Introduction

What is IOTA?

IOTA is a German designed, next generation distributed ledger, with an associated cryptocurrency called MIOTA (Millions of IOTA or Mega IOTA). The digital currency is specifically designed for the Internet of Things (IoT) and currently has a top-ten spot by market capitalization.

The IOTA network is currently maintained by the IOTA Foundation and is one of the more well known cryptocurrencies in the space today. The key difference that separates IOTA from other blockchain networks is that the Tangle, the underlying data structure that IOTA is built on, is actually a “blockless” blockchain.

What is Tangle?

The Tangle is the moniker used to describe IOTA’s directed acyclic graph (DAG) based transaction settlement and data integrity layer focused on the Internet-of-Things (IoT). The Tangle is essentially a string of individual transactions that are interlinked to each other and stored through a decentralized network of node participants.

Importantly, the Tangle does not have miners as users of the network function as the miners themselves through performing small computational Proofs of Work (PoW) for each transaction by verifying previous transactions submitted to the network.

Essentially IOTA (MIOTA) aims to:

1. Provide real-time, secure transactions between machines. It was developed with machine to machine (M2M) communication and payment in mind and aims to be the go-to currency for all Internet of Things (IoT) transactions.

2. Underpin the next industrial revolution (the Internet of Things (IoT) effectively forming its backbone. IOTA has been publicly supported by the big digital currency exchanges and also some big corporates.