a promise that most consider irrecoverable, and makes design decisions that may seem strange; even extravagant to outsiders. The promise is as follows: The Internet of Things (IoT) will soon be made up of 20 or 30 or 80 billion devices, all online.com.
IOTA
IOTA will be the backbone of this economy of these machines: the platform that allows things to receive and transfer money and data. Because IOTA can, in theory, scale “almost infinitely” thanks to its “Tangle” network structure. In any case, it claims to scale significantly better than Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. It’s not just anything it ensures.
Anyone who has a superficial view of the scalability of Bitcoin and Ethereum knows that this promise of high scalability is bold, to say something nice.
The technical core of IOTA, eliminates the blocks, therefore, the latency that appears when the blocks are distributed through the network. Blocks are always groups of data. At the same time, IOTA creates so-called ” instant messages ” through ” Hitos “, by means of which the nodes can discard all the transactions that took place before the instant messages. This saves hard disk space and makes it easier to start a new node.
Other factors on the scale do not seem to improve
Bandwidth, CPU, and memory remain limiting factors. These are the same, if not more restrictive, limitations found in Blockchains as well. Consequently, many distrust the IOTA promise.
Several design decisions in IOTA aggravate this mistrust: First, IOTA uses a post-quantum cryptography algorithm. Not bad, but this innovation increases the size of transactions almost tenfold. What needs 160 bytes for Bitcoin, now needs 1.6 kilobytes for IOTA. It is highly counterproductive if you want scalability.
On the other hand, IOTA has no mining reward or transaction charges. The system does not provide a reward for “honest” network nodes. And that is one of Bitcoin’s key innovations. In addition IOTA uses a ternary system instead of binary. Developers are convinced that this is correct, but many doubt it because the current software infrastructure is based on binary systems. It does not make life easier with a ternary system.
IOTA is first and foremost an experimental technology
their developers and the community around them firmly believe that the IOTA concept will scale better than a chain of blocks. But they also realize that everything is still very beta yet.
Clearly; the high price of IOTA is a blessing for the community. But when it comes to leading IOTA through difficult waters, it can be a curse.
Solutions are already planned for each problem. Some of these things are already in alpha mode and are being tested live on the net; others are planned for the future. The pace of new innovations presented by IOTA developers is high. At the end of 2017 the new client was launched and according to community reports, IOTA works great.
In any case; a technology in development and growth like IOTA will always have positive things to contribute.
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